Sylvester Stallone Is Awesome

I had a revelation while watching Over The Top (1987) this weekend: Sylvester Stallone really is a good actor. In addition to his obvious bad assery, I found myself feeling bad for the big galoot as he struggled with dealing with his son. It shouldn't really come as a surprise, I've seen a surprising amount of Stallone movies this pass year including Death Race 2000, First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Over The Top, Tango and Cash (how did I not blog about those three?), Cliffhanger and Rambo. I've also seen most of the Rocky movies in my days, but need to rewatch them, Cop Land and, as I've mentioned before, I can't wait for The Expendables. Two of those I've watched recently, so let's jump in, shall we?

A few weeks back I had some free time on the weekend (I came down with a crazy cold while we were trying to paint our bathroom, I swear) and decided to give Cliffhanger (1993) on Netflix Instant Watch. I got so into it that Em, who was graciously finishing the painting while I slowly turned into a snot machine, heard me yelling at the TV and was about to yell at me for playing video games while she was working until she came in to see me on the edge of my seat.

See, the thing is that THEY'RE ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN. Sure there's actors, stuntmen, matte painting and other special effects, but this is before cheap CGI, so someone was actually on a mountain and you can feel that danger. I don't know if it was unconscious or not because it popped into my head right away "Woah, that's high up, someone had to actually do that," but I definitely felt it the whole time. Just try and tell me this isn't intense:



I'd never seen the movie, so it held a lot of surprises for me, especially when it came to the cast. I pretty much only knew that Stallone and the girl from Northern Exposure (Janine Turner) were in it. I had no idea John Lithgow, Michael Rooker and the cop from CSI Miami (Rex Linn) were all in it. You gotta love Lithgow as a villain.

The thing that surprised me about both of these Stallone movies is how much deeper the story is than you'd expect. With Cliffhanger, you'd just expect it to be dudes on a mountain making other dudes find their lost money, but instead you've got all this backstory between Stallone and Rooker and Stallone and Turner. The same goes for Over The Top, which I picked up at Best Buy for $5 last week even though I'd never seen it before. It's not JUST the Stallone arm wrestling movie. He's also dealing with his 10-year-old kid who he's never met before (played by David Mendenhall, the voice of Daniel Witwicky in Transformers), the kid's sick mom, her dad (played by Lost Highway's Robert Loggia!) and a bunch of dudes in tank tops at the arm wrestling championship.

Of course, it comes with its fair share of ridiculousness too. Stallone's a truck driver and one of the prizes for the American arm wrestling championship just so happens to be a big rig. Exactly what he needs. Huh, go figure. There's also a whole series of scenes in which his son steels a car, drive it to the airport, gives it to a security guard, flies to Las Vegas, avoids his grandpa's goons (one of which, I'm pretty sure played a goon in Road House, the one with the curly hair) and makes his way to the arm wrestling championships all while his dad is in the middle of the competition. Crazy! How does he do this? Were credit cards even around back then? It's like they tried to throw a little Home Alone in the middle of this action movie, it's great. You've also got a great series of weirdos he has to arm wrestle (all of whom are much, MUCH bigger than him.

But, yeah, of course the best moments involve Stallone being a badass:

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If you can't get behind this kind of awesomeness, I pity you.

Two more quick things. One, the movie was so rad that it earned itself an action figure line back in 1986 with real arm wrestling action! I very much wish I could find a commercial online for this, but as the basic video search I did on YouTube brought nothing, click through to this Virtual Toy Chest link, you'll be doing yourself a service my friend.

And second, just try and tell me that this painted image of Stallone, arm extended with a truck and a hawk behind him isn't cooler than anything you've seen in the past 13 years. Bazinga!




Oh, DO go on.

Train-ing Videos: The Money Pit (1986)

Hey cleaver title right? Train-ing Videos. See, it's cause I watch them on the train. Anyway, today's movie was the Tom Hanks/Shelley Long joint Money Pit which I got in a Tom Hanks 3-pack at Best Buy a month or so back that also includes The Burbs (awesome) and Dragnet (haven't seen) for like $8. I'm a sucker for a deal, so I picked it up (which is also how I got Over the Top and Wet Hot American Summer yesterday for $5 each.

So, I thought I knew Money Pit fairly well, Hanks and Long buy a house that turns out to be a crap hole, things fall apart, they hire some people to fix it up, she maybe cheats on him with the maestro, they fight, (SPOILER), things work out and everything ends happily ever after. And that is basically what happens, but it's the small things that made this already funny movie even more interesting.

