Project Stallone: "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot"

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
By Peter John Gardner

Do you ever have those awkward moments with your parents where they temporarily forget that you're an adult and treat you like you're ten years old again? I'm 26 years old, have been living on my own since 18, and my mom still regularly asks me if I've been brushing my teeth and eating right. When I lived in Vero Beach, my mom would always start cleaning whenever she came by for a visit. That got annoying because she would organize my belongings and throw out what she thought was loose paper and junk mail on the kitchen table. The papers on the kitchen table was usually my schoolwork.

Picture a whole, 90 minute movie based around these awkward and annoying moments, and you have the punctuationally challenged "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot". This movie thinks those moments are funny, and perhaps with the right writer they are. Thing is, the movie just makes the viewer feel uncomfortable and awkward as you watch scenes of Stallone and none other than Sofia from "The Golden Girls" as mother and son.

You can pretty much guess the plot from the title of the film and the cover of the dvd. Stallone's a cop, his mom comes to town, ends up getting involved with his police work, hilarity ensues.

There is a scene where Stallone is trying to talk a man out of jumping off a building. Defying any sort of logic, the police let Stallone's mother, a character that hasn't even been introduced to his coworkers yet, take control of the megaphone while Sly is up on the ledge trying to talk to the guy. Mama Stallone starts telling the suicidal guy how awesome her son is and informs the ladies present that he is single. The jumper tells Stallone, "Jeez man, you're worse off than I am" and heads inside the window. Cut to a news clips showing Stallone still on the ledge, and the reporter telling us about a man threatening suicide. Stallone should've jumped.

Lesson learned from the film? Your parents will always be your parents. No matter how old I get, I'll always be the baby boy in their eyes, and even as one grows into adulthood, they'll always look after me and take care of me. Now that I'm older, I don't really mind when my friends hear potentially embarrassing stories about my childhood, and I feel fortunate to have a mother that is not as overbearing as Sofia in this movie. If anything, my mom is turning out to be more like Betty White's character, Rose, from the Golden Girls.

No matter how old one gets, you'll always have a little bit of schmootz on your cheek that your mom will wipe off with a tissue in front of all your friends.

Project Stallone: "Oscar"

Oscar
By Peter John Gardner

Sly's first attempt at intentional comedy since Rhinestone was marketed as a movie for the whole family when it was released, so one would assume that Oscar is one of those films that's mainly meant for kids but also has a few jokes that only adults would understand. I remember seeing this when I was a kid and not understanding the plot at all nor finding it funny. Don't mistake my naivity for being pretentious at the tender age of ten. Around the same time, I thought that Axl Rose was a great singer and womens' breasts were filled with juice. Since I didn't understand the film, and it wasn't a Star Wars or Ghostbusters movie, I duly forgot about it.

After watching Oscar as an adult, I was able to understand the plot, and the reason that it flew over my head as a kid is because it centers around situations that a kid wouldn't care about it (confusion about who the baby's daddy is, being double crossed by accountants, marriage arrangements). The film's plot is of the Murphy's Law variety. Stallone is Snaps Provolone, a mobster who vowed to his dying father that he would go straight. The morning that he's supposed to make his final transistion into a banker, he finds out that his daughter is pregnant, his accountant is trying to screw him over, and his henchmen won't stop calling him 'boss', a running joke that's not funny the first time nor the seventeenth time it comes up in the movie.

Trying to incorporate this piece of shit into my own life is where I'm drawing a blank. I've never been involved in organized crime, I don't have a rebellious daughter or an accountant, and I don't know anyone named Oscar that could be the real father of my daughter's kid. Maybe that's my problem. I'm a simple guy who leads a simple life. I don't ask for much, and I have no problem at all with being left alone. I've been through enough drama in the past that I purposely remove myself from situations that could potentially cause unwanted drama.

I've become bored with my life for the past year and a half, and perhaps it needs complications to its plot, whether they be good or bad. I've become so defensive that I back away from situations that could be problematic, and I think it's time for that to stop. It's time for me to stop thinking too much about things and just go ahead and fucking do it and deal with whatever problems may arise when it's time. Now, I'm not going to run out today and impregnate some woman just to practice what I'm preaching but I think I'm smart enough and have good enough judgement to deal with life matters that I always told myself I couldn't handle. I've learned a lot since I was that naive little kid watching Oscar in 1991. At the very least, I know that womens' breasts are NOT filled with juice.

Project Stallone: "Rocky V"

Rocky V
By Peter John Gardner

Stallone's original draft for the script of what was, at the time, the final installment of the Rocky saga had our hero die at the end. Now artistically speaking, this wouldn't be a bad idea as it would give closure to a series that was running way past its welcome in the public eye. Stallone had the cajones to kill off the character that brought him success in Hollywood, and I sort of applaud him for that. Studios interfered by saying that it would be like killing Superman, so the ending was rewritten with Balboa victorious in the final fight. I can see it both ways, but I'm glad that Balboa stayed alive in the final fight so that this godawful movie wouldn't mark the end of what was originally an earnest and heroic character.

Not breaking formula, this one picks up right where the last film left off. After the fight with Ivan Drago at the end of Rocky IV, Balboa has suffered irreversible brain damage. If he continues fighting, he'll become even more fucked in the head. So Rocky is supposed to be a little loopy during this film, but the problem with this is that the character already comes across as retarded, so the only way the script can show that Rock-o has brain damage is by throwing in extra "yo". Rocky said "yo" in the previous films, but nowhere near the ridiculousness in this one. Rocky pretty much says "yo" for everything.

"Welcome home, Rocky!"
"Yo!"

"I love you"
"Yo."

"You've suffered severe trauma to the head"
"Yo" :-(

An obnoxious boxing promoter named Duke is Rocky's main antagonist throughout the film. He's played as a really silly version of Don King, and it's hard to keep a straight face whenever this guy comes onscreen. He wants Rocky back in the ring just for the revenue that it would bring. Adrian flat out refuses, but Rocky can't keep boxing out of his mind.

"You're a damn fool"
"Yo."

Rocky meets a young, up and commer by the name of Tommy Gun, whom he sees a little bit of himself in, so Rocky ends up training and managing the fighter. Eventually, Tommy gets frustrated with Rocky's slow burn way of managing and feels that he's ready for a shot at the title. All the meantime, Rocky's son (who has aged about five years since the last movie even though this is supposed to take place RIGHT AFTER Rocky IV) is feeling neglected by his father as Rocky turns his attention towards Tommy instead of him. See where this is going yet? Tommy and Duke end up in cahoots while Rocky makes amends with his son.

I can understand Rocky's approach to managing. It takes time to become better at what you think you're good at. Rocky's not in it for the money, and he tries to convince Tommy that fortune and glory shouldn't be his goals as a boxer. It's about, here comes the cliche, the love of the sport. Rocky was a great fighter not only because of his strength and skills but also his heart.

The lesson presented in this mess of a movie is actually pretty poignant. When choosing a path in life, go for the one that will bring you the most happiness. Throughout college, I flipped my major around a few times. It started as English, then Business, then Education, and finally Creative Writing. English and Education kinda go hand in hand with the degree I ended up with, but Business was a left field choice that I made thinking that any degree in the arts would get me nowhere. So, I flirted with Business classes for two semesters thinking that I should be doing that instead. While I learned a lot as far as business and management are concerned, my heart wasn't in it at all.

These days, I do bitch and moan about my bachelor's degree and how useless it is. That doesn't mean that I'm not proud. Quite the opposite. I worked hard in school and had to overcome many hard times outside of school during my college years, and I still made it. I graduated college, and that's more than a lot of people out there can say. Tommy Gunn would take the easy way to the top. I'm doing it the Balboa way. I may not be the best at what I do, and it may take some time to get where I want in life, but god damn it, I'm sticking with doing what I love, and I'm sure that all the frustrations that I have now with work and getting into grad school will be compensated in the end with good karma. Hopefully.

This is unrelated to piece but still needs to be addressed. After the street fight at the end of the movie, which is actually one of the highlights of the series, Rocky and Duke have this little exchange.

Duke: C'mon pug. Touch me and I'll sue. *shit eating grin*
Rocky decks him in the chin.
Rocky: Sue me for what?

And then the movie goes to final scene with Rocky and his son. What the fuck? How about assault and battery for starters? At least that would explain why Rocky is still broke at the beginning of Rocky Balboa fifteen years later. Maybe Rocky is unsueable?

"Merry Xmas!! Look! Here comes Santa Claus!"
"Yo, yo, yo"

Project Stallone: "Tango & Cash"

Tango & Cash
By Peter John Gardner

Stallone's first foray into the buddy cop genre is a doozy. Right from the get go, there's a scene where Stallone's character, Ray Tango, receives some smack talk from a fellow cop.

"Who does this guy think he is? Rambo?"

"Rambo's a pussy!"

Ooh...burn.

Crappy one liners aside, I really do like this movie. It pairs Stallone up with another 80s action icon, Kurt Russell, a man that Quentin Tarantino has proved to the world is still a badass to this very day.

What you get with Tango and Cash is a typical 80s buddy cop in the vein of the Lethal Weapon movies. Two cops are pulled together by a common bad guy that wants them both taken out. The cops are polar opposites on the surface, but they overcome their differences and realize they have a lot in common and work well together. There's also the damsel in distress played by Teri Hatcher who also happens to be Tango's sister.

Not to mention the totally random nudity typical of 80s action movies. Russell is escaping the bad guys in parking garage. One of the cars slams into a pole causing a loud noise. Cut to a car where a couple is having sex and and a bare breasted woman looks up with complete confusion and bewilderment. Wha...?

The movie is predictable and probably wouldn't do much to impress anyone that doesn't love a cheeseball action flick. It's good, though. I think Stallone and Russell's friendship is easy to buy. They're guy's guys. It's natural. I could see them throwing down a few beers together.

