Hello, kitties. It's your old pal John Kaseer, the voice of the Cryptkeeper. And you're listening to the bottom shelf. I can't do it, Dallas. Play another round of street fighter with me? Look, I know you're not good at these games. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I mean well, I mean, it's street fighter Jason, I suppose. No, I, I, I can't, I know we're, I know I said we need to figure out why these movies are in the dumpster, but I think we figured out in the last episode.
I feel like there's a force compelling us to watch these. Like there's, they're trying to make us realize Dallas. Do you know what else I found down down down there, Dallas? Cookies? Suburban commando. What the crap? Bro. Why is this down there? That was a great Bro. There's something go there's something going on. Prepare yourself to discover a world of terrible movies.
High above the planet Geekeri, a group of intrepid explorers hover over the dangerous planet in their fabulous super orbital spacecraft. Their mission, to conduct a complete analysis of movies known throughout the universe as terrible. So grab your space popcorn, grab your freeze dried ice cream, and join us for today's mission of discovery and wonder. Are these movies better than the galaxy thinks? Or do they really belong on the bottom shelf?
Hello, everybody. Welcome movie lovers and movie haters. And welcome to the bottom shelf where every movie has a place. So my name is John and I am joined with the man, the myth, the legend, the 8 living wonder of the world. Dallas Mora. How you doing? I'm not sure about that last one, but how are you doing buddy? I'm doing all right. I'm just trying to hype you up. I appreciate it. I feel like we need to be hyped up after the last episode, bro. I don't know that I can do
this again. I don't, I don't know that I can roast my childhood a second time. And this one was, this one was my jam. Like for real back in the day, the 2 big conversations in my neighborhood that I grew up on was 1. Well, first of all, it was Freddy versus Jason. Like, who who who was who could beat who? That was the prime that was the primary eighties argument I that I can remember. Were you into kickboxer or were you into blood sport? Oh, so this is like a a Star
Wars, Star Trek thing? This is a Coke versus Pepsi. Our Wow. From my social circles in in elementary school. RC Cola, man. Well, you probably voted for Perot then, didn't you? Hercule Pero. Hello, everybody. Hello. Today, we're gonna talk, what are we talking about Dallas? We're so we are so just we're doing it again. We're talking about everything, but the movie and we haven't even watched this movie yet. Oh my gosh. Well, you pulled out a movie called kickboxer.
So let me look at the database here. It says kickboxer 1 year after producing bloodsport, mark disal, disalily, disalily decided to team up with Jean Claude Van Damme to purposefully tell a fictional martial arts story this time, starting starring a plethora of actors who cameoed everywhere else later, including Mario Lopez at home, Denis Alexio.
Kickspot Kickboxer tells the story of how one man brought Muay Thai to the world through the power of cultural appropriation, especially in his later sequel apparently. This is a Wow, dude. That's so everybody Dallas told me he had these written up and he flat out told me, do not read them until we read them on the show. I want you to be surprised. Surprised is a word. So is shocked. Oh my gosh. Let me read the back of the box of this movie real quick.
With the help of his brother and trainer, Kirk Van Dam, American kickboxing champion, Eric slow, Dennis Alexio arrives in Thailand to defeat the eastern warrior of the at their own sport. And his opponent, a ruthless fighter from and Thai champion, Tong Po, not only defeats Eric, but brutally delivers a series of illegal blows that which paralyze him for life.
Crazed with anger, Kurt vows revenge at any cost, but first, he must learn the ancient techniques of kickboxing from Thai master Xianzhou. While suffering Xian's grueling and painful training, Kurt's only comfort is the company of his master's niece, Mai Li. Hoping to disrupt Kurt's training, Tong Po abducts the innocent girl, ambitiously assaults her. Kurt delivers believing he is ready to meet Tong Po in the ring, challenge the champion who
agrees on one condition. They must do battle in the ancient manner with fists found in rope and covered in broken glass. Their battle to the finish born of lust, power, and revenge will leave one man standing. Did they just give us the whole movie? Seriously. That sounds like we just got a book report. I like for real, like, okay. Like this is the actual review from the back. Like this is the back of the box, legitimately back of the, but we're not making this stuff up guys. Did they just
give us the whole movie? Yeah. They kind of did. Like, I mean, should we have saved the back of the box for the spoiler section? Yes. I mean, all that's really left is the result of the end fight at this juncture. And it's Jean Claude. He won't allow himself to be defeated. Right. Jean Claude Van Damme thinks that he's Chuck Norris. Alright. Well, guys, thank you for joining us for the bottom shelf this week. I guess let's give it its due process. The eighties were wild with the back of
these boxes, man. Yo. Alright. So trivia, this was actually the are these both correct, Dallas? I think these are leftover. Yeah. Those are leftover from you. Okay. Last time, yeah. I wanted to double check. I don't remember Rowdy Piper being in this movie. I didn't either, but I wanted to double check. Alright. Here we go. Coming back in.
