Posts Tagged ‘Sylvester Stallone’
Wednesday, November 18th, 2015
Some important and possibly relevant events happened in the world during the three years between ROCKY II and ROCKY III. Disco records were blown up at baseball games, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were released, some motherfucker shot J.R. and the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in Moscow. Minutes after Ronald Reagan (THE KILLERS) was sworn into office the Iran hostages were totally coincidentally released, and the next day the first DeLorean DMC-12 was built. Later MTV went on the air. All the sudden it was 1982.
Movies had been changing too. ROCKY was the biggest movie of ’76, but of course ’77 brought us STAR WARS, and since then we’d also had THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. It would be quite some time before another drama was the #1 movie of a year (not until RAIN MAN in 1989 I believe).
The ROCKY series evolves with the times, and the transition to the ’80s is a drastic one. After the traditional Bill Conti fanfare (title scrolling over championship belt) and end-of-the-last-one recap we get a moment of contemplation and then… jugga jugga jugga jugga BRRRMMMMP!…BRRMMP BRRMMP BRRMMP! electric guitars and fireworks. “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor is as purely, un-self-consciously motivational-speakerish as “Gonna Fly Now,” and even more audaciously grooving and tackily emblematic of its era. The song is so ridiculous it’s kind of a betrayal of the dirty, street level reality of the series so far, but it’s dead perfect for this slick new ROCKY of the aerobics-and-American-flags Reagan years. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: boxing, Burgess Meredith, Carl Weathers, Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire
Posted in Reviews, Sport | 31 Comments »
Tuesday, November 17th, 2015
After the success of ROCKY, screenwriter Sylvester Stallone became writer-director Sylvester Stallone with the period wrestling movie PARADISE ALLEY. And then after that practice run he was ready to direct the rematch.
ROCKY II starts right before where ROCKY left off, with about 5 minutes of Balboa vs. Creed. In other words “the end of ROCKY.” This type of recap used to be done in many sequels and never is now. You have to remember, there was no home video at that time. It seemed important to remind people what happened because the last movie was 3 years ago and people haven’t necessarily been able to see it since then.
So the first new footage is right where ROCKY left off, right after the fight, and we can compare and contrast it to the first movie’s scene after Rocky beat Spider Rico in the church. Instead of our hero and his opponent laying bloodied in a small back room waiting for the doctor to show up later, they are both rushed to the hospital in ambulances, and are welcomed there by crowds of fans and press. And instead of the two fighters being like friendly co-workers in-this-shit-together, Apollo starts barking in front of the cameras about a rematch and calling Rocky a punk. This confuses Rocky because, as we were reminded by the archival footage, the very first thing Apollo said after winning the fight was “No rematch.” He was very clear about it. They both agreed. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Conti, boxing, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Sport | 28 Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2015
I bet ROCKY is one of these movies that’s become so famous, so iconic – it won best picture, it made a stairway famous, it inspired a statue, it has five sequels, now a spin-off, and catchy theme music that everyone knows, that’s used in a million parodies – that some of the young people figure they can already imagine what it is, they don’t bother to see it. In fact, maybe my bet should be with them over the outcome of the big fight at the end.
It opens with a small fight. “The Italian Stallion” Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) vs. Spider Rico (Pedro Lovell) inside a small church. They beat the pulp out of each other and then they’re laying in back, they get paid about sixty bucks between them, and are told the doctor will be there in about 20 minutes. And they’re not mad about it. That’s their life.
