A new project is underway. Catch up over at Project Downey Jr.

--peter

Followup on the way

Coming soon.

Project Stallone: "Rocky Balboa"

Rocky Balboa
By Peter John Gardner

While making the rounds in the press junkets for the release of Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final (yeah, right) installment in the franchise, Stallone insisted that he was never happy with the way Rocky V ended the series, and he wanted to give the character a proper sendoff. After enduring every damn movie this guy has ever made, I'm inclined to think that it was more of a cash grabbing venture after the atrocities that Stallone's been making the past few years. Either way, I feel that this is the best Rocky since the first one.

Sixteen years after Rocky V, we're brought back into the world of the Italian Stallion. Right from the get-go, we learn that Adrian's been dead for several years (sad face "yo"), and Rocky's been living quietly in Philadelphia where he runs a small Italian restaurant. Pauly's still around being the same piss-prick he's been for the past five films, and Rocky's son is trying to live outside his father's shadow by quietly climbing the corporate ladder.

Side note: The guy that plays Rocky's son is the same guy that plays Peter Petrelli on "Heroes", which I feel is an inspired choice because they both have the same "Is he or isn't he retarded?" vibe to them.

One night, ESPN does a computer generated "virtual match" between the current champ (Mason "The Line" Dixon....yes, that's the villain's name) and ol' Rocko. CGI Rock prevails and the match inspires the real Rocky to get back into the ring. Rock's a fighter, always has been, always will be. That's what he does.

To its credit, the film does take Stallone's age into account and works it into the plot. Everyone keeps telling Balboa that he's too old and that his body is no condition to fight anymore...and what's a Rocky film without a montage about overcoming the odds? I hate to admit this publicly, but when I saw this in theaters, a huge smile appeared on my face when the training montage kicked in and the Rocky theme started playing. It provided a cheap thrill for my inner child the same way the trailers for the Star Wars prequels did until I saw the actual movies.

After watching all of these movies, it's easy to see the Balboa/Stallone parallel throughout the course of his career. Likeable underdog hits the big time, makes some outlandish movies/fights, and then kinda fades away when the public loses interest. This is the only role of Stallone's that he does a really good job of acting in which is fine considering Rocky might simply be a metaphor for himself.

Training montage, big fight at the end, blah, blah, blah. It's a Rocky movie. You know how it ends.

This movie is about setting things right in order to find piece of mind. Rocky's past haunts him throughout the film, and fighting one last time is the only way to successfully clear the skeletons out of his closet. Stallone himself was unhappy with the way five ended, so sixteen years later he rectified it. From the outset of the project, my mission was always to find some sort of enlightenment or piece of mind from these terrible movies, and to my surprise I did. My father, being the smart Googler that he is, found me through Project Stallone and contacted me. After twelve years of not talking, I felt that now was the right time to set things straight and tie up loose ends. As bizarre as it sounds, Project Stallone was a catalyst for me to start taking baby steps to establish a relationship with my father again, and you know what? It's been going great. When I stopped talking to him, I was still a kid, and now I'm (arguably) a man, and it's been like meeting a whole new person. We're both adults now and we treat each other as such. Like I said, baby steps, so I'm taking things very slow, but it's a start, and I don't know if this would've happened without this silly little project of mine.

At the twilight of this project with only one more film to go, I can honestly say that I've gained some piece of mind from this thing. It's been a weird journey that I wasn't expecting from an idea that was initially meant to just make my friends laugh. I'm beginning to clear out issues that have been bugging me for years, and I feel like a better person for it.

I can't think of a better way to end this piece than with a simple, "Yo".

Project Stallone: "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over"

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
By Peter John Gardner

If you were to ask me ten years ago whether or not I would like to have children someday, my answer would have been a stern "No".

My stance softened as I've grown older. There's that biological clock thingee in me that starts ticking whenever I see friends of mine with their kids, and I start thinking to myself, "Aww....I want one!" No one is carrying on the Gardner name at the moment, and I thought maybe it was time to give Mom some grandkids.

Then I watched Spy Kids 3-D, and now I never want to have kids. Parents that read this, you have the hardest jobs in the world and you all do great, but I can't even begin to imagine having to sit through hours upon hours of shitty kids movies.

