Ten movie references in Stranger Things 3
Every season of Stranger Things has been 80’s influenced to say the least. A combination of Stephen King style horror and the films that raised my generation, this season has set a record number of views on Netflix. It’s also packed with so many references to the summer of 1985 that you may not have caught […]
Lionheart (1990)
Lionheart follows the basic plot of all Van Damme films. Our hero loses a family member in some horrible way, he must go AWOL or leave behind some responsibility and then must fight — even though he doesn’t want to — before a big battle that redeems everything. My wife — having suffered through the […]
Knock Off (1998)
For all the amazing Hong Kong movies Tsui Hark made, he only has two Western films to his credit. Both star Jean-Claude Van Damme, but only one co-stars Rob Schneider. This would be that movie. It also features fight choreography and second unit direction from Sammo Hung, but many of his longer battles were cut […]
JCVD (2008)
This movie started when a producer had reached a deal with Jean-Claude Van Damme to play himself in a movie. Knowing that director Mabrouk El Mechri was a big fan, he asked him to read the script. The problem was that the screenwriters thought that Van Damme was exactly who he tried to portray to […]
Black Eagle (1988)
Sho Kosugi was a big deal when I was growing up in the 1980’s. His movies like 9 Deaths of the Ninja, Pray for Death, Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja 3: The Domination — and his role as Okasa on the TV series The Master — made him the ninja movie actor. In Black Eagle, […]
Nowhere to Run (1993)
Robert Harmon directed The Hitcher and the Tom Selleck starring Jesse Stone series of TV movies. Here, he guides JCVD to a much more dramatic tale than he’s normally in. No worries — the film stays true to the Van Damme trope that it must explain to you that he’s another nationality. Here, he’s Sam Gillen, a […]
The Quest (1996)
JCVD not only stars in this film, but he co-wrote and directed it. Of course, he also had to go to court to battle former Bloodsport pal and noted con man Frank Dux, who claimed that he wrote this movie as Enter the New Dragon: The Kumite, but a jury rejected those claims. In the first […]
Bloodsport (1988)
Jean-Claude Van Damme — the Muscles from Brussels — first appeared in a film in 1979, where he had an uncredited role in André Delvaux’s Woman Between Wolf and Dog. After moving to the United States with his childhood friend Michel Qissi, who plays Suan Paredes in this film and would go on to appear […]
Death Warrant (1990)
Death Warrant is the first movie sold by David S. Goyer, way before he wrote Kickboxer 2, Demonic Toys, Pet Sematary 2, Dark City, the three Blade films (he directed Blade: Trinity), Ghost Rider, the Christopher Nolan Batman films, Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman and the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate. It’s directed by Deran Sarafian, who directed To Die For, a 1989 vampire rental favorite, […]
Timecop (1994)
Timecop was created and co-written by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden, who along with Ron Randall, had presented the character’s adventures in the pages of Dark Horse Comics. It is star Jean-Claude Van Damme’s highest-grossing film as a lead actor and one of his better films, as well as the home of what is probably his most ridiculous […]
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