Arnold Schwarzenegger

Ultimate Showdown

/ Shane / 1 Comment

There was a conference I was supposed to go to this week that I ended up not going to for various reasons. I wasn’t exactly broken up about it until I found out that they keynote speaker was the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger! Best keynote speaker ever.

So, I was thinking about him and I hopped on over to IMDB to see how many Schwarzenegger movies I have seen in my lifetime. Oh man, so many great movies under that guy’s belt, how could you pick a favorite. But then I saw something that caught my eye – he has a movie listed as “filming”! Isn’t he busy off being a governer or something? So obviously I had to click on the link for The Expendables.

Right off the bat I notice that this movie is directed by none other than Sylvester Stallone! Crap on a stick, you’re telling me Sly Stallone is directing a movie staring himself and Arnold? And I hadn’t heard about it? Then I start looking through the cast…Stallone and Schwarzenegger of course, but hey, Jason Statham, nice! Jet Li? Wait a minute, Stone Cold Steve Austin is in this? Mickey Rourke (and I’m thinking Marv here, I haven’t even seen The Wrestler). This is starting to sound like the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny or something! NO WAY, they’re bringing in Dolph Lundgren?

When talking about the great action stars of all time, Dolph Lundgren gets short shrift. He belongs in the list for Ivan Drago alone (Drago being the big rediculous Russian from Rocky IV, the one that killed Apollo Creed), but lets not discount the original Punisher and Universal Soldier. He was He-Man for christ’s sake! If there is to be a battle royal for the all time action star title, he needs to be involved.

So obviously, it makes not one bit of difference what this movie is about, it is clearly one of the greatest of all time and it’s not even finished yet! Although, I am struck by the fact that there were a few people left off the list. Where is JCVD? You can’t leave out the Muscles from Brussles. What about Chuck Norris? Is Charles Bronson still around? Maybe you could wheel him out in an iron lung or something. The problem is, where do you draw the line? Kurt Russel? Does Harrison Ford make the list for Han Solo / Indiana Jones? What about Clint Eastwood? And does that open it up for cowboys like The Duke (except he’s dead, which opens up even more options)? Bruce Campbell? That chick that dated Flavor Flav?

You tell me, who else is missing?

LeVar Burton

/ Shane / 5 Comments

Now, it goes without saying that everybody loves LeVar Burton.

I haven’t spent much time contemplating LeVar Burton, that is, until this weekend.  Now when you mention LeVar Burton, certain characters come to mind.  For me it is Reading Rainbow (side note, did you know that was still on until 2005?) but I couldn’t fault you of thinking of Roots or Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which he was best known for wearing a hair clip on his face:

Think about that, three different genres, three different iconic characters (well Reading Rainbow wasn’t a character, but still).  Most actors work their whole lives and never have one iconic show or character they are identified with.  But, did you also know he was on Captain Planet?  He was one of the planeteers!  Who knew?  (Incidentally, he was Kwame, a.k.a. Earth) Sure that is not as famous as the other three, but it is another different genre and certainly recongizeable to people of my generation.

This reminds me of something I’ve said about Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  5 Mr. Universe titles and 7 Mr. Olympia titles, the definitive action star, and governer of the most populous state.  He has reached the pinacle of three totally different careers!  In any one of those careers, people toil their entire lifes and never get to the top.

Now, I haven’t seen LeVar in anything else recently.  If you look at the timeframes, he was doing Star Trek, Reading Rainbow and Captain Planet simultaneously, so maybe he is taking a well earned break. Or maybe you jerks in Hollywood are ignoring this wonderful actor, this master of his craft, and stereotyping him into one of his many successful characters.  You want to talk about range?  Come on!  He’s not just one thing, living on the characters of his past!

That being said, here is the reason I was thinking about him.  It is a video of him singing the Reading Rainbow theme song at Diggnation in L.A.

And, what the heck, just for completion’s sake:

EDIT: I watched an episode of The Soup which aired before I wrote this, and who should randomly turn up but LeVar Burton?  I guess his publicist must be pushing him to get out there more and it must be working, since I wrote a blog post on it…