Carl Weathers: Always the Best Man, Never the Groom

He got name-above-title on the poster, but not in the opening credits.

I had a swell time working once again with one my former Washington City Paper editors, Jon Fischer, over the weekend in his new role as WaPo’s arts editor in this piece that it only occurred to me to pitch as I was out for a run Friday evening, just a couple of hours of learning of Carl Weathers’ death.

Alt lede:

A long time ago in a century far, far away, before Liam Neeson turned AARP-eligible throat-punching into its own thriving genre, it was unusual for action movies to be released in the winter. But that was where the long-defunct Lorimar Motion Pictures chose to dump “Action Jackson” in February of 1988 — just under a year after the release of “Lethal Weapon,” seven months after “Predator,” five months before “Die Hard.” Each of those better-remembered, franchise-launching shoot-’em-ups were, like “Action Jackson,” produced (or coproduced) by Joel Silver, and each one features memorable moments from actors who were perhaps not quite famous enough even to be called character actors, but who also show up in “Action Jackson.” If you’ve a yen for hypermasculine Reagan-era bloodbaths, you’ll know their faces, if not their names: Robert Davi. Bill Duke. Mary Ellen Trainor. Ed O’Ross. The unofficial Joel Silver Players.

The exception, of course, was Jericho “Action” Jackson himself, Carl Weathers.

Pop Culture Happy Hour #203: Guardians of the Galaxy and So-Bad-It's-Good

Even this movie was good this summer. 2014 has been a great year for popcorn flicks.

I was thrilled as always to fill the fourth chair on this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein we discuss the latest -- and funniest, and unlikeliest -- Marvel Studios blockbuster, Guardians of the Galaxy. Even I had no idea who any of these characters were when I sat down to watch this thing.

We also discussed the curious, evergreen phenomenon of Things So Bad They Are Good, a complex topic that did not in this case stray too far from the TV movie that inspired this latest iteration of it, Sharknado 2. 

DISCLOSURE: I have not seen Sharknado 2. Nor, indeed, have I seen Sharknado. I have, however, seen the movie wherein Steven Seagal pledges to take the crooked U.S. Senator who killed his wife and put him in a coma for seven years... to the bank.

...to the U.S. Savings and Loan Bank.

Wait, I think I messed up the line. In any case, I'm sorry our discussion did not proceed in a direction that would've allowed me to play this clip from Seagal's 1990 hit Hard to Kill.

If we all sound unusually somber, it's because this episode was recorded on my birthday! Stream it or download it here.

FURTHER READING: My NPR review of Lucy from two weeks earlier. And my Dissolve review of Jinn and my Village Voice review of Brick Mansions, both from back in April.

Logan Hill's great story about the new expectation that male film stars sport gym-buffed bodies is here, but it was published in Men's Journal, not Men's Health as I fear I said on the show; my apologies.

Tickets to What's Making Me Happy This Week --  the smart stage sex comedy The Campsite Rule, by Alexandra Petri and starring my best gal Rachel Manteuffel -- are available here for a mere $20. If you're in or near Washington, DC or will be before the show closes on Aug. 16, you'll be doing yourself a big favor if you go.