Long ago, before the problems with drugs and fights at strip clubs, Jean Claude Van Damme ripped himself out of the fighting world, oiled up his flesh, and became America's Muscles from Brussels. At first, the process was slow and simple -- breaking into the world of film as "Gay Karate Man" in Monaco Forever, being a background performer in Rue barbare, and then getting some uncredited English work as a spectator in that 1984 classic, Breakin'.

But then came No Retreat, No Surrender, where he played a Russian baddie opposite General Hospital and Guiding Light star Kurt McKinney, and the rest was history. He did all he could do in the action realm -- kickboxing revenge, jail, video game flicks, soldier, and even cracking walnuts with his butt.

These days, he's whipped up an insane amount of positive buzz with JCVD and reinvigorated his career. But it all had to start somewhere. As a well-oiled, good-guy ode to that sexy, muscled Belgian, I give you: Bloodsport and Kickboxer.

*Note: In the interest of good matches, I'm leaving off my all-time favorite Van Damme flick, Cyborg, to get its love another day. Gibson will have his moment to shine!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Take care, JCVD!

Okay, so I changed part of Aretha Franklin's improvised chorus, but it fits! Dear Jean-Claude Van Damme spoke to MTV while in Cannes, and he said: "I'm a brand name. I'm not just a guy. I think I'm ready to be decent. I'm hungry to make movies, but movies with deeper characters. I want respect. I want to believe in myself." (Tony Robbins might be getting some big-muscle competition soon, at this rate!)

It seems that this desire comes from his realization, after his 37th movie, that "Acting is not acting if you act. You have to tell the truth..." I would argue that you have to act to "tell the truth," but at least the guy is trying to grow. So now he's got JCVD on the way (which premiered at Cannes), and he hopes this is the start of better choices for his career.

Have any of you seen it? Is his self-mocking film a step towards a more solid career? Van Damme has been in lots of crap, but I'm inclined to believe that if Arnie can do it, he can. Or, maybe that ship has sailed.

It is true. The world will soon get some J.C.V.D. Back in October, I showed you a clip from the supposed biopic about the actor. There were a bunch of guys in tank tops, getting ready to audition for the part of Jean Claude Van Damme, until the man himself showed up demanding the role. In a new interview with MTV, Jean Claude says that the flick is, indeed, heading to Cannes, and it's making him rethink his career a little as well.

As Van Damme describes it, the movie is about a man in the U.S. who has been arrested a lot, and: "Being drunk, my [character's] life was from success to failure. And this guy is now leaving the States to refresh himself, to go back to Brussels to see his parents. He's got no money and he's looking for any type of movie to pay his lawyers for child custody. And then he shows up in a post office where a heist is happening, and people think I'm part of it. And then it becomes very Dog Day Afternoon." He says it's the best film he's ever done. More than Cyborg, Bloodsport, and Kickboxer? I'll believe it when I see it!

Now, aside from the upcoming action film The Shepherd: Border Patrol, he's looking to make films he'll be happy about and be proud of. That means saying no to flicks like Rush Hour 3 and Street Fighter, and saying yes to Full Love. He's not saying what it's about, but it will certainly be a labor of love at the very least -- Van Damme will not only finance the film, but direct it as well. My god, is Jean Claude going romantic on us? Stay tuned!

I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.

What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s. I also learned that you should never share the list with a friend beforehand -- they'll remind you who you're forgetting, and that's why you'll find one tie down below. Enjoy!

The Eight Men Out Team

The only thing I knew when I took on this assignment was that Eight Men Out was going to be featured. Bull Durham is great and all, but this is the baseball movie. It's John Sayles, and it has the best baseball team to ever make it on the screen. They might have let their morals loosen a little, but they still kept their looks. Foolishly, I tried to pick between John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, and David Strathairn. Forget that! I'm taking the easy way out. Cusack's Buck Weaver was super cute as a "future jailbird," Charlie was always tasty in those days, and it's beyond me why women weren't falling all over David Strathairn the minute he jumped into film with Return of the Secaucus Seven, or any of the bigger movies that were soon to come. And Sweeney was cute, too, in that dorky way.

