Steven Ho's Blog - Deconstructing Fighting and Stunts for your enjoyment

Not sure about his decision to use the kid in 0:42…but this is pretty cool, historic footage from the thirties.

In “The Expendables,” Sylvester Stallone’s latest guns-blazing return to the multiplex, the actor/director assembled a dream team of action stars to assist him with the very important work of blowing up everything in sight. Most notably, he recruited onetime big-screen rivals like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dolph Lundgren for his latest cinematic mission. An impressive collective of talent, to be sure, but the all-star roster of shoot-’em-up heroes has at least one glaring omission: Jean-Claude Van Damme. Whither the “Muscles from Brussels,” star of “Hard Target,” “Timecop,” and “Universal Solider”?

Van Damme, it turns out, did get a call from Stallone to join his team of Expendables, but he wasn’t thrilled with the pitch. He told TotalFilm, “Stallone gave me a part in his next movie. [He] said, ‘You’re gonna make lots of money.’ I don’t want to hear that, I want to hear what was my character. He was unable to tell what it’s going to be.” So Van Damme, showing admirable dedication to the purity of his craft, passed.

In a 2009 press conference, Van Damme recounted pretty much the same story, adding that he’d advised Stallone that, instead of doing “The Expendables,” Stallone should make a movie where Sly plays a “tough priest.” According to Van Damme, Stallone found this “insulting.” If nothing else, Van Damme does do a pretty nifty Stallone impression.

At this year’s Comic-Con, Stallone addressed the casting offers, including two other high-profile no-shows that were not meant to be. His take differs slightly: “I talked to Van Damme. I talked to [Steven] Segal. I even talked to Chuck Norris.” He then added, “But there are certain considerations, like insanity.”

In fairness to Van Damme, the actor does seem to have a somewhat more introspective take on his career of late. In 2008, he starred in the independent film “JCVD,” playing a fictionalized version of himself: an out-of-work action star who finds himself at a bank while it’s being robbed. Of course, Van Damme’s newfound introspection doesn’t explain why he starred in 2009’s “Universal Soldier: Regeneration.”

“The Expendables,” opening this weekend, tells the story of a group of mercenaries who attempt to overthrow the government of a small South American island. In addition to the aforementioned line-up of Stallone, Willis, Schwarzenegger, and Lundgren, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, and Jason Statham join in on the mayhem.

Mike Ryan · August 13, 2010 | Yahoo Movie Talk

Genki Sudo isn’t fighting any more, but the tour to promote his recently released World Order album has him back before a small crowd in the United States.

The mixed martial arts website Middle Easy has been a cheerleader for Sudo, one of MMA’s standout characters. The adulation continues today with a video about Sudo’s visit last weekend to a New York night club:

Coca-Cola defends lawsuit against its product “vitaminwater” by claiming that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

Now here’s something you wouldn’t expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself?

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

Does this mean that you’d have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named “vitaminwater,” a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?

Or does it mean that it’s okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?

In fact, the product is basically sugar-water, to which about a penny’s worth of synthetic vitamins have been added. And the amount of sugar is not trivial. A bottle of vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar, making it more akin to a soft drink than to a healthy beverage.

Is any harm being done by this marketing ploy? After all, some might say consumers are at least getting some vitamins, and there isn’t as much sugar in vitaminwater as there is in regular Coke.

True. But about 35 percent of Americans are now considered medically obese. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. Health experts tend to disagree about almost everything, but they all concur that added sugars play a key role in the obesity epidemic, a problem that now leads to more medical costs than smoking.

How many people with weight problems have consumed products like vitaminwater in the mistaken belief that the product was nutritionally positive and carried no caloric consequences? How many have thought that consuming vitaminwater was a smart choice from a weight-loss perspective? The very name “vitaminwater” suggests that the product is simply water with added nutrients, disguising the fact that it’s actually full of added sugar.

The truth is that when it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be even more important than what you eat. Americans now get nearly 25 percent of their calories from liquids. In 2009, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finding that the quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is to cut down on liquid calorie consumption. And the best way to do that is to reduce or eliminate beverages that contain added sugar.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in its vitaminwater line, paying basketball stars, including Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, to appear in ads that emphatically state that these products are a healthy way for consumers to hydrate. When Lebron James held his much ballyhooed TV special to announce his decision to join the Miami Heat, many corporations paid millions in an attempt to capitalize on the event. But it was vitaminwater that had the most prominent role throughout the show.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, alleges that vitaminwater labels and advertising are filled with “deceptive and unsubstantiated claims.” In his recent 55-page ruling, Federal Judge John Gleeson (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York), wrote, “At oral arguments, defendants (Coca-Cola) suggested that no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitamin water was a healthy beverage.” Noting that the soft drink giant wasn’t claiming the lawsuit was wrong on factual grounds, the judge wrote that, “Accordingly, I must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true.”

I still can’t get over the bizarre audacity of Coke’s legal case. Forced to defend themselves in court, they are acknowledging that vitaminwater isn’t a healthy product. But they are arguing that advertising it as such isn’t false advertising, because no could possibly believe such a ridiculous claim.

I guess that’s why they spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising the product, saying it will keep you “healthy as a horse,” and will bring about a “healthy state of physical and mental well-being.”

Why do we allow companies like Coca-Cola to tell us that drinking a bottle of sugar water with a few added water-soluble vitamins is a legitimate way to meet our nutritional needs?

Here’s what I suggest: If you’re looking for a healthy and far less expensive way to hydrate, try drinking water. If you want to flavor the water you drink, try adding the juice of a lemon and a small amount of honey or maple syrup to a quart of water. Another alternative is to mix one part lemonade or fruit juice to three or four parts water. Or drink green tea, hot or chilled, adding lemon and a small amount of sweetener if you like. If you want to jazz it up, try one-half fruit juice, one-half carbonated water.

If your tap water tastes bad or you suspect it might contain lead or other contaminants, get a water filter that fits under the sink or attaches to the tap.

And it’s probably not the best idea to rely on a soft drink company for your vitamins and other essential nutrients. A plant-strong diet with lots of vegetables and fruits will provide you with what you need far more reliably, far more consistently — and far more honestly.

John Robbins | Huffington Post - 8/06/10

Sugar Shane Mosely (46-6, 39 knockouts) will be in full training mode soon at his Big Bear gym. But he dropped by Westside Boxing Club yesterday to train while he was in LA doing press junkets for his upcoming fight against 29-year-old Sergio Mora (22-1-1, six KOs), a former WBC junior middleweight king at the Staples Center. As always, the Hall of Famer is as gracious out of the ring as he is savvy and tough in the ring. He took the time to sign pictures for the local kids and even donned a body pad and mitts to work with his son.

Westside Boxing Club | 4500 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019 | T: 323 947-1306

Self-confidence is extremely sexy to a woman. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, more than a man’s good looks and more than his gentlemanly manner, confidence is the trigger trait that makes a woman want to get naked.

You remember that scene in Goodfellas when Ray Liotta takes Lorraine Bracco to the Copa? He slips her through the back door, tipping heavies the whole way, chatting up other wiseguys, and finally ending up at a table in front of the stage. Liotta had something much more important than a roll of Franklins: He had confidence. And its effect on Bracco was clear. You knew he was getting laid that night.

“Women want a man with steel balls,” says R. Don Steele, without a hint of irony in his voice. Steele is the author of Body Language Secrets: A Guide during Courtship and Dating. “This desire is evolutionary. Females want someone who’s not going to run from a fight, a man who is confident in his ability to provide and protect.”

Simply put, confidence gets the girl. So if you want to be more attractive to women, show your bravado. But I don’t mean by pounding your chest or the drunk at the end of the bar. You don’t have to be a wiseguy to make yourself instantly irresistible. Here are some more-effective techniques.

Walk This Way

Your stride? Slow down. “Confident people are not in a hurry,” says Steele. “But there’s a difference between meandering and walking slowly with purpose. Always walk as if you know what you’re doing and where you’re going.”

Based on the company’s best-selling middleweight superbike ever, the Ducati 848 EVO ($13,000) improves upon its stablemate with a specially tuned Testastretta Evoluzione engine pumping out 140 horses, Brembo Monobloc brake calipers, improved chassis and braking systems, a cross-mounted steering damper for added control, Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SP tires, and a curb weight of only 369 pounds. Available in traditional Ducati Red or the amazingly stealth “Dark” edition.

View of Earth from a camera on V-2 #13, launched October 24, 1946.

(White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory)

On October 24, 1946, not long after the end of World War II and years before the Sputnik satellite opened the space age, a group of soldiers and scientists in the New Mexico desert saw something new and wonderful—the first pictures of Earth as seen from space.

The grainy, black-and-white photos were taken from an altitude of 65 miles by a 35-millimeter motion picture camera riding on a V-2 missile launched from the White Sands Missile Range. Snapping a new frame every second and a half, the rocket-borne camera climbed straight up, then fell back to Earth minutes later, slamming into the ground at 500 feet per second. The camera itself was smashed, but the film, protected in a steel cassette, was unharmed.

A few years ago, I coordinated/choreographed a Motorola commercial for director Tarsem Singh and starring Matt Mullins and Nikolett Barabas. The soundtrack was Le Disko by Shiny Toy Guns.

Coincidentally I met Stephen Petree (who had co-written and performed on the song when he was with the band) about a year ago. Stephen recently formed an all-star new band, PETREE…and as big Conan O’Brien fans they offered to write an original song for Asian Conan.

We’re in the process of shooting a music video with them now. But in the meanwhile, here’s a teaser…

PETREE is Stephen Petree- Vocals, Telekeyster Aaron Joseph- Vocals, Guitar David Eropkin- Vocals, Bass Adam Welch - Vocals, Drums

Visit Petree on Facebook

Totally irresponsible (this could have EASILY ended very badly for many people) … but pretty amazing footage to watch. Shot in 1976 in a single take on the streets of Paris.