Alright. So trivia here, we have Dennis Alexio who plays Eric Sloan, was the world lightweight, no world light heavyweight and world cruiserweight kickboxing champion in real life when they did this movie. Wow. No kidding. Yeah. So they got some royalty in here.
The scene in which Kurt has meat tied to his leg and is chased by, Jian Chow's dog was inspired by a real life event in which young JCVD was ordered by his karate teacher to wear a productive suit and withstand attempts of a trained dog to pull him to the ground. The title held by Dennis Alexio's character in the movie, the International Sport Karate Association Heavyweight Championship is a real champion championship and has been held by Alexio during his
fighting career. The belt in the movie, however, was not modeled after the actual belt. Okay. And the final actually, I got 2 more here because I think these kind of build off of each other. Tong Po is mistakenly billed as playing himself during the film's credits. In fact, Michael Kusey played the villainous Tai for this film and its sequel Kickboxer 2 The Road back in 1991.
Campbell Kreefa played the character in the 4th, and Kissey can be seen in 3 other JCVD movies along with, Lionheart and or vengeance in 2016, which right before the, we started recording Dallas and I just discovered, being, a reboot of the kickboxer movie. So if you like this movie, go check that out, I guess. I don't know. I can't recommend it. I haven't seen it. In Bloodsport, Kisi is the Kisi is the fighter that gets his leg broken by Chang Lee.
So, the guy who plays Tong Po is actually in this movie. In Lionheart, Kiese plays, Mustafa alongside with another legionnaire who's trying to bring lion back from America Back to Africa in kickbox or vengeance, a remake of this movie. Casey has a brief in joke cameo as a prisoner who remarks you forgot about me
as Van Dam walked past his cell. And then finally, Michael Casey was the technical advisor and choreographer when he overheard the production crew say they were looking for a tall, oriental looking guy with a background in Muay Thai. He volunteered and got the part of Tong Po because he is originally from Morocco. Makeup was used to make him look more Asian. Interesting. So Alright. There we go. There that was a lot of information and I hope it didn't bore you.
All right. Cool. But there's a lot of information about everybody except for JCVD. Does that say something? Who am I to say? I'm just saying when somebody gets their career blasted off by playing a farcical kung fu fighter Right. So well, it's almost like they don't have to act. Oh my gosh. You know, did you know that Jean Claude Van Damme was the original person casted to play the predator? I can see that. He now this will say a lot about JCV as well.
The reason why he didn't play the predator was because he wouldn't be able to have his face in the film. That does say a whole lot about him. That says a whole lot about him and something we're not surprised about either. The things you learn about the people that you thought were heroes. Let's go ahead and talk about expectations. Dallas, being as you I'm assuming you haven't seen this movie before. Have you seen this movie before? I have never. I think I'm I've seen the box
for the later kickboxer movies. Mhmm. But I don't I've never seen this. I've never seen them. Why don't you go ahead and give us your expectations then? Being as I don't want to taint your expectations with that of my own. My expectations is that this will be like every other eighties martial arts movie that take place with the secret martial arts tournament. And having read the back of the box and having, I don't know, gotten the cliff notes of the movie already, I feel like I'm cheating
with this one. I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be interesting. I like good, you know, eighties revenge story. So I'm down for this. Okay. So as far as my expectations are concerned, I'm gonna put it to you like this. When we first pulled these movies out of the dumpster and figured out that we were gonna be watching them for this. Mhmm. I was so excited to watch this movie because when we got into that argument back in the day with, if you were kickboxer or, Bloodsport, I was team kickboxer.
So I was super excited. Well, after we watched Bloodsport, I'm terrified to watch this movie now. Cause I'm almost afraid that because I'm not in that eighties mindset anymore, this movie is not going to be as good as I remember it being. And I'm just going to burn down another section of my childhood. That's fair. So what what's my impression? I'm terrified. You were terrified? Oh my gosh. That's so funny. Alright. Well, let's find out. Yes. Let's.
