Stallone To The Bone

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been really into Sylvester Stallone movies lately.  Stallone symbolizes will power, endurance, confidence, stamina and the essence of justice prevailing, what is not to like?  (shut up.)  I will skip over the Rocky movies because I plan on re-watching them so I will update post to include them later.

Stallone 2012:  This man is a senior citizen let me remind you!

Recommended Stallone Flicks

• Rambo Series:  There are 4 movies that make up the Rambo Series which include First Blood (1982), Rambo:  First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), and Rambo (2008).  You can remember each of them by the particular wars they refer to:  I and II are about Vietnam, III is about Afghanistan (where they refer to Afghan soldiers as "freedom fighters"), and finally, IV is about Burma.  I think they are all great movies in their own ways but my personal favourite is without doubt the first one.  Kind of like Predator (1987) from the Predator Series, while they are all good movies, there is nothing quite like the first introduction to ridiculously memorable characters.  In First Blood (1982), we are introduced to John Rambo, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who returns to civilization and is having a rough time fitting in.  It is kind of like that one episode of The Wonder Years where Wayne Arnold's best friend, Wart, returns from Vietnam and gets booed by anti-war protestors because they do not appreciate the realities of war that Wart has to cope with.  In that episode, there is a very touching scene that speaks to Wart's struggle of fitting in to society again, you can watch it here.  First Blood (1982) articulates that struggle very well through the story of John Rambo.
• Lock Up (1989):  I will probably get a lot of heat for saying this, but Lock Up (1989) has a real Shawshank Redemption (1994) feel to it.  Stallone plays a real nice guy named Frank Leone who is serving time in prison for petty theft or some minor misdemeanor.  The Prison Warden holds a great deal of animosity towards Frank, and goes out of his way to make Leone's prison time very difficult.  Frank gets assaulted by prison guards and prisoners alike from orders of the warden.  Despite all of the hardships he is made to endure, he overcomes them by developing beautiful friendships and by thinking positively.  In prison, your body might be trapped but your mind does not have to be.  There are some parts near the end that is kind of stupid and feels as though they just needed an ending so they pieced scenes together.  Still, the journey towards the end is really worth the ride.
• Cop Land (1997):  The only reason I like this movie is because Stallone is so great in it.  It is a very different role from the ones he usually plays.  His character in this movie is kind of a soft-spoken loser with low-confidence.  He is the sheriff of a township called Garrison that is populated by cops and their families.  The cops basically become mob-like in the way in which they wield their power and do not submit to the laws.  There are lots of big names in this movie including:  Robert DiNiro, Janeane Garofalo, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, and Michael Rapaport.  Stallone tries to clean up the town once the cops start to turn on eachother.  Honestly, not a great movie by any means, I watched it while knitting so I did not really pay attention.  I will say it is worth the watch to see how dynamic of an actor Stallone can be.
• The Expendables (2010):  What, you want action?  Here it is on a platter.  I wanted to watch a good old-fashioned action movie and that is exactly what I got with The Expendables.  I am not going to rent some cheap attempt of an action movie like Death Race or one of those Vin Diesel Furious flicks.  No thanks.  I go old school or new school a la old school actors.  When you grow up admiring guys like Stallone, Li, Willis and Schwarzeneggar, they just have greater legitimacy as action heroes.  Max Weber would call it traditional legitimacy.  What is this movie about?  I do not remember, something about overthrowing a dictator and helicopters blowing up.  Does it matter?  No.  Like I said, you want action, you got it.

Other Stallone Flicks

• Tango & Cash (1989):  Wow this movie is bad, real bad, but it has some nice cheesy one-liners.  It is a fun movie to watch if you're looking for some dork-tastic laughs.  Definitely on par with Dirty Work (1998).  For the knitters out there, it is a good movie to knit to because you do not have to watch it closely to follow it and they really exaggerate the one-liners so you will not miss the comedic portions!
• Oscar (1991):  This is a pretty bad movie too but just bad enough to make it good.  It is basically a mob version of movies like Clue (1985).  Utterly ridiculous and hilarious at the same time, pure slapstick comedy!
• Cliffhanger (1993):  Ever wonder how you know Merle Dixon from The Walking Dead?  Folks, he was Hal Tucker from Cliffhanger!  I remember watching this movie when I was younger because my dad walked in, in the middle of it, and someone was swearing profusely in the movie, so dad switched it off and said it was inappropriate for someone my age to be watching it, and rightfully so!  I had not seen the movie in its entirety for DECADES until about a month or so ago.  Not a great movie by any means.  I would not really recommend it at all save for the first few minutes because the opening scene is pretty cool.
• Judge Dredd (1995):  This is an awful but watchable movie.  It is about cops in the future being judges and instituting law and punishment without necessarily going through legal proceedings..or something like that.  All I can remember is an exchange between Diane Lane's character and Stallone.  Diane's character asks Stallone's character if he has any friends to which Stallone replies, "I did".  Pressing further, Diane's character asks, "What happened to them?" which leads Stallone's character to gaze woefully into the distance and state, "I judged him".  I think that exchange alone pretty much made the movie.
• D-Tox (2002):  This movie is not so bad.  It is a psychological thriller, very similar to Val Kilmer's movie, Mindhunters (2004), in the sense that one of the members of the group is a serial killer that is killing everyone else off and the protagonist needs to figure out who it is.  Mindhunters frames the story differently, the characters are all FBI criminal profilers being put to the test, so to speak.  D-Tox is a little different, Stallone's character went through some trauma at the hands of a serial killer, so he goes to a rehabilitation centre for cops, but turns out, the serial killer follows him there and is killing people.  It is not one of those movies where after you watch it, you will think, "oh that was amazing".  But you will definitely want to keep watching to figure out who damn the killer is.
• The Specialist (1994):  Oy vey!  Was Stallone even in this?  I thought this movie was Sharon Stone's personal portfolio seeing how she was in almost every scene!  The storyline is forgettable, the characters, regrettable.  If you want to watch the chemistry between Stone and Stallone, go ahead and watch this.  If you could not care less, skip this for sure.  I would not be surprised if it was written by a 13 year old boy.
• Demolition Man (1993):  I cannot remember this very well so I will probably have to revisit this post to update this.  All I remember is Wesley Snipes scooping out some guy's eyeball with a fork and using it on a retina scanner to get into a high security area.  This scene and the song of the same title by Sting is all I can remember about this movie.  Oh, I remember really enjoying this movie too!