I was recently watching the movie Escape Plan on DVD for the fun of seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone teaming up. Like the Expendables movies, the cast was full of familiar faces from film and television. Yet, I was most surprised to see Sam Neill appear in the film as a sympathetic prison doctor treating Stallone’s character. He’s a face I’ve rarely seen in recent memory and one who deserves to be highlighted in the Underrated Actors Special.

10 years ago, I met John Merenda at my father’s private dental practice on Staten Island. My father told me ahead of time that John used to make movies in Hollywood during the early 1970s and that he had a script about an American bounty hunter in the old west. It sounded different and ambitious which may have been the reason most major film producers were scared to make it. Although he held out hope for a major movie star like Wesley Snipes or a big time filmmaker like Ron Howard to give it a chance, he had faith in my growing talent to make films even though I was just a 20 year old college student…

I have been an addict of professional wrestling since the summer of 1994. It was the season of the baseball strike and the season when the New York Knicks were blown away by the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals. The landscape of wrestling had changed as well when icons like Hulk Hogan jumped ship to WCW while Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart was leading the charge in what we now know today as WWE. For the PG audience reading this piece, Bret Hart was my John Cena: Street fighter, defied the odds, won multiple titles, and all around good guy. Yet, as popular as Bret was, wrestling then was not the cool fad to be into. Kids in my school were high on the NBA or the innovative sounds of Tupac and Biggie. WWE tried many times to find a better wrestler than Bret to be the face of the company between 1993 to 1996. They even had him and Lex Luger win the Royal Rumble together in 1994 and the crowd reaction dictated that Bret was the bigger star despite all the company hype around Lex. But no matter who they selected to push him aside, the fans remained loyal to Bret until change was called for.

AJ Epyx Productions’ DISHONORABLE VENDETTA Now Available Online VOD By Mother Brain Cool Multimedia Group and AJ Epyx Productions are… Read more AJ Epyx Productions’ DISHONORABLE VENDETTA Now Available Online VOD

The world knows her best as Sarah Connor in the first two installments of the Terminator film franchise. Yet, many people are unaware of Linda Hamilton’s body of work outside the multibillion dollar series. While she embraced a role full of physical and mental strength, she was also not afraid to tackle roles where her characters deal with more real world hardships and personal tragedy. Most of all, it was the struggles in her personal life that drove her performances on the big screen.

Lately I find myself again frustrated with the current WWE product. I’d run down every problem from booking to de-pushing Daniel Bryan; however, that’s a topic for another time. My focus for the moment is the rise and fall of a once potential top star for the company, Ryback. A year ago, he had the biggest push of his career when he entered the Royal Rumble at #30. Today, he’s ranting nonsense on Twitter about giving Dolph Ziggler a near career-ending injury and insulting Lillian Garcia while being reduced to a second-rate feud with Big E. Langston over the Intercontinental Title. How did such a big freak of nature with potential to dethrone John Cena as the new face of WWE suddenly become such a joke?

Please watch the all new Indiegogo campaign video about the history of making CIVIL WRATH, the background about the book’s author, John Merenda, and the plans for the upcoming short film set to be directed by Andre´ Joseph and produced by AJ Epyx Productions.

Mother Brain’s 2013 Wrestling Year End Awards Picks

In taking a twist from the usual underrated actors write-ups, I’ll be looking at ten actors in Hollywood history who had their day in the sun with an iconic hit movie or acting role, only to never replicate that success for the long term. There were so many to name but these ten in particular stand out the most to me. Many of them continue to work today or had success in other areas of entertainment.

Message from Cos: Totally my fault for never posting this up over the summer.