Screw the red carpet glam, what you want to be caught wearing at a premiere is a styling, slimming Happy Bats tee-shirt. Not only will it get you better seats at the movies, you'll also get better tables in restaurants and members of the opposite sex will be especially keen to get a get a leg up over you.Saturday night, arrived at the theatre for JCVD with half an hour to spare with the idea of just swanning in for my pick of seats, but no. The lineup, for ticketholders, stretched down Granville, around Smithe and just kept on going. Even though I was about halfway down the line, by the time I got into the theatre the place was looking pretty damn full, and one of the guys from Happy Bats [who were presenting the film], seeing my Bats shirt, invited me to sit in their reserved row. Woo! [Yes, I am a great big nerdy fangirl.] There was an attendant and a rope and everything! Okay, a volunteer and a string, but still.
The movie was awesome. Basically it's Jean-Claude Van Damme as Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it turns out it kind of sucks to be Jean-Claude: he's an aging action star turning out boilerplate movies [when he's not losing parts to Steven Seagal], he's on the losing end of a child custody battle and he's into his lawyer for a buttload of money he doesn't have. He arrives in Belgium and after a quick snap with the video store clerks across from a post office/bank ["Hey, Jean-Claude, you're our star! You fought to get out of this shithole!"], walks right into a hostage situation at the post office. It's not long before his captors are begging their star to show off moves like kicking a cigarette out of a guy's mouth while the outside world, including the police [whose Command Central is the video store across the street], and hordes of cheering, banner-waving fans think the Muscles From Brussels has embarked on a life of crime.
Just go see it. The guy can act, in his native French, no less, and it's a smart movie parody with humour and action and tension.
