Another entry from the great and powerful Angel Martinez. This one comes off the heels of the quickly waning citrus season and the reappearance of the ever volatile, mercurial passionfruit which crops up whenever it chooses to…Sort of like an alcoholic ex lover whatever who calls you on the phone to pull on your heart strings and borrow money or steal your ideas and not give you any credit for them…Wait what?

Sitting Duck

1.5 oz. Mezcal

.75 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

.5 oz. Rhum Agricole

.5 oz. Manzanilla

.5 oz. Passionfruit Syrup

.25 oz. Lime Sherbet

1 tsp. Kumquat Kosho

Shake, strain onto BFR.

In a quick turn of events, Mr. Martinez has been kicking ass and naming names. As we all know, a sitting duck is something waiting to be plucked off, right? It’s an old school term for any easy target…Unlike Van Damme…

Pretty sure it’s the movie where he punches out a rattlesnake. For sure, I know it’s in the John Woo comes to Hollywood pantheon including Broken Arrow, Mission Impossible II, and a personal favorite, Face Off. There are some historical facts I’ll “rattle” off the top of my head here. Hard Target was Woo’s first American film after his huge career as a director in Hong Kong with a slew of hyper stylized action flicks such as A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in the Head, The Killer, and of course, Hard Boiled. What better than to hit it out of the park with a long, greasy haired Jean Claude Van Damme?

The 1993 movie came hot off the heels of some really great late eighties and early nineties stuff. I mean, look at this lineup. Bloodsport (88), Cyborg (89), Kickboxer (89), Lionheart (90), Death Warrant (90), Double Impact (91), Universal Soldier (92). Seven, count ’em, seven classic Van Damme movies in the span of just five years. I don’t think we’ll ever see anything of its ilk again. The high grossing Timecop (94) was the apex and then it all went downhill for Mr. Van Damme. He went on to make the Street Fighter (95) movie, something sort of ok called The Quest (96) and the ultra groanable Double Team (97) with Dennis Rodman but he never recaptured the glory of his early stardom. I guess the world populace can only see so many spin kicks and splits before they move on to something else but I think the era of the action hero was over at that point. Arnold and Sly had also, coincidentally fizzled out around the same time. Arnold’s apex being True Lies (94) and Stallone’s with Demolition Man (also 94). Although Stallone did reinvent himself with a more serious role in Copland (97) he also was unable to fully return to the glory of the late eighties and early nineties. Although, Stallone was a bit of an outlier in the bunch because he was a writer and came up with other stuff like Expendables. Anyway, it was still the Clinton era and we were all just still clueless, living in a world where a $12 an hour crappy line cook job could provide you with an actual life with no idea how crazy things would get at the start of the millennia.

Anyway…Van Damme never really went the comedy route like his boys did. He continued to make the same movie over and over again. Eh, whatever. I mean, he’s still a household name and I’m over here writing this crappy blog judging away and every once in a while throwing on Bloodsport or Kickboxer for not only nostalgic but entertainment purposes. The man did put his stamp into the timeline.