genius

And so the world was treated to a little snicker, courtesy of erstwhile international action superstar, Jean Claude Van Damme, aka The Muscles from Brussels. As Sarah Ball at Newsweek found out, Van Damme is back. Or rather, he never left. When not playing a former New Orleans cop who just moved with his pet rabbit to Columbus, New Mexico to work for the border patrol (The Shepard, 2007), Van Damme has been quietly collecting his thoughts to embark on the introspective magnum opus we've all been waiting for. That vilm is done and it is called JCVD. I will admit that I missed this breaking news from two weeks ago nearly altogether. Van Damme's too quick for Ol Sleepy Bearman! However, some quick rearguard research showed that "pundits" in "the media" missed the point entirely. Of interest was not Van Damme hitting on the reporter. (Ever see that dude's hair back in the day? He'll be hitting on 22-year-olds forever.) No, the real news here was the resurgent brilliance of Jean Claude Van Damme as a post-meta-recursive-hyperpersona-media mastermind, now reborn as JCVD. I haven't seen this film. And I may never see it, god damn it. The smell of genius may be too strong to get that close. Oh sure, we can let Van Damme's marketing people describe JCVD as "an action-packed, comedic satire of the life of movie hero Jean-Claude Van Damme" wherein JCVD, playing himself, "finds himself out of money, fighting for custody of his daughter and losing every good action role to Steven Seagal." Or we can just let JCVD speak for himself:

Q: There's a monologue in the film about being a washed-up action star. Did you improvise that?

A: I like structure—like driving: go past the school on the street, stay on the right side, no hitting the car, go in right, you'll see a big church, stop and take a left, and you'll have it. By doing this I'm giving a structure of life, a path of light, and showing what happens between me and me, which is something very beautiful.

Q: Beautiful? Why?

A: I really opened myself up in "JCVD." I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am...

Trailer:

BONUS YOUTUBE PUZZLE: Ten point to anyone who can say how many steps it took to get from there to here: