At one time or another, we have all been there- unable to sleep, flipping idly through the channels and creating our own story from the bits and fragments we catch between channel flips, until we come across a show or movie that makes us go, "Huh... this might be interesting." Or in my case, flipping through my DVD/Blu-Ray collection.

There was a time when Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the biggest stars on the planet and he brought the then king of Hong Kong action cinema to North America . The year was 1993 and the movie was Hard Target . A woman hires a drifter as her guide through New Orleans in search of her father, who has gone missing. They discover a deadly game of cat and mouse behind his disappearance in the process. This movie still owns today. At the time of its release, it was pretty over the top. By modern standards, it's a thing of simple beauty. Fight scenes are coherent and all the more exciting for it. Although not as good as director John Woo 's Asian efforts, the gunfights are still stunning ballets of death. No shaky cam here! Van Damme was born to play Chance Boudreaux, Arnold Vosloo and Lance Henriksen are brilliant as the main bad guys, Yancy Butler is pure yum and Wilfred Brimley is just awesome as Uncle Douvee. He and Vosloo have some of the most quotable lines in...

Once a week our mad twit Mike S from the Corner of Terror will shanghai The Basement's Twitter account and tweet along to a non- horror movie , all for your Internet pleasure. Cool, yes!?! We think so.   For his latest exercise in 140 characters or less, The S decided to enter the slow-mo, dove-infested world of action maestro John Woo with 1992's Hard Boiled . His thoughts are cut and paste below. You know a movie is introducing a bad ass character when they start with a shot of tumbler of tequila being poured... # HardBoiled   Somehow, I always imagined that Jazz would fit into a Hong Kong action film quite well... # HardBoiled   I love how 1990's films aren't as glossy looking as more recent films. Easier on the eyes, I find. # HardBoiled   I think it would be cool if North America had tea houses that allowed you to bring your pet birds to. # HardBoiled   Cue the slow-mo entrance of some baddies. # HardBoiled   The tea house sho...