Dear listeners, this is your opportunity to escape. Our crew has just entered into the media projection chamber. What horrors and matters that they consume are unknown? Their mental state upon their return is unknown. You have been warned. Well, Joe, I'm disappointed. We should've watched this one before we did Bloodsport. I feel like Bloodsport would've made more sense because this is a prequel, isn't it? No. This movie has nothing to do with Bloodsport.
This isn't a prequel to Bloodsport? No. John's not playing the exact same character in the exact same manner? No. Just that he's learning kung fu? No. Wow. Yeah. Well, that changes everything now. It actually turns out, oops, I did it again was what the script writer said after they watched the movie Bloodsport, and they were like, oh, I did that again. Oh. Somewhere, Frank Dukes is like, hey, that was my life too. I did that. That was me.
Wait, is did the guy who wrote this movie, is that just a pen name for Frank Dukes? Maybe. Like like, for real everybody, if you're out there, there there are, there are 3 fake martial artists you really need to look into if if you really want a good lap. You need to look into Frank Dukes, you need to look into Ashita Kim, and you need to look into Count Dante. Count Dante. Mhmm. That's interesting. I don't know Count Dante. Count Dante Do we have time to go into this?
This this just isn't the this isn't the time or place where it's not that it's inappropriate. It's just it would probably take me about an hour to explain Count Dante to you. Wow. So that being said, let's actually talk about this movie that is intentionally fake instead of accidentally fake. This was the same movie. Yeah. I I mean, this was basically Bloodsport, better choreography. Mostly better choreography. Like okay. And this is a conversation Dallas and I had again while
watching this movie. I had mentioned to him, like, yo, despite the fact that this is essentially the same exact movie, the action to me seems better. And I think it's mostly because Van Damme the the Muay Thai is what Van Van Damme was trained in. Like, that's that's he's he is Belgium's champion kickboxer, which is Muay Thai, which on to a certain degree, and I said also said this to Dallas earlier, which to a certain degree is kind of like saying you're Alaska's champion bullfighter.
But it it still is to be said that of all the Muay Thai fighters there are in Belgium, he was the best one at one point. Far be it for me to take Belgium's Chuck Norris away from them. Just not my cup of tea, and it very well could be that I remembered. For some reason, I just remembered Van Damme being a better actor, like being able to
deliver wines better. I think it was, they were so inundated with him back in the day that we just assumed like, oh yeah, he's clearly gotta be a a great actor because he's everywhere. Right. I remembered him being a a better actor. And when we watched street fighter Mhmm. Initially, like, I thought, okay, well, he's bad in this because we found out exactly how much illicit substances he was using during that time frame. And, you know, drugs
will mess you up. I'm gonna pause real quick because I just I did a goo I was trying to see what movies he's done. Try because I'm trying to go, what movies has he done that was good? I didn't realize this, but he voices freaking Johnny Cage in moral combat 1, the video game. That kills me. That's I didn't even realize that until just now. That's a ma that makes so much sense. But, yeah, I just remembered him being a
better actor. And then when we watched street fighter for this, I figured, okay, well, bro was coked out of his mind for this. So I'll give him a pass on that. That makes sense. Mhmm. But coming back to these movies, it's just like, I don't believe a single thing that's coming out of your mouth. Like, I've watched better middle school theater programs. You know what I mean? It's like, I've watched I've watched our city's inner players kids programs do a Charlie Brown Christmas live on stage.
That's terrible. And I believed them more than I believed that Jean Claude Van like, for real. Like, yeah, it's like he's never experienced a human emotion in his life to understand how to replicate one in front of a camera. I feel like that it like, last week or last time we recorded the with the time of the other movie, Bobby had left a comment saying that time cop was a good movie. And I remember time cop being good, but also remember him doing decent job with double team.
I mean, I guess, I don't know. Like the last movie he ever, that ever came out in the theater that had him in it that I was actually quasi interested was the movie that he did with Dolph Lundgren. I think it was called universal soldier. Oh, yeah. This is that one. I never ended up seeing it just because at that time period when universal soldier finally came out, it was about the same time period that Terminator 2 came out. Right. And because they were so similar in tone and concept, I think
Universal Soldier ended up getting buried. That was kind of the tipping point where he went off into street fighter land. I am going through his INDB right now. Uh-huh. And I feel like I should be ashamed at the number of these movies I've watched. Bro, you gotta understand, during that time period, it was about mindless violence and action. They're they're, like, for real. I remember the plot to Bloodsport being a lot more sweeping, like, than
it was when we watched it. Like, it's just, there's so much that our memory and our imagination fills in on the back end that it's almost Like, once you hit the year 2000, it becomes a little more foggy for me with his movies, which ones I've seen and not seen. Like, I saw him in Kung Fu Panda 2. He did great in that one as a crocodile. I've got the analogy for you, Dallas. Okay. Jean Claude Van Damme was the Andre Agassi of action films. That would make a lot of sense if I knew who that was.