First off, I don't remember the beginning at all. I figured there was some stuff in the beginning, but didn't remember the details. Long and Hanks are living in the apartment of her ex-husband (the maestro), a shady real estate dude tells Hanks he's got a great place for super cheap, though it's still pretty expensive. Yakov Smirnoff makes an appearance as the maestro's assistant or something and is then never seen again. There's also the matter of Hanks' job, he's a lawyer in the music biz, so there's lots of funny little bits with a kid superstar and a band of crossdressing rockers.

My favorite little bit in here came with a brief appearance by an actor playing ping pong named Brian Backer who I recognized, but couldn't place. I'm not really sure why he's even in the scene, but it turns out that he was in The Burning! Speaking of actors I recognized but couldn't place, the maestro is a big, blond German guy. My mind immediately went to one of the villains from Die Hard, but that's just because I think every blond dude of a certain age was in that movie. Turns out I was right though, this is one of Karl's few other movie roles.

I also really liked the cast of misfits who come together to act as their construction team. When they roll up on all sorts of crazy machinery flanked by huge muscle dudes and little people, it reminded me of the crazy circus people the Penguin hung out with in Batman Returns.

After the surprises were over I was left with all the scenes I remember from seeing this movie on TV: the staircase falling, them freaking out over running water (something I can relate to after my parents rennovated our downstairs when I was younger), Long openening the medicine cabinet to reveal a dude standing there, Hanks falling through the floor, but the rug traps him and, of course, the best laugh of all time (he's got one of the top five laughs in the history of all time laughs):



But by far, my absolute favorite part of the movie is when Hanks does a damn fine Mr. Magoo impression, getting rocketed through the construction thanks to some pretty great gags. It's a little over the top, but who cares? It's fun. Plus he gets peed on at the end (kinda).

One thing I didn't really like, though, was Shelley Long. I always preferred Rebecca on Cheers and, well, what else has she been in? You could just as easily have taken her out of Boston, plopped her in NYC, put a violin in her hand and call her something else. Sorry, Diane, I'm no fan. When things get heated between her and Hanks, I kept thinking "Ditch her and go after Kirstey Alley!" (remember this is 1986, not now).

Now for a few side points. The writer, David Giler, also wrote the story for Aliens, the script for Aliens 3 and apparently did an uncredited pass on Beverly Hills Cop 2. I like me some eclectic screenwriters. Also, the movie takes place in the city, so, as I have been doing for the past two or so months, I kept an eye out for any recognizable landmarks or streets (didn't see any). I was also trying to figure out where their house was supposed to be located. I don't think they ever say specifically where the house is, just that it's an hour away from everything. According to the filming locations of IMDb, though, it was filmed on Long Island, which is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from where I live. Oh well, a good time was had by all.


Oh, DO go on.

Dapper Dan Is Awesome

I recently received a critique saying I used the word "awesome" too much. While that may be, I'm not gonna stop, especially when I come across an artists like Dapper Dan whose pop culture-inspired art blows me away so thoroughly.

Thanks to a post on /Film about his recent Back to the Future piece, I found my way to Dapper Dan's Deviant Art page and spent a good deal of the day going through it. I'm a big fan of artists who take the time to create pieces of art using their favorite characters from comics, TV, movies, video games and anything else (especially if they're all thrown together). Between his page and Gallery1988, I've got plenty to pour over.

But if you're too lazy to click over to the link, feel free to browse his images in the gallery below, though these are only a few of his albums and you're definitely missing out if you don't check everything out.

Here's his DC album.


And here's his Ghostbusters album.



Oh, DO go on.

Being 20-ish In the 80s Must Have Been Awesome

So, like most people my age (and I'm assuming most people in general) I used to think it would have been awesome to live in a different decade, especially considering the 80s brought the world acid wash jeans, frizzy hair and hair metal (or was that just New Jersey?). It's like Cynthia said in Dazed and Confused (trying to find this full quote made me REALLY wish I had this movie on DVD) "It's like the every-other-decade theory, you know? The '50s were boring, the '60s rocked, and the '70s-- Oh, my god, they obviously suck. Come on. Maybe the '80s will be radical. You know? I figure we'll be in our 20s and, hey, it can't get any worse." Well, sometimes we're too steeped in our own decade to see the good in them and two good things about the 80s were Michael J. Fox's The Secret To My Success (1987) and Johnny Depp's Private Resort (1985).