Maybe it's nostalgia or perspective, but the kids movies that I grew up on beat the living shit out of what passes for children's movies these days. We had Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, ET, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. These days, kids have poor remakes of old franchises like Alvin and the Chipmunks and a seemingly endless stream of CGI flicks. I applaud Rodriguez for at least trying to keep the live action adventure movie for kids genre alive.

Let me back up. Spy Kids 3-D isn't completely bad. Let me start off by saying that I watched this movie in 2-D because that's only version Netflix carries, so I'm sure the 3-D version of this film is infinitely cooler in the "gee-whiz" SFX department. It was also directed by Robert Rodriguez, who you may know as the guy that made the Desperado series, Sin City, and Planet Terror. I can understand his ventures into family films because the guy's got kids. Why not have daddy make a movie for them?

I've never seen the first two Spy Kids, but it didn't matter. I picked up on the who's who and what's what during the first few minutes of the film. So the government employs kids as special agents/detectives and occasionally sends them out for special missions. This time, a bad guy called the Toymaker (Stallone) has created a virtual reality game that sucks away the attention span of kids. The main Spy Kid, whatever his name is, has to go in and rescue his fellow Spy Kid that's trapped on the fourth level, and who also happens to be his sister.

And this is another movie that shows me roads I never knew I could take when playing Six Degrees of Separation because there are cameos up, around, and out the ass in this movie. We've got Antonio Banderas, George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Mike Judge (creator of Office Space and Beavis & Butthead), Elijah Wood, Steve Buscemi, Bill Paxton, and Ricardo Montalban (KHAAAAN!!) all appearing in this movie.

All the stars in the world can't save this movie though. It's excruciating. I know it's meant for kids, but how come I can watch Star Wars or most Disney movies and love them? The main Spy Kid is boring to follow as a protagonist, and with the exception of Stallone, KHAAAAAN!!!, and Salma Hayek, none of them appear onscreen for more than a few minutes which means we're stuck with this little twat for the entire movie. I still can't remember his name.

But it's a kids movie, and I shouldn't overanalyze this kind of stuff. Still, a bad kids movie is harder for me to watch than a poor entry in just about any other genre of film. Once again, I applaud all parents out there. Sitting through hours of Hannah Montana must hurt your souls, but it is a true testament of your love for your child to be able to endure that.

I wasn't being serious about not wanting to have kids just because I didn't want to watch shitty kids movies. If you asked me today if I wanted to have kids within the next few years, my answer would be no, but with a "never-say-never" attached to the end. If I do end up inflicting my offspring upon the world, I'd let them watch whatever crappy kids movie they want to. Being a parent is a Project Stallone in its own right.

Project Stallone: "Shade"

Shade
By Peter John Gardner

People that regularly play poker and blackjack hate me. Despise me. Why? Because I’m one of those people that rarely every gambles, has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a poker game, and when I finally play, I clean house. I have no idea why.

Shade is a poker movie much in the same vein as Rounders. Had they not been made so closely in conjunction with each other, this film might have seen a wider release because not only does it feature a great cast, but the movie is pretty damn good. If you’ve seen any poker or heist movies, then you know the drill with the plot. A group of hustlers, played by Gabriel Byrne, Jamie Foxx, and Stuart Townsend make their money in the seedy world of guys that play card games in dusty warehouses all day. They hatch a plan to take down the seemingly undefeatable card player known as "The Dean", played by Stallone in a role that actually requires him to act. A little bit, at least. Anyway, double crosses abound, things don’t go as well as planned, yet everything is tied up in a satisfying ending that didn’t leave me confused as to how the actual heist went down. I love me some heist movies, but there have been a few where when the whole plan is finally revealed, I’m left confused. Can anyone explain to me exactly how they pulled off their heist in Ocean’s 12?

I don’t hate poker or any other card game, I just avoid it because I’m scared of losing. All of my life, I’ve been terrible at math and my memory is like a static filled channel on television that never quite comes in clear. Math and memory are the two main skills to have in order to be a successful poker player, both of which I don’t have. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, I do great at poker, and there’s nothing more enraging to a seasoned poker vet than losing to the guy that obviously has no idea what he’s doing, yet he still ends up with a straight.

A big element to gambling is risk, and perhaps that’s why I avoid it. I’m too much of a pussy to put anything of value (literally and figuratively) up at stake when the outcome depends on a test of my skill.