Andre Andre Agassi was a very promising tennis star in the late eighties, early nineties. Mhmm. He was everywhere. He was on all the Wheaties boxes because he had the long hair and the sunglasses. Like, he was the new guy that was making tennis young, hip, and cool. Right? And then he fell off because it started coming out about, like, Bro was getting into the excesses that come along with immediate stardom. Oof. And that's kinda what happened to JCVD. Like, he came in and he was the new action
star or Right. He's got the French accent. Then the the illicit substances kinda take over and he fells off. You know what I mean? Right. So I'm sorry. I guess that one's more for the gen x leaning side of the zennials out there. It's probably, like, like that that's the reason why Dallas and I connect so hard is like, we're both part of the Xennial Michael micro generation, except I lean harder towards the gen X side and he leans harder towards the millennials.
So we got all y'all covered with this stupid crap. Oh. Let's talk about this movie again. Hey. We're doing a movie today, guys. Y'all talk we already talk really, all we have to do if you guys really, really want us to to go through it is just go back and listen to the last episode, and we'll send you the exact same things. Okay. I'll say this. Hang on. Hang on, Dallas. Story wise. Hang on, Dallas. Just a second. Ladies and gentlemen, the spoiler section.
Story wise, there was more to it in this than I felt like, although I did read a review, like an early review that came out about this movie, and they were like, there's no story. I was like, there's more story than this. One person did compare it to call it a a bloody version of of Karate Kid. I could see that. But I I thought the story was interesting. I'm gonna close your eyes. I rather I will not close my eyes. You stay over there, sir. Let let me try that again. I'm gonna
try something. Dallas, close your eyes. Okay. All right. I'm gonna describe a movie. You tell me a movie I'm describing.
A man goes to a nondescript Asian country in support of a significant, a significant close person who is going to said country for the sake of a fighting tournament at said tournament said friend is severely injured to the point where he can no longer fight supporting friend steps into said tournament to avenge the memory of befallen friend against the evil combatant who had injured this individual.
At which point at the very end, supporting friend wins the tournament and has some kind of a romantic interest crammed in at the very last second for the sake of having somebody to be romantic with, and everybody's happy at the end. I'll take Mortal Kombat for 300, Alex. Like, for real. Did I just did I just describe Bloodsport or did I describe kickboxer? I feel really weird about the fact now that you got you say that because you it's both, but also Mortal Kombat. Like, that's
the exact story life for Mortal Kombat. Now Jean Claude wasn't in Mortal Kombat. It was the guy from Highlander. Yeah. But Johnny Johnny Cage was inspired by Jean by Jean Claude Van Damme's character in Bloodsport. Dang. Are we doing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but Jean Claude Van Damme? Yes. Then welcome to our show where we now play a new game called Van Damme. That's creepy. My gosh. Oh, man. I would be interested to see how we find Van Damme connections later on in life. But anyways I I I am
bro. The same story. Wait. Wait. Kickbox. Okay. I just described the plot. We've both we've we can both agree that I just described the kickbox the both kickboxer and, Bloodsport plot lines. Right? Mhmm. Now I want you to think about it's almost the same movie if you put it in a military aspect, street fighter. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. All these movies are just the Sean, Jean Claude van dam has been giving us the same movie for 40, almost 40 years. And we keep watching it. I don't
bro. When was the last time you paid money to watch a JCVD movie? I think when I rented universal soldier when I was 9. Well, no, no, no. Cause you, you, you've seen the Expendables too. You saw Expendables too. I didn't pay for it though. I had to read it as a Hollywood video. Oh. Oh. That's even that's even sadder. Wow. I worked for Hollywood video. I watched everything for free. Yeah. I feel like we've talked about this entire movie. Like, this movie brings
nothing new to the table. I am so saddened by this whole experience. I feel like there is an evil force out there that's forcing me to face the fact that I had terrible taste as a kid. Yeah. And I am I am afraid Dallas of where this is going to lead us. This is a slippery slope we're on. We're gonna make it. We're gonna be fine. You're being, you're being pro the, but the Bible says the truth shall set us free, but I feel, I don't feel free. I'd Feel attacked. I feel attacks.