It's been a week or two since I watched The Secret Of My Success, but luckily I've watched the movie EVERY time it's been on TV so I remember all the beats. I was surprised to find out that I didn't really remember the beginning of the 1987 classic (by the way, I freaking LOVE this movie, so much so that when Em came in the room and started making fun of my, I actually got upset, but I kept it on the inside like a man).

I actually just looked at some of the players in this movie for the first time in IMDb. The director, Herbert Ross, also directed Footloose, Steel Magnolias and Boys on the Side. An interesting resume to say the least. And Jim Cash, the guy who wrote the screenplay based on am AJ Carothers story, has a pretty impressive list of movies to his credit as well, including Top Gun, Turner & Hooch, Dick Tracy (love that one too), Anaconda and the Flinstones live action sequel. Huh, I guess they can't all be winners. And of course, it stars my personal favorite late 80s star Michael J. Fox. Damn that dude is charming.

So, for those of you who haven't seen it, the story focuses on Fox as Brantley Foster. He's got a good job all set up on Wall Street, but it turns out his company got bought out by another huge corporation. He ends up working for his uncle (or at least that's what he calls Uncle Howard, but they're actual familial relation is more complicated I believe) in the mail room, but that's not enough for Brantley. He starts posing as a new guy named Carlton Whitfield who starts making a name for himself in the company. In addition to befriending Cousin Ira from Mad About You (John Pankow) in the mail room and trying to get a date with Supergirl herself (Helen Slater), Fox has to balance both of his lives and ends up...well, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. The movie's available on Netflix Instant and you should watch it immediately.

In addition to being just a fun movie about working your way up and achieving the American dream (with a fair amount of lying and deception of course), I have fond memories of watching this movie when I was younger with my parents. I don't have any specific memories of watching it, but while watching it at 26, I got transported back to some murky "younger" version of myself and really enjoyed the movie. I like it's "if you work hard, you can achieve anything" sentiment and actually wonder how much this movie effected my ethics and mentality. I can totally see doing something like this if it were even possible today. Maybe I'll just show up at DC or Playboy in a recently vacated office and act like I know what I'm doing. Hmm...

If not, I can always follow the model set forth in Private Resort (1985) and just have a good old time. This is an absolutely ridiculous movie starring Johnny Depp, Rob Morrow (of Northern Exposure and Numbers fame) and Hector Elizondo who is awesome and in everything. I actually had a better time watching the credits for this movie than the rest of the film itself. First off, Morrow, whose got his fery first movie roll, gets top billing over Johnny Depp. Then you've got Elizondo being billed as "The Maestro." Oh, and this is all over a TON of sexy 80s ladies dancing at some exclusive resort.

Private Resoprt is your basic "two guys get into wacky adventures while trying to get laid" movies. It doesn't rank in the top 10 of that sub sub sub genre, but it is fun in the same way it's fun watching Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun or, well, Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street. It's just cool to see these names doing wacky shit and being completely over the top (what's the best place for Johnny Depp to hide when he's accidently mostly naked in the bedroom of a married woman while her husband is outside getting a haircut from Morrow who's not a barber? In bed with her of course). Oh, plus, you get to see full backal nudity of both of the male leads, plus a ton of lady boobs. The great thing about watching these 80s movies is that you never know whose top will be coming off because you have no idea who any of these ladies are.

Ther eare a few other enjoyable moments. For one thing, there's this little kid who's wandering around the resort trying to see boobs using a fishing line and one of those squeeze robot hands you can get at a toy store and look like a robot hand. He's like the Data of toplessness. There's also a great subplot where Elizondo is obsessed with keeping his hair nice, which is kind of funny in a meta way because I've only known the dude to be bald. You also get your fair share of weirdo hippy sisters who need a date, grannies who know karate, security guards who take their jobs too seriously, d-bag resort staffers, potential and actual sexual conquests, Spicoli-like duuuuuudes and maybe Nazi German guys.

All of that may make this sound like an awesome movie, but it definitely drags and has a weird lack of music, which I realized made the movie feel longer and slower. Where was the Secret Of My Success "BOW BOW CHICKA CHICKA"-like music during the chase scenes? Oh well, the movie gets extra wacky at the end and mileage may vary, but it's worth checking out if you're in for some great 80s weirdness.

Oh, DO go on.