Maybe I’ve grown smart enough to not trust my ego. Sure, I may slay the few times that I do decide to play, but if I played more often, I’d definitely lose more than I’d win, so don’t consider this to be a brag fest about my poker "skills". That being said, if any of you out there are planning a heist of some sort, please include me. I could be the secret weapon, the newbie that the regulars can’t read easily. Or just let me drive the getaway car.

Project Stallone: "Avenging Angelo"

Avenging Angelo
By Peter John Gardner

Until I watched this movie, I never knew that a corpse could fart. Thanks to Project Stallone, I now know that a corpse can fart and rudely interrupt conversations.

I thought that this might have been a goof done on the part of the scriptwriter for a cheap laugh, so I decided to use this opportunity to do some research. I came across the following webpage, Facts on Farts (http://www.heptune.com/farts.html). Along with other useful facts like how men can fart through their urethra (Ladies, look out), I learned that people can, in fact, fart post-mortem.

The movie itself is like a fart on Stallone's resume. It was brief, it stunk, but Stallone himself probably enjoyed it. Avenging Angelo has Stallone playing a bodyguard, Frankie Delano, to Anthony Quinn's mob boss, Angelo. As you can probably infer by the title of the movie, Angelo dies early in the film. Anthony Quinn also died shortly after the making of this film. Coincidence or death by Stallone movie? I prefer the latter since it makes me giggle.

We learn that Angelo had a daughter named Jennifer and, of course, Frankie has to protect her from the bad guys that were out to kill Angelo. When she accepts the fact that her real dad is a mob boss, she seeks vengeance. Jennifer also learns that her husband has been screwing around with just about every woman he can get his hands on, so a romance develops between Frankie and Jennifer.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a farting corpse in this movie, so it's a comedy which came as a surprise to me because the dvd cover and trailer for this movie led me to believe that this was going to be a cheap thriller. Judging by the failure of every previous attempt Stallone's made at comedy, they probably figured that it would be more financially sound to market the film as a thriller. That's sad because as a comedy, it works better than any of Sly's other films. I'm not saying the movie is hilarious and you should rent it immediately, but I think this movie marks the first time that I laughed with a Stallone movie instead of at. Come on, it's got a farting corpse!

Farts are funny but the release of one at the wrong time can prove disastrous. I can't even begin to count how many times I've sat in class near a girl that I had the hots for, and the growling of my stomach would sound like a fart. No matter how many times I try to save myself by pretending I was shifting in my chair, the damage has already been done. She's not going to believe that was a stomach growl. To her, that was a fart and will always be a fart. I'll forever be known as the guy that farted in front of her.

Flatulence can be rude too. During a routine visit to the dentist for a cleaning and checkup, the dental hygienist let one rip while I was stuck on the chair with my mouth pried open. It wasn't a stomach growl because it really stunk. Badly. I could tell she was embarrassed because she immediately started making small talk with me even though I couldn't really say anything with my mouth wide open like that and her fart fumes drifting in. I was forced to inhale her poop particles against my will. A fart rape, if you will. Such is my luck.

Project Stallone: "Eye See You"

Eye See You
By Peter John Gardner

Seriously, that's the title of this movie. I don't remember this one appearing in the theaters at all, so I think this might be Stallone finally hitting rock bottom in his career and making straight to video releases.

Why do movies like this go straight to video? For starters, read the title again. Who the hell would take that seriously when looking at a theater marquee? At least other projects with silly names (Snakes on the Motherfuckin' Plane) had self-awareness of its ridiculousness. Even Stallone's self-penned scripts had better titles.

To be fair, the "eye" part of the title refers to the only cool thing about this movie, and I'll get to that in a bit. Eye See You has Stallone playing a cop...again...who is hot on the trail of a cop killer. Now, the method in which the villain kills in this movie is knocking on the cops door and when the victim checks the peephole, which everyone in this movie conveniently has, a DRILL comes through the hole and right into their eyeball, at which point the killer kicks down the door and hilarity ensues. Problem is, that's pretty much the only way this guy kills people throughout the entire movie. Even C grade horror movie villains would at least change things up every now and again.

With Stallone in hot pursuit of this asshole, the villain ends up murdering Sly's wife which sends Sly into a grief counseling program for police officers which they strangely refer to as a "detoxing" program. When doing research for this movie, I found that the working title of this movie was D-Tox, and it was still titled as such when released internationally. While D-Tox is a hokey title as well, I really want to know who it was during the production that thought Eye See You was an exponentially better title.