Jean Claude Van Damme -- almost-undefeated fighter-turned-action movie star, who can bring intricate, split inducing bondage structures down with the mere force of his thighs -- is heading into the world of biopics, or so a new short floating on the web will have us think. Some have said it's just a spoof short film, but some, like JoBlo, say: "We're told this is a 'pre-sell' teaser for Cannes, and that the movie itself is in production with Luc Besson's company." I imagine it's more like that Caligula short I posted about many months ago, but the old Van Damme fan in me kind of wishes this is real.

The clip in question is a long short that shows a disparate collection of dudes in tank tops who have come together to try out for the lead in an upcoming JCVD biopic -- some have eaten way too many Twinkies to ever pull it off, while some seem to have the requisite buffness. Just as the casting session is about to get started, good ol' Jean Claude himself walks in, pretty ticked that he wasn't contacted -- and by "ticked," I mean he says he is, but he doesn't, physically, look too concerned. Once he finds out the plot he decides that, of course, he should play himself.

At the very least, it's an amusing, self-deprecating stint for a guy who is pretty much ignored these days in the realms of the action world. (Although man, I still love me some Cyborg.) At the most, this could be a great pearl to top off Van Damme's career -- a biting, too-honest, self-referential flick to remind us why we all know his name in the first place.

If you're at all familiar with the original 1994 Street Fighter film, then you might consider it a guilty pleasure or as the tragic final credit of the distinguished actor Raul Julia. Either way it's safe to say it was no masterpiece. Back in October, Variety had reported that Hyde Park Entertainment was putting together a remake with Justin Marks (Voltron) on board to pen the script. Now, Latino Review has a script review for the 114 page treatment. This time around, Marks has decided to put the focus of the story on Chun -Li. The plot follows Li in her search for revenge for the murder of her father. Other characters mentioned in the review were head baddie Bison, Balrog, and Vega -- but none of the other Street Fighter characters were included, so it seems that it's going to be a one-woman show.

There hasn't been much to say about the production since some strange casting rumors had surfaced that Jessica Biel was being considered for the lead. But despite her similarities when it comes to thigh muscularity, she is a bizarre choice for the part. Plus, I doubt there is a shortage of Asian actresses who could tackle the part. If Latino Review's source can be trusted, the film promises to be a vast improvement over the Jean-Claude Van Damme cheese-fest, with plenty of hard-core Hong Kong style action. Now, if Hyde Park and Capcom can only figure out their casting problems, they might be on to something.

It's fascinating to me that I used to live in a world where the films of Jean-Claude Van Damme were popular. At his peak, Jean-Claude was pocketing over 5 million dollars a movie! And them's 1994 dollars! Doesn't that boggle the mind? I mean, Van Damme made a movie in which a Cajun-accented Wilford Brimley rode in slow-motion on horseback with a bow and arrow! If I had to pinpoint the moment when JCVD's career officially died, I'd say it was around the time he made that movie with Dennis Rodman, but believe it or not, he's kept his "acting" career alive ever since. He's had a pretty steady run of straight-to-DVD films playing characters with names like Edward "The Torch" Garrotte. I've always thought "The Muscles from Brussels" could make a decent comeback if he'd only let us know that he's in on the joke. Well, the dude is branching out a bit, but not in the way I'd hoped. He is attempting a horror movie.

Now, you could argue that all of Van Damme's movies have been horrifying in one way or another, but this is said to be his first supernatural thriller. It is called Holy Brood, and according to the film's writer Sheldon Lettich, it "deals with the occult and the supernatural." Lettich calls it a cross between The Exorcist and The X-Files, but "what's different is that it will have Van Damme instead of Father Karras, or Scully and Mulder." In other words, instead of respected actors, it will star a Razzie Award winner who can do the splits. For the three of you who give a Van Damme about Holy Brood, know that you'll have to wait for him to finish production on something called The Smashing Machine first. Yes, The Smashing Machine. By the way, if you've never seen this clip of Van Damme dancing in Kickboxer, I don't think it's overstating things to say that it will forever change your life.