This being a movie about friendship, and tomorrow being Thanksgiving, I'd like to hijack this piece into a little "thank you" and "what I've learned from you" for my two best friends. It's not that I don't love any of the rest of you enough to write a piece for you. I'm just lazy right now, and two's enough. If you really need to know why I value you as a friend, just give a little chirp.


I think that every one should have two best friends, one of each gender. It helps to balance things out in your life and to give you different prespectives and advice on situations. Kim is my girl best friend.

No, we've never dated. We've never fooled around or done the nasty, but we do get a kick out of making people think that. In actuality, Kim plays very well to the sensitive side of my personality, and she provides a calm nurturting voice towards me. Make no mistake, she's no softy. She can make a semen joke with the best of them. Thing is, Kim has a very realistic outlook on life, and I always turn to her for an honest opinion when I'm unsure of something.

"Are you fucking kidding? DON'T DO THAT! Ugh!"

"Peter....are you sure about this?"

She acts as a conscience of sorts. She's the Tango to my Cash. She keeps on tabs when I'm making foolish decisions in life. Our relationship isn't exactly the normal path towards friendship. Officially, she's my ex-girlfriend's, ex-teacher's ex-wife. Now she's the wife of one of my friends and the mother of his child. Somewhere in the middle, we struck up a friendship when we realized that we were nearly male and female versions of each other. Over course of our friendship, we shared a night shift at bank for a few monthes, and we just spent every night alternating from movie critiques and sex jokes to really deep conversations about our lives, our pasts, and our needs.

Kim is such a good friend that despite her tireless mother duties, as well as being an awesome wife, will still be a good enough friend to call you for no reason just to see how you are, or listen to rant about something at 2am that turns out to be irrelevant at 8am. She also knows how to make a single guy not feel isolated on Valentine's Day by going out of her way to make mix cds and presents. She also grabs my butt when needed. Trust me. That's important in any friendship with me. If you grab my butt, I'll love you forever.

Everyone should have a friend like Kim. She's led an extrodinary life, and she's very accepting of people despite their differences.



Abel and I have been best friends for over twelve years. We met shortly after I moved to Florida when my parents split in 1995. We sat on opposite sides of the room in Spanish class until I was moved next to him because of a flannel shirt fight I was having with this kid named Jamal. Initially, I thought Abel was a dork. He looked kinda like Angus, and he wasn't very good with Spanish (once he accidentally told the teacher that he wanted to bathe her with a rubber ducky in Spanish). It wasn't until I noticed the band names scraweled on his backpack (Nirvana, Local H, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson, Butthole Surfers, Tad) that I started to think he was alright. We eventually bonded over huffing markers. True story. They smelled fruity.

We became inseperable for years to come. The effects of puberty wore off by the time tenth grade started, and we started to look and feel good about ourselves. More importantly, we had girlfriends. Most people around the high school didn't think of us without thinking of the other, and we were constantly referred to as Abel and Peter, instead of just Abel...or Peter ("Where're Abel and Peter? I know her. Isn't she friends with Abel and Peter?"). Our senses of humor meshed incredibly well.
Abel is an extremely outgoing guy. If you've met him, you'd feel like you've known him for years. He's incredibly charming, clever, funny, good looking, and knows how to get people to feel good about themselves. He definitely plays to the male part of my personality.

"Go talk to her."

"No way. She's no interest in me."

"Shut the fuck up. Look at you..." *goes into inspirational speech about how awesome I am ending with a joke about pussy farts*

He's also extremely loyal. I know he would unconditionally take my side no matter what. He would tell me when I fuck up, but do it in a way where he shows that he understands why I fucked up. Out of all the friends that he's lost contact with over the years, I wonder why he still keeps that pimply faced dork from 9th grade as his best friend. I love him dearly though. Although the three or four years since we left Vero have caused our own personalities, separate from one another, to emerge, we still think of each other as brothers. As blood. Abel's the brother I should've had. No matter how much shit we've gone through on both ends, we still manage to shrug it off and go right into riffing about whatever we think is funny at the time. We've had some amazing adventures that warrant their own tell-all book, and I will always cherish those years of my life. He's the Cash to my Tango, always entangling me in some wacky adventure.

Friends become a part of your personality that is hard to shake off when the friendship is a strong one. I hold all of my friends close to my heart, and I thank everyone for putting up with a shmuck like me.

Project Stallone: "Lock Up"

Lock Up
By Peter John Gardner

Prison isn't such a bad place to be. In the world of "Lock Up", if you're in the "normal" prison that Sly is being held in at the beginning of the filmyou can leave on the weekends if you want and bring back cigarettes and other treats for your fellow inmates. If you're serving hard time in a maximum security prison, you're still allowed to work on vintage cars (the movie never explains why there's a garage with vintage automobiles in a PRISON) without any kind of supervision and granted access to flammable subtances and tools that could easily be used as weapons.

Lock Up tells the story of Frank Leone, a man who is quietly serving out the remainder of his sentence when he is moved into a different prison with an ex-warden of his with an axe to grind. Leone made the ex-warden (played by Donald Sutherland) look like an ass, so now the tables have turned, and it's now time for payback.

Too bad for Sutherland; they fucked with the wrong Italian.

Watching this, you won't feel any suspense. In this film, the supposedly hardcore prison seems pretty damn tame compared to other movie prisons and looks like Disneyworld compared to real prison. There may be mandatory lockdowns, some beatings by guards here and there, and a brutal delousing, but that's about it. These guys seem to spend more time outside of their cells than inside. They work on cars at leisure and play football outside unsupervised. Some of the inmates try to rough up Stallone, but you won't care because Stallone is cut like a bodybuilder in this movie. I never thought I'd say something like this, but this movie needs a good rape scene. Otherwise, the inmates and warden don't seem like any threat at all.

There's not much to be gained from this movie. It deserves its place in Wal-Mart's five dollar bin. A better movie would've shown me the horrors of prison, and my lesson learned would've been something about how I'll never break the law again because I wouldn't want to end up in a prison like Lock Up. Instead, I vow to stay out of trouble from now on only because I don't want to be forced to work on cars or play football. I really don't like doing either one of those activities.

Project Stallone: "Rambo III"

Rambo III
By Peter John Gardner

Let me just say right off the bat that I'm going to get somewhat off track on this one because as far as Rambo III is concerned, there's nothing more I can add besides some more Cold War commentary that I've already covered in Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV (these films are classy because they use Roman numerals).

Rambo III seems to forget that it should actually be called First Blood Part III but who's keeping track? Anyway, it takes its cue more from the second film than the first, which means instead of exploring the effects of PTSD on a Vietnam Vet (which would've made a far more interesting film), we get another movie with Rambo planted in the middle of a foreign country and ordered to blow things up, which he does a lot. The plot itself finds Rambo on a mission to rescue his former commanding officer who happens to be in Afghanistan being held captive by those pesky Russians.

It's easy to see the parallels between the film's depiction of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 80s and America's occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq in the 00s. Yes, America provided Afghani rebels (see they're not terrorists unless they're against us) with aid and arms to fight the Russians. Yes, Afghanistan ended up using those very same resources on us when we went in there after 9/11 on our "BIN LADEN: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE" mission.

By the way, weren't we supposed to catch that guy? What happened with that?

I don't want to go on an anti war rant because most of us are all on the same page about Iraq now. There are those such as myself that were against it from the beginning, those that are against it now for the right reasons, and those that are against it simply because we're not "winning" (wrong reasons, but at least they're on our team now). Yeah, our administration purposely misled the public (sidenote: Kudos to Kucinich for finally having the cajones to file an impeachment against Cheney). Yeah, Iraq is starting to look like Vietnam. Yeah, we're about to do the same thing with Iran. We all know.

What I'd like to address here is the apathy that I've gained towards politics over the years. 2000 was the first election that I was eligible to vote in, and hot damn, I was excited. It was Bush vs. Gore, and I remember the general feeling that Gore was going to win. Bush was not qualified enough, he seemed kind of...dumb, and Gore was coming off as vice-president during one of the best presidencies of the twentieth century (Argue all you want about Clinton. It's true.) So, I voted for Nader that election. In hindsight, it was a very foolish choice, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was certain that Gore would win, so I was in the camp of people that wanted Nader to get enough votes so that a third party would receive federal funding during the next election and Americans would be able to have more palpable third party choices for the presidency.

We all know how that one turned out.

2004, I was fed up with everything about the Bush administration, as was half of America (or at least ones that read the newspapers). Bush stole the first election, proved himself to be a downright inept leader, and made Reagan look like Steven Hawking. At this time, I was at UCF and election fever was unavoidable. I joined in, thinking that I could make a difference. I helped register people to vote. I handed out information regarding why Bush was a failure. In the end, it didn't matter. The morning after the election, I lost my faith not only in the American people, but also my ability to make a difference in politics as well.

No matter how much concrete facts and information people had, they still voted for Bush. "He's going to end terrorism!" Sure, he's also going to end racism too. Just watch. Not only that, but so much sketchy stuff happened in Ohio and Florida that day that I believe the election would've gone to Captain Asshole regardless of the actual results of the election.

Here we are now with the 2008 elections right around the corner. Save for Ron Paul, all of the Republican candidates, while more articulate, are just as sketchy and misguided as Bush. The Democrats seem to be more concerned with slinging mud at each other instead of dismantling any chance the Republicans would have to keep the White House. I've got my favorite, John Edwards, but as it stands now, I highly doubt that he'll get the nomination.

Even still, I'm finding it harder to care. Does my vote make a difference if the teams are going to play dirty and rig the results? Why should I bother when all the candidates are just making empty promises in order to gain public favor? Why should I care when whoever gets elected is just going to run into a bunch of roadblocks once they get elected due to all of the partisan infighting and instead of making substantial progress with things that need to be addressed (our health care and education system, social security, reducing our deficit, ending the damn war already), and instead just coming up with a series of lame compromises that would appease the two parties in Washington, but not one single American voter.