Anyhoo, the program takes place in a remote area of Wyoming, and soon enough cops are turning up dead. It's really not hard to guess who the killer is in a movie like this. You just have to look for the guy that normally plays a villain and then patiently wait out the remaining 70 minutes of the film's running time.

Do you ever wonder if people that produce really shitty movies are proud of themselves after the fact? I wonder if the writers high-fived each other after coming up with the name "Eye See You".

I wonder if the director thought that he had a blockbuster in his hands when making this film.

I wonder if Sly has any regrets about his career.

I wonder what kind of people pass by this in the video store and think to themselves, "Alright! This looks like it'll be great!"

I wonder if Sly and Robert Patrick ever became friends after doing two movies together.

I wonder why there is an actor in this movie whose name is simply "Mif".

I wonder if the producers thought to themselves, "We gotta get that Mif guy in this"

I wonder if, like Stallone's choice in roles, this is getting too repetitious, and I think it is.

Project Stallone: "Driven"

Driven
By Peter John Gardner

Sly joins forces with Cliffhanger director Renny Harlin again with a script written by Stallone himself that takes him back to the racecar genre for another shot at injecting life into what is essentially a dead career at this point. Did it work? Of course not.

Stallone's getting older at this point in his career, so I'm starting to see a shift in the kind of roles that he's taking. In Driven, there is still the typical Stallone template of a hotshot, young upstart in sports that is receiving guidance from an old pro, mixed with the ol' "I'm not doing this anymore because of a tragic accident years ago" formula, but this time it's Stallone that's the old pro, which is a problem in itself because Stallone never comes across as a guy that's well-versed in anything.

He's also woefully miscast in a movie he wrote himself. Maybe I'm just being narrowminded, but Nascar always seemed like a rednecky kind of sport, and while Burt Reynolds is certainly believable in his part as a racing promoter, Stallone looks like he should be in the boxing ring instead of the pit.

Movies of this like never really did anything for me. This film falls into what I uncreatively call the car-genre, which includes other winners like Gone In 60 Seconds, Days of Thunder, and however many Fast and the Furious movies they're up to at this point. I can get into movies with lots of car chases (Vanishing Point, Death Proof). Days of Thunder was pretty good even if you can smell the fucking testosterone emanating from it as you pass by it in the video store, and I enjoyed Stallone's own Death Race 2000 just for the sheer hamminess of it all.

I understand other people's interest in cars, but like sports, it's one of those stereotypical male things that I never got into. I'm on my third car now, and each time I had to get a new one, my only request was it for to be able to take me from point A to point B without dying on me. I don't care about the make, model, color, or if it's "tricked out". I just want something with four wheels, an engine, and not shaped like a giant hot dog.

Cars are like anime. The good ones are from Japan, a lot of people are into them, but it's just not for me.

Project Stallone: "Get Carter"

Get Carter
By Peter John Gardner

I can sum this movie up with just a few lines.

"Yo...you knew my brother?"
"Yeah...he knew *insert secondary characters name here*"
"Thanks...yo"

Or

"Yo...you knew my brother?"
"I'm not telling you shit!"
*ass beating ensues*
"Yo...you knew my brother?"
"Fine! I'll talk! He knew *insert secondary character's name here*"

That's pretty much all that happens for the duration of Get Carter's 100+ minute running time. Stallone plays a mob enforcer, the kind of guy that you only see when you're in deep shit with the mob. At the start of the film, Carter (Sly) finds out that his brother died in an accident while driving drunk? Or was it a setup? Stallone decides to investigate.

And that's the whole fucking movie. Stallone going from one secondary character to another asking about his brother. This movie is a remake of a 1971 film of the same name which starred Michael Caine in the title role (Caine appears in the remake albeit in a different role). While Stallone certainly looks imposing as a mob enforcer, he never comes across as scary and cold blooded. It must be Stallone's puppy dog eyes. I'm interested in seeing the original now just to see what Caine did with the role because I can't imagine Caine being a cold blooded badass either, though I have to admit I haven't delved too deeply into Michael Caine's body of work.