We'll be fine. We'll make it. I will say this over and over again in my notes. There's words like, again, this, again, like another eighties power ballad, More leg stretching. Like, it's everything that was, like, oh, we just did this in the last movie. I know. But one thing I also noticed about this movie and, Bloodsport, other than the fact that they're the same exact movie with a different soundtrack, is the fact that the songs are super similar between the two movies as well.
Like, I was waiting for the Kumite song to come up in the middle of kickboxer. Yeah. I can see that. I'll say this. I found it interesting with seeing Jean Claude play dumb at the beginning of the movie. That was interesting watching playing? Playing dumb as far as as he doesn't understand how to fight. Oh, okay. Like, that was interesting seeing him go through that training process and, like like, at the front end where he's, like, in awe of
the other fighters and stuff like that. And, when his brother was basically, like, you know, stop with the tiptoe things. Hit. You know? Like that Mario Lopez at home. Yeah. Basically. Can I I got a question? What was the point of the dancing? Why why did we have to make him dance? I I don't ever wanna see this man dance again. I don't know. I mean, if you remember best of the best, they kinda did something similar to that to the bar scene. Did.
Yep. Surely did. I think it was the thing in the eighties where they wanted to show these characters cut loose to try to humanize them a little bit. So you don't think that all they do is just train and that's all who they are. Like, they're trying kudos to them for trying to add dimension to their characters, but really, it just reminds me of the evil Peter Parker dance. Bam that comments for you. I will never, I will never let the evil Peter Parker dance.
I'm I'm going to let him shimmy all the way to supervillain as he mildly inconveniences the public. What a schmuck. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Again, I'm I'm looking through this stuff. I I have no note, in this. Like, Jean Claude's ability to always have a battle buddy in every film is amazing. This is true. And I think that's the reason why he always came across as being more charismatic than he actually is.
Mhmm. Is because he's written to have ultra like, if you notice, like, all his battle buddies or however you wanna call them, like, his the goose to his mad to his maverick is always more charismatic than he is. Mhmm. And so by the by the laws of deference, you're it kinda tricks your mind into thinking that, oh, well, he's friends with all these charismatic people, so thus, he is a charismatic person himself. Oh, was that a whole like tracks like type of mindset?
Right. But, I mean, if you were to take, like I don't know these characters' names. Like, if I was if I was to say from Bloodsport, if you were to take, Short Stack as a teenager and Booger from revenge of the nerds out of the equation, and all you have is JCVD, that's gonna be a boring movie and nobody's
gonna wanna watch it. Like the thing about it is, and that's, that's the thing that I was noticing by the time we got to the end of kickboxer is that John Claude Van Damme movies, all the side characters are what drive the movies. Mhmm. Because it all the all the side characters, all the NPCs, so to speak, they have more personality than his characters. You know what I mean? Which Like, you show up for those characters and and his fighting for these movies, basically.
Yeah. And which makes me go, was it done on purpose? Like, were and if it it's on purpose, kudos to the to the people who did this, who who did the writing and did the directing going, hey. He's a great fighter. He's a great at certain things. However, his acting, it's wooden. We need somebody to to kinda puff it up to make things a little bit more for for somebody to see themselves in, I that's smart if they
did it that way on purpose. I would would have 100% argue that it was, it it was intentional. It that you can't you can't do that twice and not for it for it to not be intentional. Yeah. Definitely. So here's a fun question for you. How many kids do you think almost drowned or broke their shins trying to do the training sequences that he was doing? All of them. How many times did you almost die? Oh, I I did. I I I I had the friends I did okay.