Holy shit. This was supposed to be about Rambo. Ok, I'll try and tie the two together. Right now, America is in a "Rambo III" phase, where we just blindly go into other countries, wreck things, and expect to be regarded as heroes. Instead, America should be more like "First Blood". We have the capabilities to fuck shit up, but it should only be used when pushed too far. America should be fixing problems within its own borders rather than worrying about what Iran is doing or whatnot.

Or America could be more like "The Party at Kitty and Stud's" where we all look kinda stoned and just enjoy the fruits of life. Wait, that's Amsterdam. Maybe we could just get drunk and play soccer like in "Victory". Oops, that's Ireland.

I'll stop with the stereotypes now.

It's going to be a long jump down from this soapbox.

Project Stallone: "Over the Top"

Over the Top
By Peter John Gardner

Ah, Over the Top. I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid, and all I could remember about it was that it was about arm wrestling and that Stallone turned his hat backwards for that extra little burst of strength before a match. I thought about handing the reigns of Project Stallone over to a friend of mine for his take on the film just to see if someone else could find a fresh prespective on the same old tired themes that I've been knee deep in for the past year. The movie's about ARM WRESTLING at truck stops. There's not much I can work with there. However, when I rewatched the film myself in order to add any notes to the ghost written entry, I found that Over the Top opened up a whole new can of worms that I could explore...my daddy issues.

Plot in a nutshell: Stallone plays a truck driver named Lincoln Hawk who just so happens to be an awesome arm wrestler. He has a son that he hasn't seen in ten years that has been in his mother's care, but when the mom begins to fall ill, she sends Hawk to pick up their son from military school to be by her side. The kid still hates his dad for leaving until he sees how great of an arm wrestler he is. Yes, father and son bond over ARM WRESTLING in this movie. Anyway, bad guys from Hawk's past get involved, the kid gets kidnapped, Stallone has to win an ARM WRESTLING tournament to win back his son and his love, and everything becomes hunky dory.

My father left me when I was fourteen years old. Growing up, he was both physically and mentally abusive towards my brother and I. The good times with him were few and far between, and my childhood was mostly living in fear of getting the living shit beat out of me for the slightest mistake (Ex: in my house, accidentally breaking the towel rack would earn you a beatdown with said towel rack). When my father left and my parents divorced, I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. I was afraid of him, and now that he was out of the picture, I didn't want him in my life, not until he showed some kind of remorse for the way he treated my brother and I or at least exhibit some kind of personal growth or change.

That never happened. Since I was still a minor, the court ordered me into therapy as collateral for not wanting to see my dad. My dad and I communicated through a third party, and I could see that he was as stubborn as ever. He wanted me in his life, but he wouldn't admit or even acknowledge any wrongdoing. He kept sending me cards for Xmas and my birthday, but I didn't respond. At that age, I didn't know how to in an appropriate way.

It's been twelve years since I've spoken to him, and the cards stopped coming several years ago. Over the Top, god damn it, made me rethink where I stand with my father right now. I wondered what would happen if I were stuck in a semi truck driving cross country with my dad. Granted, he was never the tough guy, truck driver type, but it's been twelve years. He could be a badass arm wrestler now for all I know.

Stallone's character is a flawed individual. Aside from abondoning his son at an early age, he was also a drug pusher back in the day. Still, he is able to re-establish a bond with his son through the power of ARM WRESTLING. Not a perfect father-son bond, but a bond nonetheless.

I'm an adult now. I know my dad is a flawed individual, as am I. Perhaps it's time to tie up a loose end from my childhood. The only wrinkle in that plan is that I have absolutely no idea how to get in contact with him, being as how he's a very private person that never has his name listed in the phonebook. Not only that, but there are about 267,797,257,089,234,230,911 John Gardners in the world. It's hard to find the right one. I don't know if bringing him back into my life would be a positive or negative thing, and it's that fear that he's still thickheaded that holds me back from reaching out. Why bother if he's still going to treat me like shit?

You never know. At the very least, I could just arm wrestle the fucker if nothing else.

Project Stallone: "Cobra"

Cobra
By Peter John Gardner

Little known fact that I swear I'm not making up for the sake of this article: one of my dream jobs as a child was a cop. Any kind of law enforcement interested me as a kid whether it is a detective or member of the SWAT team. Bottom line, I wanted to bust some dirt bags and bring peace and justice to society. My friends and I would gather our Super Soaker water guns and have neighborhood gang wars with two teams as the inner city (well, suburban Texas) gangs, while a core group of three or four would be the cops. I always wanted to be on the cops’ team.

Another dream job of mine when I was a kid (and I still have the 1st grade essay to prove it) was to be a garbage man. Only because I wanted to ride on the back of the truck every morning. Ambitious young lad I was.

Movies like "Cobra" fed into my understanding that being a cop would be an awesome job. The life of a cop was the life of a badass; one that plays by his own rules, carries automatic weapons, tells bad guys awesome lines like, “You’re the disease, and I'm the cure," and fuck Brigitte Nielsen before Flava Flav brought the noise on her.

"Cobra" is every 80s action movie cliché you can think of. Stallone is the badass cop (his license plate even reads AWSME 50); Brigitte Nielsen is the damsel in distress that knows too much. There are murders going on around the city. The cops think it's the work of one man; Cobra knows otherwise and takes matters into his own hands. Stallone and Brigitte get busy with the fizzy. Cobra blows shit up with complete disregard for the paperwork and legal issues that would ensue. You know the drill. You've seen this movie before even if you haven't.

That being said, the world needs movies like this. It's escapist fare, pure and simple, and there will always be a market for movies like this. Society will always have the people that come home from a shitty day at work or school and be taken into a world where renegade cops are the heroes and car chases and explosions are aplenty. Sometimes a person just isn't in the mood for Bergman or Herzog. We have to celebrate the bad movies for they take us to a place where everything is just a tad cooler, even if it's just for ninety minutes, and that little kid inside of you is tickled by the thought that you could've been a cop that doesn't take shit from anyone, like Cobra.

And then you have assholes like me that try to extrapolate these films and find meaning where there is none.

Project Stallone: "Rocky IV"

Rocky IV
By Peter John Gardner

Dear Mr. Sylvester Stallone,

Greetings and my most sincere salutations. My name is Peter, and I have been working on a project of sorts that revolves around your career. Perhaps you may have run across it when Googling your name during a break from filming John Rambo. In a nutshell, what I'm doing is watching each of your movies in chronological order, starting with your memorable performance in the porn flick, "The Party at Kitty and Stud's", and trying to derive some sort of meaning from each one in the hopes that I could find some enlightenment and/or purpose in my life. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. With all due respect, I am not your biggest fan. Other than the Rocky movies and a few others, I find most of your work painful to sit through. I hope that doesn't insult you, but I'm sure that you realize that films "Rhinestone" are piles of horseshit. The project is a fasting of sorts, or cleansing if you will. I made a pact with myself that if I could get through each movie in your filmography and pull something useful out of it, then I can pretty much do anything. While some entries are stronger than others (a few are obvious rush jobs that I did just to get out of the way so that I could get to a better movie), I think I've done ok with it so far.

Now after watching "Rocky IV" the other night in this new context, I am starting to have some serious concerns about your work and mine. You see, almost every one of your films up to this date has had the overall theme of an underdog overcoming the odds. That's fine. You stick to what works best for you. It's not like anybody chastised Hitchcock for making too many suspense films, and I've been trying to ignore that theme and pull something different out of each movie. What concerns me is that I'm starting to see another thread emerging in your work, and it's not making my life any easier as a writer. "Rocky IV" is the middle chapter in a trio of movies that you've done that address the Cold War, and I'm kind of stuck because I wanted to save my comments regarding the Cold War when I got to "Rambo III". The only other thread I can latch onto in this movie is the usual underdog theme, and fuck that.

Don't get me wrong. I love "Rocky IV", but not in the same way that I love the first Rocky movie. The first one I can legitimately defend as a quality piece of cinema that deserved every praise and award bestowed on it when it was released. This one, like its predecessor, I enjoy on a pure cheese ball factor. I mean, come on, there's a TALKING ROBOT that hangs around the Balboa home in this movie. There are THREE music video style montages: two training montages and one after Apollo Creed is killed by Ivan Drago where Rocky goes for a drive and has flashbacks that recap the previous three movies for us. Because, you know, people watching the fourth installment in a series of films don't have any idea what went on in the previous films and need a four minute song and montage of clips to remind us.

I digress. Back to the Cold War issue. This film has Rocky facing the human embodiment of Mother Russia himself, Ivan Drago. The first shot of the movie is two boxing gloves, one with an American flag and the other with a USSR flag, colliding before the opening credits. Rocky wears American flag boxing trunks while Drago wears red and yellow. I saw that you wrote the script for this movie. Perhaps you've learned a thing or two about making your metaphors a bit more subtle since this movie was made?

Much of this movie is just ludicrous and hard to believe. We're shown early in the film that Ivan's steroid pumped arms can punch twice as hard as the strongest boxer can. So, this basically means he can fucking destroy someone with ease, and he does so in the final match against Rocky. Balboa gets fucking wrecked for the first few minutes of the fight. Yet when Rocky lands one friggin' blow across Ivan's face midway through the fight, the tides turn for some unknown reason, and Rocky beats the shit out of him. Uh...how?

Earlier in the film, we are shown how much of a badass Ivan is when he goes up against Apollo Creed in another USA vs. USSR metaphoric match. Only that time, Drago not only demolishes Creed, but kills him. Creed, after all his pro-USA chest beating and arrogance, gets snuffed out in the ring.

Wait...