What I'd like to talk about here is Stallone's facial hair. This is the first appearance of Stallone facial hair since Nighthawks, and it just doesn't work for him. Stallone sports a goatee that looks like it was drawn on with pencil and a Sharpee marker. Seriously, it bothered me throughout the film's running time. Some men just shouldn't sport facial hair...like me!

I've tried to grow a beard a few times over the years. The first few times, I would always cave in and shave after about a week and a half because I couldn't handle the itchiness. Last year, when I finally did let it grow for more than two weeks, it ended up looking like I glued pieces of pubic hair to my face. At times, I wish I had a beard that worked so that even when I'm saying the stupidest things I can think of, I'd still look somewhat intellectual. The other reason would be for laziness. The Italian/Spanish genes in me have taken over my facial hair growth, so it tends to grow back the minute I walk out of the bathroom.

Stallone's goatee symbolizes the start of a new century for Sly, but it's also a metaphor for his bad career choices. Like his goatee, many of his roles are thin, never fully developed, and are as appealing as the bartender at a Jimmy Buffet restaurant whose shoulders are damp from the hair gel dripping off his shoulders.

Project Stallone: "Antz"

Antz
By Peter John Gardner

After watching Antz and Cop Land, I've discovered whole new avenues to use when playing six degrees of separation. Stallone and Dan Aykroyd in the same movie? Who knew that off the top of their head?

Antz is a long overdue and much welcome departure from Stallone's usual fare. A CGI movie for the family that got eclipsed by A Bug's Life upon its initial release, Antz stars Woody Allen (!) as Z, an ant that has grown bored of the day to day conformity and monotony of an ant's life. Z meets a beautiful female ant (Sharon Stone...again) at a bar one night and falls in love. Turns out that the female ant is royalty, so Z hatches a plan to take the identity of his soldier friend, Weaver (Stallone) in order to join army of ants and get closer to the princess. What Z didn't realize is that the army ants are planning to overthrow the queen. Hilarity ensues.

Antz is pretty much a Woody Allen movie that's been simplified and cutesified for kids, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. Although Allen didn't write the film, it's clear that the writers had him in mind when producing the film. Allen plays the ant version of just about every character he plays, a neurotic and paranoid nerd who is awkward around women in a charming sort of way.

I should've done Project Woody instead of Stallone.

The big message in this film is about breaking out of the doldrums of day to day conformity, and I think that's a healthy lesson for a kid's movie. If I were a parent, I doubt that I would raise my children with the mindset of "that's just the way it is, so deal with it". I'd want my kids to realize that things can be changed and that you don't have to do what everyone else is doing.

It's rewarding in the long run, but it makes for a frustrating childhood. Growing up, I always felt like the black sheep of the family. I wanted to grow my hair long, I wasn't interested in sports or anything like that which bonded the men of the family together. To this day, I still feel the "why can't you be more like your brother?" feeling in my gut when I talk to my parents. I don't know what kind of seed was planted in my youth, but at some point, I stopped giving a fuck what everyone else thought and did what I wanted to do. It gave me a sense of individuality that I don't think I would've gotten had I just followed what everyone else was doing.

I still carry that mindset into adulthood but with reservations. Now, I only give a fuck what certain people think. I think it's more fun and entertaining to just be myself rather than what society expects me to be. Myself might not be what society wants or needs, but here I am, like it or not. Sadly as I grow older and arguably wiser, my sense of individuality has diminished once I realized my place in the world. I'm just a worker ant, a cog in the machine, a function, a job title, a paycheck, a statistic, a SWM, a 'that one guy'. It's difficult to maintain a feeling of uniqueness when I don't feel like society needs me in any sort of way. After 27 years, I'm still trying to figure what I want to be when I grow up, and if I can bring anything to the world that is uniquely me, but since it's been taking so long, I'm beginning to have doubts if I even have that in me. I feel invisible and insignificant. For now, I'll just remain "that one guy".

Project Stallone: "Cop Land"

Cop Land
By Peter John Gardner

Sensing that his career was going down the toilet and that his choice in roles has grown stale, Stallone took on a challenge for "Cop Land". It's a gritty New York cop drama that could almost pass as a Scorcese film if it had a better script and soundtrack, but as it stands, "Cop Land" is a damn good movie and a wise career move for Stallone.