So this is sounds so stupid, but Dallas will understand what I mean when I use this phrase because it was an eighties thing. If you weren't in the eighties, don't mock it. You won't understand it. But the friends that I did karate with Mhmm. In the eighties, did karate, they we were more interested in just beating each other up than actually trying to do a emulate what we saw. You know what I mean? Like, there I
I was just thinking about it earlier. Like, I was having, like, eighties flashbacks, like, ever since we started this request. I was thinking about it earlier today about some of, like, the Pattersons down the street, and that's not me doxing anybody because they don't live there anymore. But the Paterson's down the street, I was
thinking to myself. I'm like, Jesus. I remember having conversations about watching this movie over at their house and then being out in the front yard and ripping open sea batteries to try to try to create grenades with the battery acid and heavy metals on the inside. Like the eighties were wild. We had lawn darts. Just playing with chemicals and blades. Why not? I grew up fine. We're okay. We made it. I'm fine. Oh my gosh. I'm trying to see if there's anything worth talking about in my notes
where it's just it was different. Again, it but It wasn't though. It wasn't different at all. It's just it's a different country, but, I mean, the the here's the thing about it, and and that here's something that will I can talk say about both movies that covers across them too, is that the way that the different call standards, comma, it comes across as being casual, casually racist.
Mhmm. If that makes sense, the way that the way that Thai culture and the way they portrayed, Hong Kong culture and the way they portrayed African culture in bloodsport with the African fighter who, who they had rolling around like a monkey. Right. It all came across as being racist. And then I know somebody out there is to say, well, John, there is a monkey style kung fu where that does look like that. And I would say, yes, there is.
But I would also say there's no reason to force the black guy, the only black guy in the movie to be the guy who's proficient in it. Right. You can't tell me that wasn't intentional. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, they got the white guy do Muay Thai. Well, that's the American coming to the Asian country to save them from themselves, which is also the way a theme across both these movies as well. Just putting that out there. In Bloodsport, they had a white guy doing Muay Thai. Oh, did they?
Yeah. No. I didn't catch that. Yep. So yeah. It was that was one of the things that was said in one of the early reviews I saw from the original time frame, is that people they didn't like the stereotypes it was reinforcing that was coming out. There was one stereotype that I didn't appreciate, and it was a stereotype of Americans, the
arrogance, the fighter. And this is something that I genuinely was struggling with when we watched this movie, which was his brother was so arrogant and so ignorant of Muay Thai. And, again, you and I were in 2024. I've known about Muay Thai actively since probably 2000, 2,001, because I had friends who did it. And but Muay Thai did some research. It's been a we've had an American League since, like, the sixties
here in the states. I can't imagine somebody being at the top level of kickboxing and not at least somehow know about about what Muay Thai is. And then to be the top person and to be so arrogant, that was purely a movie trope put in for just to push the story forward, and it's the one that I feel like it's been played out. Because I I I've I have I've met top performing people in different fields.
I have I have had full conversations with Olympic, o o Olympians, and the honor and respect they have for the art that they do and the predecessors to the art is it's massive because they understood that that's how they get to where they're at now. Now, again, I'm in 2024. Minds have changed quite a bit, but I struggled a lot with that on the front end of this movie. Well, I would be willing to push that further to say that this is 25. I apologize. Kept saying 2024. That's fair.
We just had the new year. I would say though that this is an archetypical character that you would find in the standard eighties action film, especially with the tournament style, action film. In that, there's the over cocky natural talent that refuses to accept instruction. You find that with the guy that I refer to as Booger in Bloodsport. You know what I mean?
You find that with his character, his brother's character in kickboxer, you find it with Chris Penn's character in best of the best and best of the best to Chris Penn again. Right. With the villain in order to 1 demonstrate that cockiness is bad, but also to demonstrate how ruthless a villain is Right. To the point where it's super formulaic. Yeah. I can see that. I can see that. I've run out of things to talk about.
I literally just spent the last 7 minutes talking about character archetypes rather than this movie because Yeah. Really, once once you've seen Bloodsport or you've seen The Karate Kid or you've seen The Kickboxer or you've seen best of the best or whatever. You've seen all these movies. The difference is what the core message is that they're trying to send or the setting that they're in outside of that. Those stories are gonna be the exact same. It's it's like what people call the hero's
journey. The points are gonna end up lining up along the lines. There are certain plot points you're gonna end up expecting if you're watching these movies. So Yeah. I mean, if you're into that sort of, like, if you find repetition comfortable, so where there's nothing new or nothing to catch you off guard, then these are gonna be the types of movies that you're gonna be super into. And during the eighties, that was common
place. You'd see that a lot with how TV was done in the eighties with TV shows in their sitcoms Mhmm. Where every episode like, everything was fluff and nothing mattered in the sitcoms during that time period. And that's kind of how the movies are too. Everything's fluff and nothing matters. Right. I can see that. So let's rate this because I'm rambling because I'm, I don't know.