Blind patriotic flag waving and misguided "AMERICA IS #1" bravado and posturing? Where have I seen this before? Holy shit.

So were you making a prediction that the all-American tough guy attitude doesn't always work out as planned? Oh my god! Mr. Stallone, were you making political commentary on the war in Iraq fifteen years before it happened? Can you see things that we don't see, Sly?

Or maybe it was just your reaction to President Reagan's idiotic praise of Rambo (remember kids...Bush wasn't our first boneheaded president) in which he obviously missed the point of the character.

I'd rather think that you can see the future. That makes me look at "Demolition Man" in a whole new light. With that in mind, I can continue this project with a fresh outlook.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Peter Gardner

Project Stallone: "Rambo: First Blood Part II"

Rambo: First Blood Part II
By Peter John Gardner

While this is this the second entry in the series, Rambo: First Blood Part II is the movie everyone thinks of when you think of Rambo, whether you've seen it or not. This movie solidified Rambo's place in pop culture as a muscle bound, sweaty guy with a headband and a ginormous fucking machine gun shooting down all of those bad guys. Even President Ronald Reagan was a fan of the movie when it came out, and after the release of American hostages from Palestinian terrorists in 1985, Ronnie was quoted as saying, "After seeing Rambo last night, I know what to do next time this happens." This gave Americans the horrifying mental image of a shirtless Ronald Reagan, covered in sweat, and gunning down foreigners.

Rambo: First Blood Part II is inferior to its predecessor, in my opinion. While First Blood can be viewed as an examination of a veteran suffering from PTSD that is pushed too far; the sequel just takes the physical prowess of the character and places him in a "shoot the bad guys" situation overseas where no one seems to know how to aim their gun properly except for Stallone (otherwise known as 'Stormtrooper Syndrome').

The film starts off with Rambo in a prison camp, paying his dues from the previous movie by banging a sledgehammer against rocks. Rambo's commander from Vietnam finds him here and tells him that there are POWs still in Vietnam and that the American government needs solid proof that they are there. So, who better to send off to find Vietnam POWs than a former POW still suffering from PTSD that nearly blew up an entire fucking town in the previous movie? Never mind sending a specialized, top-secret task force or something. Let's send the loose cannon. At least the film captures the bone headedness of the Reagan administration properly.

Long story short, Rambo goes over there, blows stuff up, kills a bunch of commies, and falls in love. Yes. Rambo falls in love in love with a Vietnamese freedom fighter. I had forgotten all about this silly subplot since the last time I watched this movie.

I'm going to save the anti-war anti-Reagan commentary for the Rambo III (Rambo fights with the Taliban in that one!). Instead, there's a line that Rambo says a few times throughout the film that kinda stuck with me. Rambo justifies his return to enemy territory as being ok because he's "expendable". The government sees him as such, and Rambo thinks of himself that way.

It bothers me when employers see their employees as being "expendable". "So, that guy has been working here for 2 1/2 years? No matter. We need to cut costs for the holidays, and he's making twelve bucks an hour. We'll fire him for the next minor infraction that comes along and hire some schmuck to take his place for eight dollars an hour."

I've always felt that even the most dead end jobs should offer some kind of job security. Executives see only dollars and cents, not the bills that the guy mopping the floor has to pay in order to keep his family afloat. It's a shitty point of view, and I can understand that business is business and that businesses are there to make money, not coddle its employees, but still...employees are human beings. They're not just wind up robots that are there to serve a function. There's a human aspect to it all that gets lost as one climbs higher up the corporate ladder. No one should be seen as expendable, especially not soldiers. Employees for companies should feel safe in their jobs knowing that their boss sees them as a person instead of "$12.50 an hour".

I want to end this piece with a passage from the novelization of the film. No, I didn't read it; I Googled it, but it'll provide a nice leeway into Rambo III when I get to it. This dialogue ensues after Rambo rescues the POWs who have been stuck in prison camp for the past ten years:

"What's it like? In the world?"
Rambo hesitated.
"Well?" Banks asked. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing." Rambo couldn't bring himself to tell them. It would be too much. A sin. "Home? It's just the same," he lied. "The good old U.S. never changed."
"Come on, man. It must have."
"Sure. In a way, I guess. Ronald Reagan's president."
"Ronald . . .? Wait a minute. You don't mean the movie actor."
"Yep." Despite his agony, Rambo had to chuckle. "Death Valley Days himself."
"Well, holy fuck."
"Yeah, I said that many times."
And Rambo couldn't bring himself to tell them that Vietnam was about to change its name to Nicaragua. Or that the sound of John Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance' had changed to the rattle of sabers.
And maybe that's why Luke Skywalker's light sword was so popular. The clean depiction of war. If you had your head cut off, you got a new one. In the movies. Yeah, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and the movies. No, he couldn't tell them about Nicaragua. It would be too much.

Project Stallone: "Rhinestone"

Rhinestone
By Peter John Gardner

Although I was born in New York, I have lived in the south for the better part of my life. While I spawned in Long Island, NY and lived there for my first seven years, my family moved to Dallas, TX when my father received a job offer from JCPenney HQs located in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. After seven years of Texas, my parents divorced, and my mom and I moved to Florida so that we could be closer to my grandparents. I've been living in the south for about 17 years now, yet it's never felt like home to me. Even though I only lived in NY for a few years, it was the NY mindset and culture that I most identified with, seeing as how my family consisted of native New Yorkers and New Englanders. To this day, I still have NY-to--Southern-America culture shock moments. I giggle when I see somebody wearing a cowboy hat, and I still think southern accents sound funny.

Rhinestone finds our old friend Sly in a similar boat. He plays a smart-mouthed, obnoxious, simple minded cab driver in New York City. He comes from a stereotypical Italian-American family (they have meatballs for lunch! Every day!) and lives above his father's funeral parlor. One night, when scaring the living shit out of some Japanese tourists in his taxi, he ends up at the Rhinestone club which just so happens to be THE place to go for country western...in New York City. Meanwhile, Club Rhinestone's in-house star Jake (played by Dolly Parton), has a bet going with the club's manager that she can turn the next "normal" person she sees into a country music sensation. Stallone nearly crashes into the front of the club with his taxi, tourists still in tow. And then, my friends, hilarity ensues...

The rest of the movie is just one awkward and uncomfortable moment after another as we see Stallone learning not only how to sing country music but the ins and outs of Southern culture as well ("If you want to be a real cowboy, you gotta mix your peas with your mashed potatoes!" says Dolly). Have you ever wanted to see Sylvester Stallone in cowboy attire? You got it. How about Stallone trying to get Dolly Parton to sleep with him? It's here. Stallone singing the most god awful country music you will ever hear? Rent this bad boy.

The movie is meant to be a comedy, but it left me feeling more awkward than anything. To its credit, Stallone's character is supposed to be obnoxious, and he handles that well (whether he's consciously doing so or not is another matter entirely). Dolly Parton, as ridiculous looking as she is under about ten pounds of makeup, is actually quite charming in her role. She's basically playing herself, but that's ok. Dolly's personality is basically that Southern-girl-next-door type; everyone knows a girl like Dolly, minus all the makeup.

Coming from a family with a prominent Italian-American side, I couldn't help but share Stallone's awkwardness and culture shock throughout this entire movie. I've had many embarrasing moments when hanging out with friends that grew up primarily in the south. For instance, I had no idea what the fuck grits were for most of my life. My family always called the dish polenta.

"Wanna go out fer breakfast and git some pancakes and grits?"
"Pancakes and wha...?"

This gem from an ex-girlfriend's family Thanksgiving dinner also sticks out in my mind:

Her uncle: "We're gonna have a barn raising this weekend. You should help out, Pieter (yes, that's how southern people pronounce my name)!
Me: "What the hell is a barn raising?"

There seems to be such a sharp divide between northeast culture and southern culture in America that when one combines the two, as in Rhinestone, the results aren't exactly comedic. They just feel like a series of really awkward scenes that rely solely on the fish-out-of-water element for laughs.

I'm 26 years old, and I've lived in the south for 19 years of my life. I don't really consider myself a New Yorker at heart. I never developed a New York accent (unlike everyone else in my family), my attachment to the state has dissipated over time, and whenever I've gone back to visit family, while I feel more comfortable there than in the South, it still doesn't quite feel like home. I don't really feel like a Southerner either. I don't care for Southern cooking, never got into country, never picked up a Southern accent, never understood the attachment to religion, never understood Southern pride and rebel flags, and I NEVER mix my peas with my mashed potatoes.

So, if New York doesn't feel like home, and I don't really fit in Texas or Florida, then where do I belong? This movie only reminded me of the black sheep insecurites that I feel with my friends, co-workers, and my own family. Rhinestone is supposed to be a comedy, but it just made me uncomfortable. While you may not share the same insecurities that I do, the sight of Stallone in cowboy swag line-dancing and singing country songs should be enough to make you squirm.

"Wherever you go, there you are." Ok, that's cool and all, but what if where you are just doesn't feel like it's where you're supposed to be?

Project Stallone: "Staying Alive"

Staying Alive
By Peter John Gardner

I am of the opinion that the makers of this movie intended it to be a masochistic experience for desperate souls that want to end their life. Watching this movie is an exercise of one's own will to live. As I watched this film, I considered suicide a few times, desperately wanting to get out of watching the rest of Staying Alive.

This movie is bad. Not just any kind of bad. It's a different kind of bad. This movie wrecked my soul.

For Project Stallone, I just follow along Stallone's filmography on imdb.com with Netflix. This movie, while written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, only featured him onscreen in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. "Whatever," I thought to myself. I've watched a movie with a Sly cameo for the Project before (Lovers and Other Strangers) and ended up actually kind of liking the movie.

But not here. This movie's aim is to hurt you. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if this movie was commissioned by the government in order to control overpopulation.