Remember Sly's big breakthrough was Rocky, which was not an action film but a character driven drama. Stallone can act when given the right role, and "Cop Land" suits him well. Stallone gained 30 pounds of fat for the role, and the only thing worse than having to see Stallone's ass over and over again is seeing Stallone wearing only boxers, writhing around in his bed just so the producers can show you that it's not a pillow under his shirt. He plays a half-deaf sheriff of a small New Jersey town across the river from NYC. Many NYC cops have taken up residence there, and since they're lead by Harvey Keitel, you know they're the ones actually running the show in the small town. Stallone must decide between covering up for his cop friends living in his town or doing the right thing and reporting their shenanigans to Internal Affairs.

Stallone's role is kind of like if Rocky never made it. Sheriff Freddy Heflin isn't the sharpest cookie in the world, but he means well, and here's where casting Stallone helps. Stallone's got a natural sad look in his eyes (Stop laughing), and it works well for a role about a guy that never quite made it.

What also helps this movie is that it has a script that's, while not perfect, miles above previous Stallone movies. The story is a little stale and predictable, but it's neat to hear dialogue that sounds believable coming out of Stallone's mouth. He's also surrounded by honest-to-god good actors in the film. Besides the aforementioned Harvey Keitel, this movie also co-stars Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Janeane Garafalo (?!), the T-1000, and, hey, there's that guy from Deep Blue Sea. It's fun watching Stallone actually hold his own against the likes of DeNiro.

The character of Sheriff Freddy Heflin is a sad one. Here's a guy that had all the right chops to become a real cop, but his career was derailed due to the loss of hearing in one of his ears, which he lost while trying to save someone's life of course. He's accepted his fate and just kind of lives out his days accepting himself as someone who will never be and is letting himself go. That's precisely the kind of self-loathing attitude that I fall victim to as well. Many times, when I find that I don't succeed or get what I want upon first try, I usually just give up and just accept it. The problem with that philosophy is that it stagnates one's life, and you just sort of pass the days accepting what you can't do instead of trying to prove otherwise.

Stallone did that here. After being stuck in the same couple of action movie formulas for the past decade or so, he chose a dramatic role, and it worked. It's time I did something different with my life. Or maybe I should just prove I can do something that people said that I couldn't do...such as finishing this silly project.

Project Stallone: "Daylight"

Daylight
By Peter John Gardner

This movie is about a rescue worker, played by Stallone, with some unresolved issues from his past that is forced back into action when a catastrophe occurs. He must set his selfishness aside and risk his life so that others may live.

Sounds kind of like Cliffhanger, right? Of course it does. Stallone seems to have four types of movie formulas.

a) Rescue worker with skeletons in his closet that must save the day (Cliffhanger, Daylight)
b) Underdog that achieves against all odds (Rocky, Victory)
c) One man army (Rambo, Cobra, Lock Up)
d) Comedies that have the polar opposite of the intended effect (Oscar, Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot)

In a nutshell, a truck with bad guys stealing diamonds crashes into a truck with bad guys illegally disposing of toxic waste (Hey, there's an environmental message here!) collide which causes a bunch of shit to collapse and a group of people get trapped in a tunnel in New York City. The events leading up to this scenario are as unlikely as a chimp wearing a tutu showing up at my doorstep to award me with $1,000,000 for being a great guy, but I've come to stop expecting realism from Stallone movies. It's just not worth it.

What worries me is that I found myself entertained by this movie during its two hours, and I can't figure out if the movie is actually enjoyable, or if I've just become so desensitized towards Stallone flicks that the mediocre ones look like Citizen Kane to me. It's kind of fun watching Stallone act with an ensemble cast of stereotypes survivors that includes a pre-Lord of the Rings Viggo Mortensen.

I was planning to take a "What would I do if Stallone came to rescue me?" angle on this piece, but my reaction would be the same as an old SNL sketch that I recall seeing. It had Norm MacDonald bleeding to death in a wrecked car and when he finds out that Stallone is the one trying to save him, all he can do is tell him how bad his movies are. I tried finding this clip on Youtube but to no avail.

Instead, let me share this little gem of a thread from the Daylight page over at imdb.com:

"Would anyone agree that this movie is an allegory of the Christ story?

Perhaps a stretch, but Stallone could be a type of Christ, in that he descends (from heaven) into an undesirable place, but he comes humbly from under the road, and then he is not highly regarded by those whom he is trying to save. And at the end he is buried and resurrected.