This the these movies make me wanna talk, but they they make me want to don't make me wanna necessarily talk about the movie itself, but ideas that the movie gave me while I was watching it. Yeah. Alright. Well, let's get to the the rating system then. Here on the bottom shelf, we have 4 levels on our rating system. Top shelf is, this is a fantastic movie. I think I need to own this so I can watch it several times.
Hey. Hey. Middle shelf is, it's alright. If it's on streaming or whatever, I might watch it sometime, maybe. I don't know. It's not terrible. The bottom shelf is, this movie's bad. I don't wanna watch it again. Someone else might wanna watch it if it's your jam, but it's not for me, and I don't wanna see it. And then there's the dumpster fire, which is this doesn't have any place on
any shelf. It needs to be destroyed and eradicated from existence, and I'm gonna go out of my way to make sure nobody else watches it. That being said, captain Dallas Mora, as I have invited you into my childhood to watch this and invited you to watch me become disenfranchised with things that were once sacred, please rate this film. It's not a good movie. Such a segue, bro. It's not. But and I said at the beginning, it has a better story, and part of me's oddly curious as to how it got 4 more
movies out of it. It looks like in the second one, they kill Kurt, and his the unknown brother who we don't know about has to fight Tong Po. And I kinda wanna watch him for some reason. I wanna know where we go with this. I don't wanna own this movie ever, and I'm thankful that Tubi has it for free. I'm gonna put it on the middle shelf. It's a better movie than Bloodsport. And Okay. So I wanna say, first of all, welcome to team Kickboxer. We have, we have cookies in the back.
Feel free to help yourself. Will do. I'm glad you fell out on the wrong, on the right side of history on that one, my dude. I'm gonna, I'm gonna join you on that middle shelf. I do rank it as a higher middle shelf than the Bloodsport, not because I think it was a better movie necessarily, but I I do believe that the action in it was more believable. I believe that the technique
was better. I didn't feel the compulsion to yell at the screen at the actors telling them to put their hands up so they can have some form of defense. Although there was one point at the end of this movie where Tong Po's just standing there with his hands down, letting JCVD just run a train on him. Could I just wanna pause you real quick because talking about how it's the same thing.
There's a moment where JC is just getting in a kicking, like, back and forth with with another Muay Thai fighter back and forth, back and forth, just like he did with the Muay Thai fighter in Bloodsport. It I mean, the exact same thing. They're just like he's like, come on. They're just back and forth kicking each other. Yeah. In the ribs. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else is there? Made me think of something. It
bro. I just thought of another movie that follows this whole story type that stars that stars JCVD, the quest. Yep. Yep. I was just thinking about the quest too. Bro, get a different script writer. Oh my God. All right. That being said, let's go ahead and, get on over to the, weak connections section because there's nothing more we can do here that's gonna be productive. This is a weak connection. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the weak connection
section. This is Dallas Mora coming out of the Healing Place Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Pastor Dallas, long time listener, multiple time caller, why don't you go ahead and give us a one of those fantastic weak connections that you always deliver so so right twice. Alright. I feel uncomfortable now in this podcast. I'm in the building. I feel about as uncomfortable as Jean Claude's
acting. So my thing so there was a moment in the front end when, Jean Claude was describing his how him and his brother are brothers, but they basically grew up apart. And he goes, in some ways, we're different, but we're still brothers. And there's this whole aspect of, like, you still they're very different characters in the front of the movie, but there is an aspect of you may be different from the people around you. But if
you're if you're brothers, you're you're brothers. And that's the thing about as as Christians, we're in this we're in this community of faith, and it's kinda gone out of fashion. This whole idea of calling somebody brother or sister. You know? And it's easy for us to kinda go, I don't like that person. They're gonna stay over there. But there's still our family in Christ.
