Action Dance

I've really been getting some mileage out of that pilfered Van Damme series of two dancing gifs. Let's call it the Van Dance Gold Collection. I'd like to tip my hat to the guy for providing some much needed colour in our otherwise grey existences. But I have no hat. Perhaps I could raise some much needed hat-money, by busking or something. But even then, nobody would give me a cent, since I clearly have no hat to collect it in, and really, if you can't handle the outlay you shouldn't be going into business. Also: no musical talent.

But the Muscles from Brussels really could have had some kind of career if he'd kept up the dancing, maybe even taken some serious lessons. After all, the life of a dancer couldn't have been unattractive to him. How did he even become a second-rate action star anyway? His big "move" consisted of him being able to do the splits, and I'm sure that didn't keep Stallone and Schwarzenegger awake at nights. It'd be there in every film, the moment you've been waiting for, when some thug would be patrolling a dark, narrow alleyway and the camera would pan up to reveal Van Dammage perched above, outstretched legs bracing him between the two alley walls. Then he drop down and do some fighting. Or else he'd do his trademark "splits kick". Or else he'd just shoot someone and then do the splits.



This is JCVD in Double Impact. He wrote and produced the film. I don't think it's fair to think that Jean Claude was the only male action hero for whom a love of contemporary dance has been a bit of an unfair laughing point. I mean, he likes to let his hair down and turn up the heat occasionally, and we shouldn't really be picking on that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was a bit less graceful when he filmed a short segment hosting Rio's Carnivale. This clip has it all: Arnie driving what appears to be some kind of 50s futurist's vision of the 1980s automobile (a bit like Total Recall's Johnny Cab); Arnie completely mangling the language in his attempts to say "cheers" in Spanish (or is it Portuguese?); Arnie explaining his favourite parts of the female anatomy to his (female) host; Arnie getting a bit tipsy and both boring and turning off said host while trying to hit on her; Arnie getting really tipsy and rushing a dancing stage to get inappropriately intimate with the performers; then it becomes kind of weird.

I guess there are times when the dancing has to stop.


Here it is.