All of that could be coincidental, except that the chapel scene gives a very clear message that the only way out is by Christ, and it's the lowly ones - the rats - who are first to realize that truth.

Watch it again with those goggles. You'll pick up on a lot."

Stallone as Christ, eh? So....when Christ is resurrected, he'll be an Italian-American that comes across as slightly retarded, and instead of saving us from ourselves and performing miracles, he makes shitty action movies. Maybe Stallone is Christ, and this is my test in life. Stallone/Christ wants to see if I'm willing to suffer for the world's sins by watching his movies, thus ensuring my ticket to the great boxing club in the sky. Instead of standing on a hilltop and preaching his word, he's hiding his message through these movies.

Stallone...my own personal Jesus.

Project Stallone: "Assassins"

Assassins
By Peter John Gardner

Leave it to Stallone to follow up two movies (excluding Judge Dredd) that display his ass with a movie called "Assassins". Thankfully, we don't see Stallone's butt in this one. "Judge Dredd" sank Stallone's career in the mid-90s, so this one completely slipped under my radar when it came out in 1995. This movie was actually pretty decent. Well, as decent a movie as one can get about two guys with loner jobs and silenced pistols.

The movie was written by the Wachowski brothers, who would later go on to write The Matrix, and then completely fuck up that great idea with two dreadful sequels. It was directed by Richard Donner, who helmed the Lethal Weapon films, as well as Superman and The Goonies. The movie belched out by this team is your paint-by-numbers two-rivals-going-after-one-target film, which pits Stallone vs. Antonio Banderas both going after hacker/voyeur Julianne Moore, but it's rock solid, and it's surprisingly easy to buy Stallone as a professional assassin, probably because he isn't given a lot of dialogue in the film. Stallone is so good at his job that when he loses the trail of Banderas, he hijacks a taxi cab, listens to cab radio, hears a call for a guy wanting a ride to the airport. When Stallone arrives, that guy just HAPPENS to be Banderas. What luck, plot hole, skill! Most of the banter comes from Antonio’s character, who should portray sociopaths more often instead of cute kittens in boots.

Somewhere around the age of 12 or 13, I quit playing sports. I had been playing baseball, soccer, and basketball since I was old enough to hold a ball, but I was gradually losing interest as I got older. I loved playing, but I didn't like competing. "We've got to WIN, WIN, WIN!" coaches would say. Fuck that. I just want to throw the ball around and have fun.

I still hate competing, especially when it comes to winning over a woman when several other guys are trying to do the same, but now I realize that competition breeds better work. Stallone steps up his game when Banderas comes into the mix, so why don't I? I know a thing or two about a thing or two, and there are times where I'm reading something or watching a film while thinking to myself, "Jeez, even I can do better than this". With Project Stallone, I'm my own rival. Usually I start these off by thinking, "How can I make this funnier than the last?" before I crap out something that I'm not happy with but others seem to like.

With women, my best friend Abel used to be my competition. See, Abel is a very attractive, charismatic, and downright funny individual. While we were both living in Vero Beach, we were inseparable best friends. When we'd go out though, girls would immediately flock to Abel. He was the Hall to my Oates (he's the good looking one with pretty eyes, I'm the goofy looking one). Being around him forced me to step up my game. I had to sell my personality, which was really hard to do since he's one of a kind, but I still tried. Since we went our separate ways to Orlando and Gainesville, I started to slack off. My thinking was, "Well, now that I don't have constant competition, I don't have to try as hard".

Sometimes I don't think things all the way through.

Project Stallone: "Judge Dredd"

Judge Dredd
By Peter John Gardner

No.

Project Stallone: "The Specialist"

The Specialist
By Peter John Gardner

The plot synopsis on the back of the Netflix sleeve for The Specialist is as follows: "Luis Llosa directs this explosive action vehicle shot on location in Miami. An ex-CIA munitions expert known as "The Specialist" (Sylvester Stallone) meets a determined beauty (Sharon Stone) seeking revenge against the mob family (Rod Steiger, Eric Roberts) who killed her parents. When the two join forces, it's twice the TNT. The (literally) steamy Stallone/Stone shower scene is a classic of 1990s cinematic erotica."