I forgot to pull up the scripture, but there is a passage where Jesus says that they will know you're my disciple the way you treat each other, the way that you love each other, and we are called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of who they are or what they look like or what they've done. Doesn't necessarily mean that, like, if they've done us dirty or if they've done wrong, that we just bring them close to us, and we're gonna be
our best friends for life. No. We gotta know how to put people in a place where, like but we still show them love. We still show them grace because they're still our family in Christ. Scott was preaching on a very similar message about that today, actually, and he has a great line. He goes, you can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your brother and sister in Christ because if they're in Christ, then they are a sibling in Christ
regardless. And, you know, we all have that Jerry Springer side of the family, and maybe we and we have some Jerry Springer side of the family in the body of Christ, and we're like, you're a bit crazy. You can stay right there. But we still love them. We still try to show them respect. We still try to encourage them and walk through things where we can, and so my encouragement to us is we are like, geek devotions as a whole, we are a multi denominational interdenominational
ministry as a whole. We got people who are baptist, Presbyterian. We got baptistals like John here. We got Presmicostal. I concur with that. But we have a a range of of things here, but we're still the family of God. We may have some things that are different theologically about some stuff, but it's not salvific, and it's okay. We can rock them out. And there are people in our community that we're all very different. We all see
things differently. We all operate differently on a personality level, but we still love each other. Say what? Nothing. I'm kidding everybody. So but there's still our family in Christ, and we need to do our best to encourage each other, help each other out. So that's my weak connection. No. What I said, Dallas, I'm not I'm not throwing rocks and hiding hands. What, what what I said was you you're like, we all have all these differences, and I'd whispered in the mic, and you're right.
I kid, though. That's cool. I actually have one because the connection I have wouldn't have made sense until we covered this episode because the scripture I'm pulling from is from James 1 chapter 1 verse 17, which is every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from our father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
And it was inspired by watching both of these movies and realizing between the two movies that there is no variation or shadow due to change because they're the same movie. And so it's a good analog of how God is because God doesn't change from 1988 to 1989, his mercy and his precepts don't change from 1988 to 89. They are the same today, yesterday, and forever. As the Bible says, Same as the stories between kickboxer and Bloodsport.
God's love is never ending and always in and it always in enduring. Same as the plot between kickboxer and Bloodsport. Jesus will love you no matter what happens in it, same as the storylines between kickboxer and Bloodsport. This is what we can learn from these two movies. That despite the fact that there is no variation between these two films, we can learn from these movies that there is also no variation in God. And sometimes, no variation at all can be a very good thing.
The most tongue in cheek, weak connection I've ever seen you do. But it works so well. Right? It does. I wanna I saw hey, Ben Ben. I don't know if you listen to this show, but if you do, I I need your opinion on this. Oh my gosh. Alright. So that being said, thanks so much for listening everybody. We had a lot of fun making these. We're going into something super special as you can tell with the mysterious breaks that you're hearing in these transmissions. Dun dun dun.
There's a big thing coming up. I'm just kinda stepping outside the narrative at the end of the episode here. Dallas and I have plans for this year. We want this year Oh, we got plans. We want this year to be the year that the bottom shelf really takes off. Not because we're trying to be hipster podcast idols and make a bajillion dollars, but mostly just because we really like doing this.
And we think it would be really neat if we could do this, like, as it was for you guys to laugh at our stupidity and maybe do cool things and bring famous people on to laugh at stupid things with us. So I don't know. It's a thought. If you wanna help us out, recommend us to your friends, like and subscribe. Go do stuff to get our name out there, and tell us what you want us to do to help us get our name out there. Tell us how we can serve you better. Dallas, how can people tell us to how
to serve them better? Yeah. You can reach out to us. We are on Instagram and Facebook. Just look for the bottom shelf. Don't forget to leave comments on the YouTube videos we post up. Also, we have a discord channel for the, Geek Devotions as a whole, and we have a whole section in the Discord, for the bottom shelf, where we would love to talk to you guys about the bottom shelf and these terrible movies that all seem to be the same things. And don't worry,
folks. As far as I know, we're not doing any more Jean Claude Van Damme movies this month. This month. Absolutely not. I don't know. Now that we talked about universal soldier and the expendables too. We'll find out. Tune in next time on no next, next month, next month. If you guys want to participate with us next month, we are going to be covering Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, as well as suburban commando.
Wow. Yes. Like, we we have made mention of both those movies in both these episodes. And the reason is is because that those movies legitimately qualify for the like, this is gonna be part of our theme. There are some movies that we're, like, trying to figure out from our childhood. Like, did we just have bad taste or what's going on? So, yeah, come on this ride with us this year because it's gonna be a doozy, and we want you to join along, join
on with us. Like I said, towards the end of the year, there's going to be a big, big, big, big event. That's going to tie everything together and there will be prizes. And when I say prizes, I mean, prizes that you'll want. I'm not gonna give you when I when I play when I play the prize game, I play the prize game for stuff that people will be excited about. So I'm not gonna give you a cracker jack thing. So stay tuned, everybody. It's gonna be good. But until next time, stay devoted.
Peace and love.