As we learned from his recent open letter to Vladimir Putin asking for the Russian Prime Minister to support immortality research, Steven Seagal is a great friend to the Russian people, and even “considers himself Russian,” despite being an Irish Jew from Fullerton who wears kimonos. Seagal was recently in neighboring Astana, Kazakhstan to attend a star-studded International Action Film Festival whose other luminaries included poetry superstar Michael Madsen. During the press conference, Seagal brought up his idea for a Genghis Khan epic, which he’s apparently been talking about since 1998. In fairness, if there’s one thing we know about Steven Seagal, it’s that he doesn’t keep track of space and time too well.  Here’s my favorite badly-translated account of the event:

This year such famous Hollywood stars as Steven Seagal and Michael Madsen have become the guests of the festival. Such actors as Sergey Svetlakov, Marat Basharov, Viktor Verzhbitsky, Yekaterina Strizhenova, Yevgeny Stychkin and Dmitry Nagiyev were among the guests. At the festival Dmitry will present the “Two pistols. Evasive brilliant” film, where he is in the lead cast. [CaspioNet]

That movie sounds awesome. Here’s a more coherent account of Seagal discussing his Khan epic.

As Steven Seagal said at a press conference on Saturday in the capital of Kazakhstan, where the 2nd International Action Film Festival ASTANA-2011 is taking place, he would like to play the role of the Mongolian khan.
“I really want to make a movie about Genghis Khan. I get lots of offers, but I want to shoot not just a film, but a big epic. Probably, my friend – the mayor of Astana (Imangali Tasmaganbetov) – will help me” – the actor hopes.
At the same time Steven Seagal admitted that because of the crisis the American film industry is in the doldrums. Therefore he intends to work on the film about Genghis Khan together with Russian and Kazakhstan cinematographers.
“Now I am also in the process of developing joint projects with Russian film directors. We are not only working on the plot, but also settling financial issues. I hope very much for working with Timur Bekmambetov, since I consider him a great and hardworking film director”- he added. [RussiaIC]

“Because of America’s financial issues, I hope to work somewhere where capital is stable, like the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. I would even consider working with Timur Bekmambetov, the most famous person Kazakhstan has ever produced.”  As much as the Seagal jokes are endless here, I fell down a bit of a Kazakhstan rabbit hole while writing this post, and it was just too good not to share.  For instance, would you like to see photos from Kazakhstan’s Fashion Week? (Yes, you would).  Or how about learn more about the traditional Kazakh sport of “Girl Chasing?”

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David Carradine’s IMDB page lists a few still-unreleased films, and two titles are “all tied up” going into the “final stretch.”  One is El Dorado, and it’s quite possible that this could be his last film. If you thought Raul Julia in Street Fighter was an embarrassing way for a respected actor to go out, holy hell, read this synopsis:

This is a live action 3D comedy/horror/musical/road movie and is the first ever British movie to be shot in 3D.

After wrongly being sent to a Neo Nazi fund raiser instead of the stripper, Blues Brothers tribute band ‘The Jews Brothers’, Stan and Ollie get offered a gig in El Dorado to make amends for a gig gone sour. [via Twitchfilm]

Wait, did they say musical?  They did indeed, friends — a musical whose cast includes Steve Guttenberg, Brigitte Nielsen, Michael Madsen, and Daryl Hannah.  And if you thought the synopsis was bad, wait till you see the trailer:

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The cool thing about guys like Quentin Tarantino who do mountains of blow (or act like it) is that they always have lots of ideas. That, and the awesome wizard guy who appears sometimes.  Thing is, they often don’t follow up on them.  Which can be a good thing (“Dude.  Dude.  Three words: Semester. In Space.”).  ThePlaylist has a whole feature devoted to Tarantino ideas that never came to pass.  One such idea was a movie about Vincent Vega (Travolta in Pulp Fiction) and his brother Vic (Madsen in Reservoir Dogs), which would be called “Vega Brothers”. Trouble is, both characters died in their movies, and at some point, Tarantino decided the actors were too old to make it a prequel.  However, according to Michael Madsen, Tarantino has come up with, shall we say, “a device.”

“Quentin decided that John [Travolta] and I got too old to make a prequel,” he explained, but then added when asked if the project was done said, “No, actually Quentin went down to Tijuana recently, and on his return he said that he came up with an idea that the movie didn’t have to be a prequel, that John and I could play each other’s twin brothers.”

“I’d be Vic Vega’s twin brother,” Madsen explained. “[Travolta would] be Vincent’s twin brother and we’re both on a flight from Los Angeles, having just been released from prison, and neither one of us know that we’re the twin brother of the other one and we’re both on our way back to LA to avenge the death of our brothers.” [WAAF Boston via Cinematical]

“So I’d play my own twin brother, and I’d run into the twin brother of my brother… who also had a twin, who would also be my brother, but not my twin?  And we don’t know that we’re brothers, but we meet trying to avenge our brothers?  Holy sh*t, bro, my head hurts.  *takes huge bong load* But I like it.  *blows out smoke*”

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^{“Four score and seven weeks after we shot the pool scene in Van Wilder, my agent said to me…”}

Yesterday marked the beginning of a whole new era.  It was truly a great day for horrible metaphors and inexplicable appearances. What the hell is Kumar doing at the inauguration?  Are we really that stupid that we need actors to show up to political events so that Tobey Maguire can clarify that he’s not actually the real hero?  I will say this though, after every pause in Obama’s speech I half expected him to say, “Today… is our Independence Day.”

Another thing that would’ve improved the ceremony?  Replace the poet lady with Michael Madsen.

[via BWE]

A while back FilmDrunkard Jared sent me to the IMDB page of Not Another Not Another Movie, presumably a spoof of those Seltzer-Freebird idiots.  With no other info to go on and a cast list that included Chevy Chase, Burt Reynolds, Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, and Stuttering John, I assumed it was someone’s idea of a joke.  Not so, apparently.

Chase plays a studio head who quits his floundering company, leaving his ex-con sibling (Madsen) in charge. Soon their equally inept gangster friend (Jones) takes over and assigns a production assistant (David Leo Schultz) to direct a spoof of spoof movies. Reynolds plays an actor playing the director of the chaotic film within the film.

Writer-director David Murphy’s “Movie” features cameos from actors playing themselves spoofing their memorable roles, including Richard Tyson (the villian in “Kindergarten Cop”) and Wolfgang Bodison (the young African-American Marine on trial in “A Few Good Men”). Ellie Gerber, Tim Piper, Jennifer Sciole and James Duval also star. [THR]

…So it’s a spoof of spoof movies, about a guy making a spoof of spoof movies, starring actors spoofing themselves.  In the movie.  I think.  Michael Madsen was so confused by the idea that on the first day of filming he cut off Jean-Claude Van Damme’s ear and wrote a poem about it.