This is part of what makes the character of Rocky so appealing. He lives in a slum in a small apartment with taped up windows, he doesn’t own a car, his three best friends seem to be an asshole named Paulie (Burt Young, THE KILLER ELITE) and his two turtles Cuff and Link, who he bought while hitting on Paulie’s painfully-shy sister Adrian (Talia Shire, RAD), who works at a pet shop. He has to work as a collector for Mr. Gazzo (Joe MANIAC Spinell) but he’s not good at it because he feels sorry for the people. The gym owner Mick (Burgess Meredith, G.I. JOE: THE MOVIE) won’t talk to him and kicked him out of his locker to make room for a fighter he thinks might have a future. Rocky’s life is pretty shitty, but he rarely complains or mopes about it. He talks positively (if self-deprecatingly) and makes up terrible jokes to tell Adrian, to try to get her to say words to him. The people in his life, such as Adrian’s boss Gloria (Jane Marla Robbins, THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON) seem about 25% charmed by him and 75% annoyed. But that doesn’t stop him from talking their ears off, showing them wallet-sized clippings from his matches and telling them they shoulda seen it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: boxing, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Joe Spinell, John G. Avildsen, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Sport | 109 Comments »
Monday, August 18th, 2014
THE EXPENDABLES 3 is another Expendables movie, like any other. It’s got a cast that indicates it should be the ultimate action movie, but ends up being penultimate at best. It’s a weird mix of satisfying appearance of favorite faces and tropes and disappointing execution of these elements. I call that feeling satisppointment, or expendablation. Just like the others I enjoyed it, but with a nagging feeling that this should be something actually great.
But the first stretch had me thinking it might blow the other ones out of the water. It opens mid-mission as our old Expendapals Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) are in a chopper chasing after a Russian prison transfer train to bust out an original team member who’s been locked up for 8 years. That prisoner is none other than Wesley The Daywalker Snipes as “Doctor Death,” and it’s an excellent welcome home party for the man. He’s got a crazy beard and hair and a spaced out look in his eye, and instead of going with the rescue party he runs across the train, does a slide and a bunch of acrobatics, kills a bunch of his captors and causes the train to crash into the bastard in charge. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Antonio Banderas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Harrison Ford, J.J. Perry, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Kellan Lutz, Kelsey Grammer, Mel Gibson, Patrick Hughes, Randy Couture, Robert Davi, Ronda Rousey, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crewes, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Reviews | 131 Comments »
Wednesday, August 13th, 2014
“Thanks for the poncho.”
We associate Sylvester Stallone with the ’80s, right? Sure, it was ’76 when he blew up with ROCKY and the ’90s by the time he did CLIFFHANGER. But it was the ’80s when he became Rambo, and RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART II was the height of his worldwide icon status, it seems to me. The one that inspired a thousand ripoff VHS covers and parodies and was quoted by President Reagan. To people who aren’t into his type of action movies he’s a symbol of Reagan era war-mongering and media violence. To us he’s on the Mount Rushmore of the most prolific and larger-than-life era of the genre we love most.
For all these reasons it’s weird to see him playing a lefty student radical, as he does in REBEL (filmed as NO WAY OUT). Released in 1970, this was his second real movie role, the first being the softcore movie THE PARTY AT KITTY AND STUD’S. This time he plays Jerry Savage, an anti-war activist who’s grown tired of useless campus protests and wants to do something that will make a difference. To that end he’s gotten involved with a Weather Underground type group that’s planning a bombing to protest a popular kitchenware company that’s making a side business of manufacturing tiger cages, “animal cages to hold people” that they prove are not only being used cruelly in ‘Nam, but are also being set aside for future use at home. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 58 Comments »
Sunday, July 6th, 2014
Today is Sylvester Stallone’s birthday, as good a time as any to make sure everybody knows that there was a Hungarian comic book adaptation of COBRA:
It seems the entire gem of a comics strip was once posted online by the excellent Cannon Films fan sight that has since disappeared like it was the Cannon SPIDER-MAN movie. I have also found evidence that this same series included an issue with back-to-back James Cameron adaptations…
…so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other cool ones.
Any Hungarians got a line on these? Are they rare, or do you just have them lying around everywhere, waiting to bring joy to the heart of somebody like me?
