I can’t imagine a more relevant way to celebrate Memorial Day weekend than to review two movies where Dolph Lundgren battles Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Can you? If not please enjoy my doubleheader of SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO and BRIDGE OF DRAGONS.

Also, I am not one to follow celebrity gossip, but the best thing I’ve read lately is Slate’s coverage of the R. Kelly trial. The story is fuckin nuts and the guy writing it is really funny. The whole thing is fascinating but I especially like in day 2 the part where the defense lawyer questions a witness about the movie LITTLE MAN by “the Waymons Brothers.”

For generations, kids have grown up on Mad Magazine and their movie “satires” where they change the names around so it’s funny. For example instead of “Night of the Living Dead” it might be called “Nut of the Living Dead.” Or instead of “Knight Rider” it might be called “Nut Rider.” Or instead of “Iron Man” it could be called “Nut Man.”

But for those of us who could not afford Mad Magazine we did not know about those hilarious plays on words and had to read Cracked Magazine instead. Well now, somehow, Cracked Magazine has evolved into cracked.com which is a funny websight with many humorous lists. So I am proud to have written a Steven Seagal-related list for them, it is the fulfillment of a life long dream that Cracked would turn into some other technology and then I would write a list for it or whatever.

Before you read it though I have to warn you that they rewrote it and I am not responsible for those derogatory remarks about Seagal or Stallone. My version was actually called “7 Great Steven Seagal Occupations”, not “6 Least Plausible,” and included “not exactly a cop” from URBAN JUSTICE.

I guess now I know the harsh reality of writing for Cracked. You might say it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. (I better look up if there is a mad.com to send that one to)

By popular request for years I have finally reviewed AVENGING FORCE starring Michael Dudikoff. Also if anybody’s interested in making a Steven Seagal style video clip you could win a Playstation 3 or a copy of SEAGALOGY. Details at the Ain’t It Cool.

Tired of looking on your favorite movie websights and seeing thirty five different reviews of INDIANA JONES AND THE ETC. even though you can’t see it until at least Thursday? And also you already saw IRON MAN and maybe SPEED RACER and are in need of a truly awesome summer entertainment on a much smaller and more arty scale but which happens to involve Brazilian jiu-jitsu?

Well WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU SAY SO? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you David Mamet’s REDBELT.

If you happen to flip through the Entertainment Weekly magazine this week to get the inside scoop on the SEX AND/OR THE CITY movie be sure not to have a mouth full of milk when you get to the books page so you won’t do a spit take when you see a sidebar where they interviewed me and I chose my “5 favorite Seagal moments” (I was told it was supposed to be “most badass”).

You know how you can tell I’m an asshole? Because I wrote mean things about that magazine last year and now I’m feeling all proud and excited to have my book acknowledged in there. Oh well. I just can’t believe my little self published pet project is now a real book that people know about. Everyone who wears hats please take them off to Titan Books.

There’s a funny story about that sidebar too. At the end it quotes me as saying “Seagal is waging a war on crotches.” I really called it his “War on Balls” but the writer, Adam Markovitz, later got back to me and said that it turns out you’re not allowed to say “balls” in Entertainment Weekly. He was very apologetic and embarrassed and asked if it was okay to change it to “a war on groins.” I did not think that was a good idea because technically the groin is the area where the thigh connects with the abdomen and this is not, in my opinion, Seagal’s target. So I suggested the more medically correct “War on Testicles.”

“Testicles” though was deemed too explicit so it became a war on crotches. I do not feel violated, and reader Timothy H. writes in to inform me that “crotches” is actually funnier. And anyway it wasn’t too extreme a change like in the TV version of SCARFACE when he says “Miami is like a big chicken waiting to be plucked.” Still, I thought it was important that everybody know you can’t say “balls” in Entertainment Weekly. In case that ever comes up.

And to celebrate here is a short review of CLASS OF 1999.