"Staying Alive" is an unnecessary sequel to "Saturday Night Fever", which is actually a pretty damn good movie even if you don't like disco. I don't know whose idea it was to bring back Tony Manero for more dancing hijinks, but the aftermath is crystal clear. This movie killed Travolta's status as an A-list star, and his career wouldn't be revived until Quentin Tarantino brought him onboard as Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction".

Perhaps it was Stallone's idea. A tough talking, streetwise, Italian-American from New York that rises to the top using his own raw talent? Stallone can relate, I'm sure. Dancing around in leotards and thongs for Broadway auditions? If that was Stallone's idea as well, I think we might be starting to see an abundance of underlying homosexuality at this point in his career (for further proof, see Rocky III).

I know the notion of a Travolta and Stallone teamup excites all of us, but the results will make you hate yourself. The plot of this movie is a mess of cliche and disjointed scenes that have no relevance to the plot of the movie. It's basically a boy-meets-girl, boy-thinks-he's-hot-shit, girl-ends-up-using-boy, boy-tries-to-win-her-over-with-his-supreme-dance-moves film. It lacks the fun and sass of Saturday Night Fever, as well as a decent soundtrack. Whereas in Saturday Night Fever, most of the songs are recognizable to even the most casual viewer, "Staying Alive" is flooded with dance sequences set to 80's synth pop that sounds like something you'd hear while shopping at TJ Maxx on a Sunday morning.

And there are MANY closeups of Travolta's crotch. They are so abundant that I refuse to believe that they weren't deliberately trying to insert as many crotch shots as possible. If you've ever wondered what kind of heat Travolta is packing, then this movie is for you.

But it's not the crotch shots that killed this movie for me. The plot is predictable, the dialogue will have you thinking, "Nobody fucking says that", the dance sequences aren't exciting at all, and the acting will make you want to stab yourself in the crotch with a pair of scissors. Nothing in this movie will enlighten anyone. Believe me, I tried to find some kind of lesson in this film, but I've got nothing other than repeating the usual underdog themes that I've discussed for previous Stallone films.

That doesn't mean that I didn't get anything out of this experience. After making it through "Staying Alive" with my wrists uncut, I now know that I can withstand anything that life may throw at me. It was a test of endurance and willpower, and I passed. In fact, I feel that anyone that can make it through Staying Alive's 93 minute runtime is a tough cookie. I don't know if making it through this movie has enlightened me in any kind of way; all I can say is that I survived.

Project Stallone: "First Blood"

First Blood
By Peter John Gardner

I can't think of a single person that I know that doesn't support our troops over in Iraq. Even the staunchest opponents of the war still support our troops. How could you not? It's not like those that are against the war want our brothers and sisters to die horrible deaths over there (as a side note, I really hate it when pro-Iraq war people try to play this card. "You're against the war? That's not supporting our troops!!" Oh, go stick your dick in an electric outlet).

Ok, so we all say that we support the troops, but do we support our veterans? How many times have you seen a scraggly looking guy on the side of the road wearing an army jacket, possibly missing a limb, and holding a sign that says something to the effect of, "Vietnam Vet. Will work for food"? Life taught us to support our friends in the military, but it also taught us to not trust hitchhikers. So there's a 50/50 chance that the veteran without an arm leering at you while you anxiously await for the stoplight to turn green could either be a drifter that was never able to adjust back into normal life or an axe murderer waiting to chop off your reproductive organs and steal the twelve bucks in your wallet.

First Blood is about drifters like these. It's the first of the Rambo series, but it's not a one man vs. 239,764,567 Russians movie like the sequels turned out to be. John Rambo never really found his place in society when he returned from the Vietnam War, so he spends his days wandering around the country, hitching rides from strangers, and picking up a meal when someone is kind enough to offer one. The movie opens with him finding out that the last soldier in his team/squad/troop/whatever-the-fuck-you-call-it has passed away from cancer brought on upon by Agent Orange. Rambo is sad.

One of you graphic-design savvy people should make a Stallone sadface emoticon for me.

Rambo makes his way to a small town in the Pacific Northwest to collect his thoughts and possibly find a warm meal. Now, this is a nice town with nice people, and the police here don't take too kindly to "unsightly" drifters such as Rambo, so the sheriff tries to escort Rambo out of town. Rambo is frustrated.

He goes back into town in defiance because he just wants some food and a place to sleep for a while. The sheriff catches him again, and this time he takes Ramby Bamby downtown where the other officers have their way with him. I should clarify that. They don't rape him, but they each take turns beating the shit out of him. This triggers some POW flashbacks in Rambo's brain, and he goes APESHIT. Turns out that the drifter that they've been beating up used to be a Green Beret in Vietnam. Oops. After single handedly taking on four officers, Rambologna makes his way out of the police station and into the mountains. Rambo is pissed. The police are even more pissed.

And the adventure is on. The rest of the movie is a manhunt carried out by the entire county's sheriff's department, the FBI, and the local National Guard. Unlike the sequels, Rambone never directly kills anyone in this movie. He does set many traps and scares the shit out of anyone that crosses paths with him in the forest. Rambo doesn't take shit from anyone.

I wish I knew how to make a story like this relevant to my life and yours. The movie itself seems to be a protest against war, saying, "See what happens when we make killing machines out of these men and then return them to normal life?", but I don't want to write an anti-war piece (I'll save that for Rambo III or Spy Kids 3-D). Is the lesson here to pick up grungy vets on the side of the road because if you push them the wrong way, they might go all one man army against the town? I don't think so. Even though I'm sure that deep down, most of those vets you see are good hearted people that simply can't readjust and have become socially retarded. Yet, for my own safety, I really don't think I'd offer one a ride. If I had a business or something, I might offer a job.

I think what I'm getting at is the way we look at these people. We celebrate the vets that have come back from war and successfully reintegrated themselves back into the daily grind of life, yet we fear the ones who haven't. War is a scary thing, and I couldn't imagine not being fucked in the head after seeing some of the things that soldiers see every day. The movie itself seems to be a protest against war, saying, "See what happens when we make killing machines out of these men and then return them to normal life?" So why do we shy away from the ones that need a little extra help? Remember Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings? Same thing. He couldn't readjust to normal life in the Shire, so he went to Valinor, but we all still loved him, right? Flimsy parallel, I know, but do you see what I'm getting at?

Maybe it's just the overall fear of hitchhikers that prevent us from helping out these vets. I'm one of the guilty ones, though. I'll give an extra dollar or two if I'm chatting with a drunk, homeless vet downtown or something, but I'm sure as hell not giving a ride to one of them. I value my testicles.

*Footnote: This dvd has some of the most hilariously useless special features I've ever seen. It boasts "groundbreaking military special operations survival mode features" which really just amount to a sniper scope appearing onscreen at different points during the film to let you know important information like what is happening right now. For example, Rambo is trying to make his way through an underground sewer filled with rats. The "survival mode" thingee pops up and tells you that, yes, those are indeed rats. Nothing about what went into making the scene, what kind of rats they might be, did Stallone get his nipples bit by one, etc. Nope. It just tells us that they're rats. Gee, thanks!

Project Stallone: "Rocky III"

Rocky III
By Peter John Gardner

"To all my love slaves out there: Thunderlips is here. In the flesh, baby. The ultimate male versus... the ultimate meatball."

So says Thunderlips, played by none other than Hulk Hogan, in the third installment in the Rocky series; a moment that I like to pinpoint as the exact moment where Stallone movies can't be taken seriously anymore. "The Party at Kitty and Stud's" aside, Stallone's repertoire up until this point consisted of movies, while still bad, where legit attempts at selling Stallone as a serious actor/writer/director. When you've got Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and Burgess Meredith together in one movie, one can only mutter, "What the hell?", sit back, and revel in the awesomeness of this cornucopia of 80's pop culture.

Like all Rocky movies, Rocky III opens up with a recap of what went down in the previous film, that being Apollo Creed. What follows is a montage of Rocky beating the crap out of his subsequent opponents. Presumably, we're supposed to see Rocky becoming more cocky and overconfident during this montage, but it's hard to feel that when they've got the triumphant sounding Rocky theme playing.

You've probably seen this movie on a Sunday afternoon at some point in your life, so I'll spare you a lengthy summary of the film. Basically what happens is Mr. T wants a shot at Rocky's belt, Rock-o thinks his shit doesn't stink and doesn't take the challenge seriously, so Mr. T destroys him in the first match. Mr. Balboa wants the title back, but his confidence and will is destroyed. Only his ex-rival, Apollo Creed, can help He-Who-Says-"Yo" regain his confidence and hunger or his "eye of the tiger" as Creed calls it so we can have the Survivor song fit snugly into the film. The two boxers befriend each other in the second most repressed homosexual relationship in an 80's movie (the first being Top Gun, of course). Seriously, watch the token training montage late in the film where they're running on the beach together. You can't tell me those two don't want each other.

The term "eye of the tiger" would make a great euphamism for Stallone's urethra.

At this point, there are so many stupid one-liners and jokes that Rocky has become harder to relate to as a person and thus feels more like a cartoon character. Beneath the cheese of it all lies a theme (I think) of confidence. One cannot become too confident when they find success or else they run the risk of forgetting where they came from. Success can take away a person's drive to one-up themself and can provide a false feeling of invincibility. In Rocky's case, being too cocky led to a swift ass beating from Mr. T.

I've always tried to remain a humble person. Some would call it low self-esteem, but that's not how I look at it. I've achieved things in my life that I'm proud of, and want other people to be proud of, but I also know that I'm nothing in the grand scheme of things. I barely register on your radar. Always assuming that someone can do something better than me gives me a will to try my hardest. If I thought I was the shit, I would become lazy and think that no one could do better than me and not give it my all. I guess the lesson to learn from Rocky III is to know your strengths well, but be aware that if you become too arrogant, you'll wind up getting the shit beat out of you by Mr. T.

"Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are!" Thanks for that nugget of wisdom, Rocky.

Project Stallone: "Victory"

Victory
By Peter John Gardner

I've noticed that the two main "interests" that parents forcibly put their kids into during their formative years are sports and religion. As far as religion is concerned, I lucked out. While my parents were both religious (Mom is Catholic, Dad's a Lutheran), they felt it was wrong to shove it down my throat as a kid, so they preferred to let me research things and discover it on my own. I eventually grew into being an atheist. Instead, they enrolled me in various sports in order to keep me busy as a child. I played basketball, baseball, and soccer, and I rocked at all three of them. In baseball, I held the title for most stolen bases in the league for three years in a row, and my team was first place in our division for two years. As a goalie in soccer, I won the MVP award in the league one year, and we usually placed second or third in our division.

As time passed and all of the kids started to grow up, the coaches and leagues started to place more stress on the competitive aspect of the sports rather than the usual, "Let's just go out there and have fun!" attitude. This turned me off, big time. I just liked to play the game; I didn't give a fuck either which way whether or not we won. The older I got, the harder the coaches would be on the team when we weren't winning, and I hated that as a kid. So, when school finished up one year (I think this was around 6th or 7th grade), and my mom asked me if I wanted to sign up for baseball that summer, I told her no, and gave her the same answer when the new seasons for basketball and soccer started up. I was tired of competition. I just liked to play. To me, it was a hobby. I didn't see anything to gain from winning other than a cheap trophy and the right to say, "Yeah! We kicked the CRAP out of those 12 year olds! Whoooo!!!"

Rocky and a few other films aside (Field of Dreams, Major League, Rudy, etc.), I never really cared for sports movies which stemmed from the bad taste that I had acquired from my last days playing. So, I went into Stallone's 1981 film Victory ready to bored and stumped as to what I was going to get out of a movie like this.

The film is set at a Nazi POW camp during WWII. This camp is filled with mostly British and American prisoners, so in order to comply with Geneva Convention, the prisoners here actually have it quite good. Other than somebody getting shot to death trying to escape the camp in the opening scene of the movie, the camp seems like Club Med compared to concentration camps that non-POWS (i.e. Jews) were put into . This place seems less like Auschwitz and more like Camp Nowhere. Hell, in this movie, the Nazs seem like pretty nice guys. They never really talk down to the prisoners, feed and dress them well, let them roam around the camp freely, and even make an offer to the prisoners for a game of football (better known as soccer to us fat Americans). So, the head Nazi leader makes an offer to one of the POWs who happens to be an ex-football pro, played by the always charming Michael Caine. Caine's character agrees providing that he gets to choose his own team and that the Nazis provide proper equipment for the players.

Stallone plays Capt. Robert Hatch, an American POW that barges his way onto the team using the same nagging tactics that Stallone normally uses to woo women in previous films ("Hey, yo. Can I be on your team? Hey, yo, I'm pretty good, ya know? You see that kick? I can do that all the time? Am I the team yet? Yo. Hey, ya know, why are you ignoring me?"). Hatch not only wants to play the game, but he also has ulterior motives. Stallone wants to escape the camp, and he sees the soccer match as his ticket out. The rest of the film follows typical sports movie formula. The team sucks at first, they acquire some new players, including, I shit you not, the legendary Pele. The team gets better, Hatch "hatches" a plan to escape during the final match, and we get to the final game where everything follows according to formula. OUr heroes start off winning, then the Nazis start kicking their ass, and just when we're supposed to think that the POWs are finished, they make a huge, and unrealistic, comeback. Hatch and company escape and everything is hunky dory.

Watching the last act of the movie gave me an epiphany. Because I always rejected the competitive aspect of sports, I started to reject any kind of competitive traits my personality was trying to develop. I think this eventually hurt me in life, in many different areas. Too many times in my life, I have not tried for something because I always had a mindset of, "Why compete? They'll probably find someone better anyway". The thrill of winning something was too far gone from my life that I forgot what it felt like. Not winning anything helped sink my self esteem as I grew up.

Opportunities for promotion at various jobs I've worked at were always ignored by me because I would think, "Eh, they'll find somebody more deserving". Many times a girl would show interest in me, I would pull back sometimes with the thought of, "Why bother? She'll eventually find somebody better than me".

I think I ignored competition because deep down inside, I never felt like anything was at stake. Watching Victory with an analytical mindset made me realize that A LOT was at stake during all of the times I ignored competition for windows of opportunity. The lack of a drive to win has hurt my chances at life, and I think that had I felt like I was worth something while those windows were open, I would've jumped through without looking, and maybe, just maybe, I would be standing in a different place in my life right now. If I had competed more, maybe I could've "won". Maybe that would've made me feel like, "Well, I can do this really well, and others seem to agree", and I would've had more progress throughout life.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that winning is the most important part of sports or any other competitive situation. I still believe that having fun is what's most important. But rejecting the competition that life had to offer left me little opportunity to actually win anything at all, and that affected my decision making later on in life.

I need to take more chances in life and stop selling myself short. Having low self esteem not only hurts myself, but brings others down as well. I need to stop reflecting on what I never did and instead focus on what I could do. As far as the things I don't think I can do, who else but myself says I can't do them? Fuck that. While Orlando isn't exactly a Nazi POW camp, I'm never going to make it out of here a success if I don't try. I must stop being my own worst critic and leave it up for others to decide.

Project Stallone: "Nighthawks"

Nighthawks
By Peter John Gardner

Lando Calrissian. Just the mere mention of that name simultaneously brings about arguments amongst Star Wars fans over whether or not he was a better pilot than Han while the rest of the world collectively rolls their eyes and continue to get laid.

I’ve always been indifferent towards Lando. When I was a kid, I didn’t think he was as exciting as Luke, Han, or anyone else in the Star Wars universe. As an adult, I can see that while his character is crucial to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I kinda think that the fact that he’s little more than a Han clone weakens his character.

But, I digress. You come here for Stallone, not Star Wars.

I only mention Lando because Stallone's co-star in this political fueled thriller is none other than Lando himself, Billy Dee Williams. Lando and Stallone star as two New York City undercover cops that routinely clean up the criminal trash permiating the seedy bowels of pre-Giuliani NYC. When I say "undercover", I'm not fucking around. You see Sylvester Stallone in a blond wig in the first 10 minutes of the movie. Stallone in a blond wig and Lando Calrissian in the same movie? How can that not be great?

Well, as with most of these movies, it's not. If this movie were made in this day and age, I wonder how it would be received by the public. The plot centers around Rutger Hauer's character, Wulfgar, who is a terrorist bomber, back before everybody associated terrorism with Al-Qaeda. When the feds find out that Wulfgar has come to America and is ready to fuck shit up (his motivations aren't explained that well), the government decides to enlist the best cops that NYC has to offer.

The moment where the plot kicks into gear is where I found myself identifying most with Stallone's character. At a briefing regarding Wulfgar and ways to prevent terrorist activity, Stallone keeps asking the lead investigator questions like, "Hey, yo. Why are we still in this room? Why, uh, why aren't we out catching this guy?" and most importantly, "What do you want out of us?"

What do you want out of us...I find myself asking that everytime the government mentions terrorism. I've been casually following the race for the White House and of course, terrorism is a big talking point. Giuliani and most of the other Republicans seem to be taking the same stance that the Bush administration has, that being, "Vote for us or else we're going to get attacked again! Holy shit!", while the Democrats seem to dance around the issue without really offering any clear solutions.

It's been six years since 9/11. We haven't had a major terrorist attack since then, and who knows if anyone out there is responsible for preventing them since (like our president would have you believe, but he hasn't been a reliable source of information) or if another big attack just hasn't happened yet. It's not like we get attacked by terrorists all the time. If you recall, the previous foreign terrorist attack on US soil was at WTC in the early 90s. It's not like these things happen every few weeks.

Still, candidates from both sides of the spectrum like to hang the terrorist card over our heads as a political tool. But I quote Stallone when I ask, "Well, what the hell are we supposed to do?" Really, in the six years since 9/11, has your life changed drastically? Do you do anything different in your daily life? Other than airports being more of a pain in the ass than before, I haven't detected much change in my life. When the government warns me about terrorism, what are average people like you and me supposed to do? When they raise the terror alert, do we stay inside for the night or sit outside holding shotguns? No. I'm not trying to belittle the threat. We lost many of our brothers and sisters on that day, and I've complied with the bumper stickers that littered pickup trucks in the aftermath that told me to never forget. It's the "Vote for me and I will protect you" mentality that I don't understand. It's the fear tactic that I'm tired of seeing politicians use. I'm not going to go overboard and say that's the kind of shit that leads to a dictatorship, but I would like to point out that through the use of fear, the Bush admistration has gained more powers than any previous administration.

'Hey, yo. What are we supposed to do?" My opinion? Nothing, really. Living in fear is no way to live. Other countries out there, such as Northern Ireland, face terrorist attacks on their soil every month. Do their citizens cower in fear and refuse to go outside? No. They just go on with their business. Yeah, things are getting blown up, people are dying, and we all feel remorseful, but what can one do about it?

Terrorism and the war in Iraq are both major issues, but there is other shit that I wish the candidates would talk more about instead of focusing like on those like we did in 2004. What about our cracked educational system? What about our ginormous deficit? Our healthcare system? The environment? Terrorism is something we should be conscious and aware of, but it shouldn't be the only thing that we should be thinking about. The world is full of other things to be afraid of as well, like Stallone in a blond wig and dress. That's the kind of shit that keeps me up at night.

