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.