Tags: Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
HOMEFRONT is a Jason Statham vehicle with an interesting pedigree: screenplay by Sylvester Stallone (Academy Award nominated writer of ROCKY), meth manufacturing villain played by James Franco (Academy Award nominated lead for 127 HOURS), James Franco’s girlfriend played by Winona Ryder (Academy Award nominee for LITTLE WOMEN and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE). Unfortunately the weak link is director Gary Fleder (CableACE Award winner for an episode of Tales From the Crypt), who’s just the guy who did KISS THE GIRLS and RUNAWAY JURY and stuff like that. He’s not terrible but also not the type of strong director that could shoot a bullseye with a simple story like this.
This is the second movie in a row where Statham starts out wearing a long hair wig. This time it’s because he’s a DEA agent undercover in a biker gang. He busts the kingpin Danny T (Chuck Zito), whose son gets shot to death by other cops. Danny and his gang want to kill the shit out of him for this so he has to shave his hair. Also he either goes into witness protection or just retires and moves to a small town somewhere in Louisiana. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chuck Logan, Chuck Zito, Clancy Brown, Frank Grillo, Gary Fleder, James Franco, Jason Statham, Kate Bosworth, Sylvester Stallone, Winona Ryder
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 50 Comments »
Thursday, October 24th, 2013
Well, shit. I hope ESCAPE PLAN isn’t the last gasp for straight ahead R-rated theatrically released movies from the ’80s action icons. I guess Schwarzenegger has another one in the works called SABOTAGE. And there’s always the off chance that an EXPENDABLES sequel could be made where they’re trying harder and it mostly works on its own merits, not just nostalgic references and goodwill. We action fans all kinda hoped the EXPENDABLESes would remind the rest of the world that they used to love those types of movies and reignite their popularity, so we could all go see them on the big screen with the loud speakers and with a big crowd excited to experience it together and maybe afterwards there would be some high-fiving, possibly some push ups.
The possibility seemed real enough that we got Arnold Schwarzenegger starring in THE LAST STAND and Sylvester Stallone starring in BULLET TO THE HEAD and now both of them starring in ESCAPE PLAN. All of these movies have been flops at the American box office, even though all of them have been pretty enjoyable, and better than any non-sequels either of these guys have done since the ’90s.
But hey, at least a couple of us were there to appreciate it. ESCAPE PLAN is a solid, enjoyable Stallone vehicle where Schwarzenegger gets to be the joking sidekick. Rob Schneider was busy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 50 Cent, Amy Ryan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Faran Tahir, Jim Caviezel, Mikael Hafstrom, Sam Neill, Sylvester Stallone, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Action, Reviews | 48 Comments »
Thursday, June 27th, 2013
Remember there was gonna be that movie THE TOMB starring both Stallone and Schwarzenegger? Now it’s called ESCAPE PLAN and IGN has the trailer:
What do you think? I think it looks promising. Not humorless but not a corny joke-a-thon like an EXPENDABLES, cool high concept premise, good supporting cast. And Stallone gets to work with 50 Cent after the internet shamed him out of casting him in THE EXPENDABLES, but before he follows Robert DeNiro into a series of gloomy interchangeable DTV thrillers.
ESCAPE PLAN is directed by Mikael Håfström, a Swede who previously did DERAILED (haven’t seen it) and 1408: AN EVIL FUCKIN’ ROOM (pretty good). One of the writers did ROAD HOUSE 2, the other MIRROR MIRROR.
thanks to Jim Newberry for telling me this was up
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 90 Comments »
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
I’ve enjoyed DEATH RACE 2000 a few times over the years, but not since before I found myself actually liking P.W.S. Anderson’s remabootquel DEATH REACE and its two DTV prequels by Roel Reine, so this was strange to revisit it again. The new DEATH RACE is a fun macho b-movie, the original DEATH RACE 2000 is a different animal. It’s colorful, satirical, goofy and off-handedly brutal. It’s as cheap as other Roger Corman productions, but less serious. It seems like the template for the tone of all the best Troma films, and they even borrowed the rules of the Death Race for use as a fun game for teens in THE TOXIC AVENGER. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cars, David Carradine, Lewis Teague, Paul Bartel, Roger Corman, Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 53 Comments »