Project Stallone: "Rocky II"

Rocky II
By Peter John Gardner

An paraphrased excerpt from a conversation I had last week with Kim:

"I'm thinking about abandoning Project Stallone."
"Why?!"
"I don't know. It's starting to bore me, nobody's really giving me any feedback, and I feel like I'm just repeating myself with a lot of these entries."
"You can't do that! I, for one, love reading them!"
"Yeah, but..."
"Stallone would keep pushing forward"
"Yeah, but..."
"What would Stallone do?"

Stallone would keep doing what he does best and with Rocky II, he does just that. In the first sequal to Rocky, Stallone returned to the character that he plays best after the dismal failure of his two post-Rocky forays into projects that were intended to sell him as a legitimate actor. Audiences didn't buy it. So here we see a pivotal moment in the career of Stallone in which Sly starts to play "safe" roles.

This installment picks up where the last one left off. Actually, it begins with the last ten minutes of the first one. We see the final fight between Rocky and Apollo Creed again (just in case you forgot the outcome), and the story picks up with Rocky's post-fight interviews and his trip to the hospital afterwards.

It turns out Rock-o might have suffered brain damage from being punched in the head one too many times. Kudos to Stallone (he wrote and directed this one) for actually providing an explanation as to why the character seems slightly retarded.

With that news in mind, Senor Balboa decides to retire from boxing and live the good life with Adrian. He buys a new car, that which he can't drive, some fancy-shmancy jewelry for Adrian, and a new house. As fate, or the plot, would have it, our hero does not know how to budget, and is forced to go to work in order to pay the bills. He works briefly at the meat processing plant where he used to beat the shit out of dead cows, and finally settles for a job as a grunt at Mick's boxing club.

Meanwhile, we find out that Adrian is pregnant. Not one to break tradition, Rocky still seems to be wooing her even after they've gotten hitched and gotten their groove on. "Yo, you like zoos? Yo, you know, I love the zoo. It smells so nice here when it snows. Yo. You know? You wanna hear a funny joke? I got tons of them. Yo."

Do lines like that work on women? Speak up, ladies.

Summing things up, Creed wants a rematch because even though the judges declared him the winner in the first fight, everyone else in the world felt the Rocky had won the fight. Creed is pissed. Meanwhile, at the boxing club, the young upstarts are harrassing Rock and calling him a coward and "The Italian Chicken" for staying out of the game and ignoring Creed's calls for a rematch.

It's not until Adrian has a near death experience while giving birth to Rocky Jr. that Rocky regains the urge to fight, and win, against Apollo Creed.

Like Rocky, I too felt disillusioned with not only Project Stallone, but other aspects of my life as well. I recently got rejected for journalist job with NLA, and it devastated me. I felt worthless. I felt like I had no marketable qualities, and I was destined to live the starving artist lifestyle for the rest of my life.

Then I watched this film last night.

Returning to what one does best may be repeating yourself in some aspects, but it's also playing to your strengths and selling yourself for what you do best. I'm sticking with Project Stallone even if it kills me, and it's definitely starting to hurt.

And so I got turned down for a higher paying job...so fucking what? It's not like that's the only one out there that fits my qualifications. Sure, I was bummed out for about a day, but Stallone has taught me to not give up. I'm not a scientist, preacher, dog whisperer, economist, doctor, or astronaut. I'm a writer, for better or worse, no matter how good or bad it may be. And just like how Rocky is a fighter and he "needs to be around it", I can't abandon things just because I get bored or uninterested.

I don't really have a satisfactory conclusion to this piece other than I am fucking ready to journey into what is now the downward spiral part of Stallone's career. From here on out, it's going to be the cheeseball action flicks, unnecessary sequels, and ill-advised comedies that have come to define our perception of Stallone. At the end of this odyssey, I will probably be just as beat up as Rocky is at the end of the climactic fight with Apollo Creed, but I will be calling out to you all, "YOOOO!! I DID IT!"

And then I will wrestle Hulk Hogan.

Project Stallone: "Paradise Alley"

Paradise Alley
By Peter John Gardner

Oh, the unforseen pleasures that awaited me in this film!

I knew I was in for a treat from the opening credits. "Paradise Alley" opens up with Cosmo (Stallone) and his two brothers, Victor and Lenny, having a race for cash across some rooftops in 1940's Brooklyn. As they are runing, the audience is treated to a freezeframe whenever a new credit appears on the screen. Stallone directed this film, and I assume he had some kind of say during the editing of this film, so I'm baffled as to why he chose some of the frames to freeze that he did. Most are unflattering stills of Stallone with a "YEEEEEEARGH!!!" expression on his face.

Ok, so I'm watching the opening credits, and I notice that the opening theme is bad. Not typical 70s B-movie bad...more like, "Is this a joke?" bad. At first the song sounded like something Trey Parker would sing in an episode of South Park, and then I thought it might have been a better-left-buried Tom Waits tune (more on him later). It turns out that the song is sung by none other than Sylvester Stallone himself. My new mission in life is to track down a copy of the soundtrack, whether it be on vinyl or mp3. This song is so gloriously bad that it must be celebrated.

The movie itself is sort of what would happen if "Rocky" and "Over the Top" mated. Cosmo, Lenny, and Victor are three Italian-American brothers living in Hell's Kitchen during the 1940s. After displaying raw strength and brute in local arm wrestling matches, Victor is egged on by his two brothers to enter the world of professional wrestling. Stallone's Cosmo is a fast talking, con artist type, and Stallone really doesn't fit in a part like this. His semi-retarded sounding diction doesn't fit into the used car salesman-like personality that Cosmo's character needed (this is a role that should've gone to whomever the Steve Buscemi of the era was). Stallone starts booking Victor in local wrestling matches with dreams that Vic will earn enough money for the brothers to move out of Hell's Kitchen. Cosmo in particular wants to live on a houseboat off the coast of New Jersey (huh?) with his new girlfriend.

And, yes, we do get yet another awkward Stallone wooing a girl scene. And it's the same as in his previous movies. If I didn't know any better, I would start to think that Sly wanted to make this some kind of trademark of his.

As the film progresses, the seemingly passive and quiet Lenny, played by Armand Assante, begins to dominate the proceedings when Cosmo expresses concern that they are exploiting Victor. Lenny becomes this aggressive bastard that just wants to use Victor to win him money, no matter how badly Victor gets hurt.

Upping the surrealness of this movie is the presence of Tom Waits in a small role as a local piano player aptly named "Mumbles". Seeing the great Tom Waits interact with Sylvester Stallone was something that I never thought I'd see, and it makes me wonder why the two never formed a friendship during the making of this film. Imagine how awesome "Rocky V" or "Demolition Man" would have been had Tom Waits done the soundtrack. Hell, maybe Stallone will read this and decide to have Tom Waits in Rambo IV. One can only hope.

To sum it up, the story is basically about how money and power can tear even the closest of brothers apart. Friends and family are a person's backbone, but as Lenny shows in the film, sometimes your friends and family have their moments of narrowmindedness. No matter how high of a regard one may hold your friends and family, they are still human. They will fuck up. They will piss you off more often than you'd like throughout life. What's important to love people despite their differences. The longer you know someone, the more apparent their flaws become, and it's a test to see if one can forgive another despite their flaws and love them anyway. My family has pissed me off many times. My closest friends are not perfect people by any means. Should I love them any less? Should I only surround myself with different company that are more in line with how I think?

The answer is no. My friends and family aren't perfect, and I love them all the more for it. These are the people that even though they might finish off the bottle of orange juice I was saving or make an occasional white lie that I can see through, would still be there for me no matter what. It's foolish to hold grudges against your friends and family over mundane things that can be resolved with a simple talk.

I love my friends. Stallone's "Paradise Alley" has driven me to write a thank you letter of sorts to you. I know that I'm not the greatest person in the world. I can be quiet and boring. I'm forgetful and at times oblivious to other's feelings. What I like about my friends is that you're still there for me, despite myself. I love you all for it, and I'll always be there for you.

Stallone has made me all mushy, warm, and fuzzy. That's a sentence that I'd never thought I'd write in this lifetime.

Project Stallone: "F.I.S.T."

F.I.S.T.
By Peter John Gardner

When I saw this title as the next movie on my Stallone queue, I was excited beyond all belief. At first, I thought that this was going to be Stallone's second foray into the world of pornography that somehow slipped under my radar. I thought it might've had a boxer theme to it in which Stallone punches rectums of different varieties until they're loose enough for his FIST.

Wrong.

Then I thought it could've been Stallone's first entry into the action genre. A name like "F.I.S.T." immediately conjures up repressed memories of a cheeseball martial arts movie that Jean Claude Van Damme would do.

Turns out that F.I.S.T. is an acronym for "Federation of Inter State Truckers", and what I got was a two and a half hour movie about union workers. Fresh off the success of Rocky, Stallone co-wrote another screenplay that tells the tale of Johnny Kovak. Johnny is a factory worker in 1930s Cleveland who becomes frustrated with his working conditions, wage, and unfair treatment. To make a really long fucking story short, Kovak rallies his fellow blue collar heroes together to form an organized labor union. Over the course of the film, Kovak's character gains more public recognition for his efforts, he also becomes entangled with the Cleveland mob after staging an unsuccessful strike. As we all know, getting involved with the mafia is a bad idea. As Stallone moves up the ladder, investigations ensue pertaining to F.I.S.T.'s alleged ties to the mob. "F.I.S.T." is basically a fictionalized version of the story of Jimmy Hoffa.

Interwoven throughout the movie is yet another awkward romance in a Stallone movie. As seen in his previous movies, Stallone's method of wooing a girl is to just follow her around and babble about random shit.

"Hey. Yo. You like birds? Hey, yo, I like birds too. Yo, I once had a bird named Larry, ya know? Hey, yo but he kept biting me, so I had to get rid of him, ya know? Hey, yo, you like going to the movies? Yo, slow down! Why you walkin' so fast, huh?"