It's been 15 years since Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme starred together as re-animated soldiers in Universal Soldier, and their spotlight started to fade. Since then, well... Van Damme has been busy with drugs, strippers and imagining himself roles in pointless sequels. As for Dolph, he's still making low-budget films and farting around with Grace Jones while winning his battle against fame. But now he wants all of his old glory back.

According to andPOP, the Rocky IV star told Empire Magazine that he's itching to unite with Van Damme and Chuck Norris on-screen. Undeterred by age, Lundgren believes that the trio can overcome some creaking bones and scheduling issues to pull it off: "...it would be great to make a movie with the 80s action rat pack.....there are issues with schedules and age and so on, but maybe I'll be the one to make it happen." Or, maybe he's wondering if the two floundering powerhouses of the 80s (Van Damme and himself), can latch onto Norris' continuing fame? And don't leave Steven Seagal out in the cold. He hates what his cinematic life has become!

"I was talking to Chuck Norris' people about doing something with him, maybe an action comedy?" Sure, Drago. Now that Norris has been a long-standing Texas Ranger, saved the Dodgeball day and gotten his own facts website -- what flailing action star wouldn't be jealous? Dolph, just because Norris got his own song, doesn't mean you will too. However, I'm willing to look past your scheme and delight in a trip back to the 80s. Or rather, an action version of The Crew.

[via Moviehole]

Jean-Claude Van Damme really messed up a good thing. I can't imagine growing up without his many martial arts movies. With his moistened pecs and hero-like resolve, he ruled B- movie aggression in a way that Lundgren and Segal could never imagine. I thought my mother was crazy when she wanted to pick up one of his films, but soon I ate my words. He kicked Kumite ass, took on the creepy Tong Po, and even gave us some double action. However, none of these come close to the power of Cyborg, my sci-fi favorite. Bender!!!!

Anyhow, I couldn't stop laughing this morning when I read a bit of news by way of Empire. Earlier this year, we reported that Van Damme was rumored to be starring with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the pointless third edition to Rush Hour. Well, the muscle man apparently came clean with Empire. No, he will not be the villain in the third film. Why? Because he made it up!

Oh, Jean-Claude -- I know that these last ten years have been rough for you, from bad movie choices to stripper shenanigans, but do you really have to publically imagine a different film life for yourself? According to the once-Street Fighter, he wouldn't want to do a comedy like Rush Hour, but rather one like Lethal Weapon. Maybe that's the Muscle from Brussels being a little big for his current britches, but with the current state of Gibson, maybe it isn't as silly as it sounds!

Because the world apparently hasn't seen enough of Jean-Claude Van Damme, or perhaps because Hollywood just loves to reward patent mediocrity, beat-em-up guy Jean-Claude Van Damme has not one, not two, but four movies on the boards, two in 2006, and two in 2007.

First up is Second in Command, in which Jean-Claude plays an official appointed, well, second-in-command to the US Ambassador to a tumultuous Eastern European country. There's an attempted coup, the Ambassador is killed, and guess who has to get all bad-ass and save the day? Yup, Jean-Claude. Sounds thrilling, yes?

Next up to bat is The Hard Corps, helmed by frequent Jean-Claude offender Sheldon Lettich, who previously brought us such Jean-Claude gems as Lionheart, Double Impact, and The Order (all also co-written by Jean-Claude). In The Hard Corps, Jean-Claude will play a former combat vet, fresh off fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, who decides to take a break from being a military bad-ass to be a bodyguard to a former Heavyweight Boxing champion, to protect the champ and his family from -- get this -- a Rap Music Mogul. Nevermind the inevitable questions about why a heavyweight boxing champ would need a bodyguard. And I guess the Evil Rap Music Mogul is going to replace Evil <insert Middle Eastern nation> Terrorist as the next legion of bad guys whose asses must be kicked by Jean-Claude, Steven Seagal and Bruce Willis.