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Jean Claude Van Johnson: “I’m still kicking, I must be on Broadway!”

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Who doesn’t know, and love, Jean Claude Van Damme? How many times have the many TV channels played the Universal Soldier series, or Timecop, Hard Target, Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Double Team and countless other action action masterpieces? Those incredible high-kicking legs of Jean Claude Van Damme are still to this day capable of performing eye-bulging man-splits, it just might take a little longer now. Spoilers high-kicking your way!

And why is that? Because JC, like everyone around us now, is grudgingly diving into nostalgia to help us deal with real-world atrocity, is getting older. His movie career isn’t anywhere near what it was, but with the crap-ton of films he had done previously, Jean Claude has a ridiculous amount of money left and not a clue what to do with it. He proclaims to be retired, ostensibly from the film business, but the outrageously-priced call girls and pictures of far too many dog companions aren’t filling the void of absolute boredom JC currently suffers. So when old flame Vanessa (Kat Foster) shows back up in JC’s life, he decides to jump back into things with both feet!

But wait! JC went back to his old management publicist Jane (Phylicia Rashad) and told her he wanted to work again, sure, but he wasn’t talking about movies. It turns out, all this time while he was starring in kick-ass action films, they were just fronts for his really-real job, as an international spy-assassin. You laugh, but I’m not kidding! These progressively-more-ludicrous films make for fine covers while he investigates bad goings-on in other countries, and indeed, Jane tells JC he’ll need a movie role to star in if he intends to go to Bulgaria, chasing after Vanessa who’s already on her own assignment. In Bulgaria, she’s a hairdresser on the set of the film being made there.

And guess what? Van Damme just landed the lead role of that self-same movie, HUCK, a splashy kung-fu re-imagining of Huckleberry Finn, I kid you not, while he also checks out the heroin business here in Bulgaria. But, like many other things in this hidden gem of a show, the role is completely absurd and pushes him to some seriously frustrating acting, fighting, and even just idiocy, limits. The director has no respect for his high kicks and splits, yet practically creams himself when actual bad guys come to confront JC on the set and oh does he wipe the floor with them.

Jane stuck JC with some help in the form of Luis (Moises Arias), a former Columbian child soldier with a lot of baggage still left to deal with, but also an excellent makeup artist with a heart of gold. And of course it turns out the guy who plays “N-Word Jim”, Victor (Deren Tadlock), who may have a thing for Vanessa and so JC got him kinda sorta fired for it, may be able to help JC in his taking down the bad guys as well. Because it turns out, the bad guys aren’t always who you think they are.

Even lacking original coherent plot, if you’ve seen most of JC’s movies you can kind of guess already who the baddies turn out to be; I’m not going to spoil it. Visions of Elysium-like emu farms, a JC clone with a terrible accent, and Jean Claude’s own “gift” notwithstanding (no, it’s splitting), the final confrontation is hilarious, dry and preposterously witty about getting old, much like JCVD himself.

Each episode is only approximately half an hour long and there are only six episodes in this first season, so it’s not like this delightful little eye-roll of an aging action show carves a bunch of time from your life. Though I have to say that, like the movie seems to think as well, Timecop is still arguably JCVD’s best movie.

Come admire the fact that doing man-splits still hasn’t killed the indomitable Jean Claude Van Damme, I mean, Jean Claude Van Johnson, on Amazon Prime now!

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Paramount+ Reveals Official Main Title Sequence for the Upcoming Series TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

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During the TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES panel earlier today at San Diego Comic Con, Paramount+ revealed the official main title sequence for the series. The sequence is composed by EMMY® nominee, Matt Mahaffey, known for his work on Sanjay and Craig, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie and much more. 

From the studios of the Mutant Mayhem film, the all-new Paramount+ original series TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES explores the adventures of everyone’s favorite pizza-loving heroes as they emerge from the sewers onto the streets of NYC. Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey are faced with new threats and team up with old allies to survive both teenage life and villains lurking in the shadows of the Big Apple. The series is produced by Nickelodeon Animation and Point Grey Pictures.

TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is executive produced by Chris Yost (The Mandalorian, Thor: Ragnarok) and Alan Wan (Blue Eye Samurai, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2012 Series]). Production is overseen for Nickelodeon by Claudia Spinelli, Senior Vice President, TV Series Animation, Nickelodeon, and Nikki Price, Director of Development and Executive in Charge of Production.

In addition to the upcoming new series, stream all things Turtles on Paramount+.

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Comic-Con 2024: Those About to Die Activation

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DISNEY+ CASTS DANIEL DIEMER AS FAN-FAVORITE ‘TYSON’IN SEASON TWO OF “PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS”

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 in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, Rick Riordan and Disney+ revealed that Daniel Diemer (“Under the Bridge”) will star as fan-favorite cyclops “Tyson” in the epic adventure series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Diemer joins Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Leah Sava Jeffries (Annabeth Chase) and Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood) as a series regular. The Disney+ Original series from Disney Branded Television and 20th Television will start filming its second season next week in Vancouver.

Season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is based on the second installment of Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series titled “The Sea of Monsters” by award-winning author Rick Riordan. In the new season, Percy Jackson returns to Camp Half-Blood one year later to find his world turned upside down. His friendship with Annabeth is changing, he learns he has a cyclops for a brother, Grover has gone missing, and camp is under siege from the forces of Kronos. Percy’s journey to set things right will take him off the map and into the deadly Sea of Monsters, where a secret fate awaits the son of Poseidon.

Diemer stars as Tyson – a young Cyclops who grew up all alone on the streets, and finds it difficult to survive in the human world.  Shy and awkward, with a heart almost as big as he is, Tyson soon discovers that Poseidon is his father, which means Percy Jackson is his half-brother… and that Tyson may have finally found a home. 

Diemer recently starred in the Hulu limited series “Under the Bridge” based off the critically acclaimed book of the same name and a tragic true story of a missing teen girl in Vancouver in 1997. He will next star in the indie “Thug” opposite Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman for director Hans Petter Moland. Daniel was recently seen as the lead in the indie “Supercell” opposite Alec Baldwin and Skeet Ulrich and the lead in the film “Little Brother” opposite Phil Ettinger and JK Simmons. Daniel can also be seen in the Netflix series “The Midnight Club” and recently starred as the male lead in the breakout hit Netflix feature “The Half Of It” from producer Anthony Bregman and director Alice Wu. He is a graduate of Victoria Academy of Dramatic Arts in Vancouver.

Created by Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg, season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is executive produced by Steinberg and Dan Shotz alongside Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Craig Silverstein, The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Bert Salke, The Gotham Group’s Jeremy Bell and D.J. Goldberg, James Bobin, Jim Rowe, Albert Kim, Jason Ensler and Sarah Watson.

The first season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is available on Disney+

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