I'm not going to use this film to bitch about my job or any past jobs that I've had. It would be too easy for me to compare the hyprocrisies of Kovac's company to my own, and that's not really what I got out of this movie anyway. What I asked myself after watching this cinematic version of some student's term paper for a political science course was how much I would be willing to "sell out" in order to set right what I think is wrong.

It's easy for someone to sit comfortably outside the system holding their picket signs at a university and protest to students that simply want to get to the library soon so that they can study for that calculus test that they've been worrying all week for. Doing so just results in unwinnable arguments with people that are either set in their beliefs or simply have other things in their life that they are more concerned about.

I've always felt that if you really want change, you have to be willing to compromise. You want to take down "the man"? Do it from the inside. When you get there, you'll realize that you have to start from rock bottom, just like Johnny Kovak did, to get to a position where you can change a company's policies to fit your own set of ideals. What you'll also find is that you'll have to do a lot of compromising. Not everyone holds the same beliefs and politics as you do and shoving them down someone else's throat is akin to doing the same with religious beliefs.

Standing around outside the system and bitching about things won't get you anywhere. If you want change, you have to be willing to agree to disagree. I also think that the best way to institute a change in your system is to do it from the inside.

Penetrate the system's butthole with your F.I.S.T.

Project Stallone: "Rocky"

Rocky
By Peter John Gardner

I've been sitting on this one for a while, and my excuse this time isn't the usual "movie seemed boring". I've seen Rocky dozens upon dozens of times since I was a kid, seen all the sequals, and own the dvd. It's the one movie of Stallone's that I refer people to when they say that Stallone only makes shitty movies. The first installment in what never should have been a franchise is actually a damn good film. It takes its characters seriously and doesn't have the campy feel that later Rocky movies drown themselves in. Critics ate this movie up when it was released in 1976. It was nominated for ten (!) Academy awards and won three of them, including Best Picture and Best Director. Stallone himself was nominated for Best Actor (!!) and Best Screenplay (?!).

Yes, this movie was Stallone's baby, and it proves that when you look past his later shitfests like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and The Specialist, there is actually some talent deep within ol' Sly.

So why did I wait so long to write about this? Well, I really wanted to take a fresh angle on the film. I revisited the film for the project and wanted to forgo the obvious underdog parallels between my life and Rocky's. I tinkered around with a piece about blind confidence. I wrote a whole draft examining the dichotomy of Rocky and Paulie's friendship (I still might post that someday). I also tried to compare the awkward romance between Rocky and Adrian to my own experiences with love. None of these angles seemed to be working.

In the end, I can't avoid the unavoidable. The underdog parallel is staring me right in the face, and it's too strong to ignore. A story such as this is the reason why I undertook this project.

Everyone has seen at least one of the Rocky movies at some point in their life, and they all pretty much follow the same formula, so I'll spare you a long plot synopsis. In a nutshell, Rocky is a small time boxer in Philadelphia. He fights for nearly no money, works as a thug for a local loan shark for extra cash, and doesn't even have his own locker at the local gym. Heavyweight champion Apollo Creed decides to give a no name fighter a chance at the title for publicity's sake. Enter Rocky Balboa. So, Rocky is lured into this fight despite himself (he doesn't really think he can beat Apollo and the fight would only serve to humiliate him). All the while, a burdgeoning romance is occuring between Rocko and a timid pet store clerk named Adrian.

Although the film never really explains how Adrian went from being creeped out by this big, dumb brute that always came into her store and told really bad jokes to being not only his biggest fan but the love of his life as well. With a movie like this, you don't really care about that. Stallone's acting makes Rocky such a damn likeable character. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is the quintessential do-gooder with a heart of gold. Just watch the scenes where Rocky talks with his pet turtles. You just want to give the oaf a hug.

Time to tie this together.

I'm not a superb writer. I'm not even a great writer. I'm ok, at best. Slightly above average, maybe. That's kinda how Rocky feels about himself. He knows he can beat the living shit out of the local fighters, but when presented with an opportunity at the big time, he takes it, but with huge dose of uncertainty.

I too am an underdog, not just when it comes to writing, but in most aspects of my life. Like Rocky, I'm not exactly smart, and I tell really bad jokes. Sometimes I squander or just plain fuck up opportunities for change or growth in my life due to my own insecurities. Example: grad school. I've had my bachelor's for nearly a year now, and I always planned on going to grad school after a short break. Take some time off from school, work, save up some money, get rid of student loan debt, etc. But as each day passes, I grow less confident about returning to school. I look at others that shared my major in college and see the progress that they've made, and I become simultaneously proud and jealous. I look at the results from the two times that I took the GRE and kick myself for the pathetic scores that I made.

Am I really cut out for this? Do I have what it takes to make it into a decent graduate program and achieve my goal, which is to become a teacher and somewhat successful writer? Fuck no. But after watching a movie like Rocky, where an underdog overcomes seemingly impossible odds, I feel like maybe I do stand a chance out there. Who says I couldn't be a great teacher...one of those "that dude changed my life" teachers? Who says that I couldn't write something on par with the Apollo Creed of the literary world?

Don't answer that.

I'll never stop trying, though.

Project Stallone: "Death Race 2000"

Death Race 2000
By Peter John Gardner

There is a certain hypocrisy that exists between motorists and pedestrians that I've never quite fully understood. Let me preface this by saying that I do it too, so I'm not passing judgment on anyone; just stating the obvious.

When you're walking through a parking lot, you expect all traffic to stop around you as you make your way into Payless Shoe Source or Food Lion. If a car cuts you off as you're walking, you think to yourself something along the lines of, "Douche bag. Pedestrians have the right of way". It's true. It's the law.

Now, let's imagine ourselves on the flip side of this coin. You're in your car, you've got to be at work in 15 minutes, and you just need to run into the post office real quick to mail off your utility bill because it's late, and you can't pay it online because your internet is down. You're in a hurry, but you're going the 10 mph speed limit in the shopping plaza. All of a sudden, some meathead in a football jersey with the sleeves cut off and his Twinkie filled girlfriend walk right in your path. They walk really slow, or so it seems; all while you scream your favorite expletives in your car for them to hurry it up. While they do have the right of way, you have become pissed right the fuck off and immediately forget any time that you've been a pedestrian. Again, you're in a hurry, so you start thinking wild thoughts. Perhaps, even for just a split second, you wish that you could just run right over them without consequence (or maybe you've never thought that. Just pretend that you have, for the sake of my point).

In real life, you'd go to jail.

In the world of DEATH RACE 2000, you'd score 10 points, plus an extra 40 depending on whether or not the two are teenagers.

"Death Race 2000" takes place in the year 2000, a year in which 70s filmmakers thought that America would be running the world like it owns the place and is ruled by an evil dictator that focuses more on distractions than the real issues at hand. Silly writers can never get the future right.

Anyway, every country in the world has become America, and the country's main pastime is it's annual "Death Race". Participants from all over the globe engage in a cross country grand prix where they compete for the highest score by hitting the most bystanders.

Have you ever heard yourself or someone you know mention "10 points!" for potentially hitting some person that it's in your way? The point system comes from this movie, and it goes something like this:
Women: 10 points
Teenagers: 40 points
Race officials: 50 points
Children under 12: 70 points
Senior citizens: 100 points (Local hospitals have "Euthanasia Day" during the race in which the wheelchair bound elderly are lined up in the road, smiling and patiently awaiting their death by turbo car)

Each driver has a car outfitted with weapons of destruction that are never really used. Presumably due to budget restraints, the cars have swords and machine guns attached to them that look about as realistic as that "fort" you made out of cardboard boxes when you were a kid.

The movie does feature a colorful cast of characters for the racers with names like Calamity Jane, Matilda the Hun, and Nero the Hero. Out of all the drivers in the movie, you'll recognize two. First off, there is the reigning champion, "Frankenstein", as portrayed by David Carradine who is known to some as Kane from "Kung Fu" and known to others as Bill from "Kill Bill". Supposedly, Frankenstein has been genetically built by the government to be the best death racer around, and his body is comprised of the best bits from other racers.

The other recognizable face is our very own piece of steroid enhanced Genoa salami, Sly Stallone portraying the overtly aggressive "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo. Machine Gun Joe is supposed to be the movie's villain, but an adequate conflict between Stallone and Frankenstein is never fully fleshed out. Instead, we just have random scenes of Stallone firing a tommy gun into a crowd of racing fans and unchecked aggression towards his partner.

There really isn't much more to this movie other than the racing carnage. Frankenstein gets a small character arc in the form of a "love interest", and we get another awkward sex scene (I'm beginning to find that these seem to happen frequently in Stallone movies). Does this mean the movie is bad? Well, yeah, but it's one of those so bad it's good type of bad movies. It's fun and campy in the 60s version of Batman kind of way, and it's downright hilarious to watch with a big group of friends. This movie is cheesy, but it's a good cheese. A flavorful cheese.

In this film, Stallone's character is a one-dimensional thug. He never shows any empathy towards any of the other characters, and he regularly shows signs of unregulated aggression (the aforementioned scene with him shooting up the crowd springs to mind). In the end, Machine Gun Joe meets his doom by way of his own aggressiveness and ego.

Don't let this be your downfall. When someone heckles you from a crowd, don't shoot them with a tommy gun. Smile and continue singing along to Prince's "Diamonds and Pearls" that just came on the radio. If you're sitting at a stop sign and getting frustrated that no one will stop and let you pull out in front of them, don't worry about it. Instead, think about how you can make one of your friends smile and then do it. You see, Machine Gun Joe focuses to much on minor annoyances in life, and by not having a positive outlet, he eventually reaches a boiling point to where he just becomes mad at the world in general. We can learn something from Machine Gun Joe here, and that is to not let life's minor grievances get to you. Here, Stallone is a poster boy for anger management.

Next time you feel any hint of road rage, just think to yourself, "What would Stallone do?"....then do the opposite.