Because of that last line, this movie sat on my coffee table for a week and a half. When I finally worked up enough nerve to watch it, I found that the dvd was cracked, and I had to order another from Netflix. I still don't believe in god, but I do think that something out there didn't want me to see this movie, and for good reason.

I could detail the plot for you, but the Netflix synopsis pretty much sums it up. It's another Stallone movie filled with bad one-liners, plot holes big enough to swan dive into, and a bunch of random shit blowing up. The only thing that sticks in one's mind after watching The Specialist is the friggin' awkward sex scene between Stallone and Stone's characters (Wait...Stallone/Stone. That rhymes! Why didn't the ad execs run with that for the marketing campaign?).

I think that Sharon Stone was the first exposure to the female anatomy for a lot of guys my age. Basic Instinct and this film came out during the puberty years for guys that are now in their mid-to-late twenties. She was still hot in this movie, so no awkwardness there. It's Stallone that's the problem. The Party at Kitty and Stud's was more than enough Stallone sex that I needed to see, and fuck Luis Llosa for making a film that has more. I've lost track of how many times I've seen Stallone's ass over the course of Project Stallone.

Watching the shower sex scene is kinda like accidentally walking in on two of your friends having sex. Sure, one or both may be attractive, but the initial reaction is usually, "Whoa!" followed by "AHHHH!" and a slammed door. Just because someone's your friend doesn't mean you want to have the mental image of them doing the cha-cha stuck in your memory.

Does this all mean that I consider Stallone to be a friend? Well, despite the fact that I've seen more of him over the past year than some of my real friends, the answer is still a resounding no.

Project Stallone: "Demolition Man"

Demolition Man
By Peter John Gardner

A bathroom is a safe zone where you take care of your most private business, and when you bring that room into a public area, it creates nothing but awkward and embarassing situations. I find public restrooms to be uncomfortable places, and it has nothing to do with germaphobia or homophobia because I possess neither. Weird shit goes on in restrooms when you've got your penis in your hand. No matter how mundane the scenario is under normal circumstances, if it happens in a bathroom, it becomes awkward.

Here's my first example. Indian River Mall in Vero Beach, Florida. I was working at Wave's Music at the time (which would eventually become FYE), and I left the store for a bathroom break. As I stood there at the urinal doing my duty, I felt a warm breath on the back of my neck.

"Heeeeeeey man....you looking for bud?"

Now under different circumstances, I might have taken him up on the offer, but something about a guy offering me pot while I'm taking a leak in a public restroom felt fundamentally wrong. I politely declined and shifted my feet a little to show that I wasn't comfortable with him being that close to me as I was peeing. Crazy shit goes on in bathrooms. A guy once started singing "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" to me while we were peeing. I've also had a guy come up and start fixing my hair while whizzing. Another guy asked me why my urine was so yellow.

In "Demolition Man", Stallone plays a cop again, but this time there are consequences for him blowing a ton of shit up just to arrest one guy. Along with his arch enemy Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes in full on Dennis Rodman mode), Stallone is cryogenetically frozen for his crimes. When Phoenix escapes from his parole hearing (he was genetically modified by the bad guys during his frozen sleep), the police of the future, who are about as threatening as high school hall monitors, have no other choice but to wake up Stallone in order to catch Phoenix. Well, I'm sure there were other options but then there wouldn't be a movie.

The movie itself is fun. Sandra Bullock shows that she can be adorable when she's not doing cheeseball romantic comedies, Denis Leary plays a character that's not too far removed from his standup act, and there's a great running gag where the characters keep getting fined whenever someone uses profanity.

Back to bathroom talk. Shortly after thawing out, Stallone makes his first trip to restroom of the future. When he comes out, he informs the police that they're out of toliet paper, and there are just three shells sitting there.

"He doesn't know how to use the shells!" chortles the always annoying Rob Schneider. Way to make Stallone feel awkward, Deuce Bigalow. For the life of me, I can't figure out the shells either. Three shells to wipe your ass with? Somehow this is more sanitary than disposable toliet paper? In the future, are we going to be scraping dingleberries from our butts with clam shells? I don't blame Stallone for his confusion, but to be publicly humiliated for not knowing proper restroom procedure is downright mean.

Here is another story of bathroom awkwardness. In my senior year of college at UCF, I think I bonded with a professor over a fart.

I was walking from the library to the student union to get some food when my bladder started to remind me of the two bottles of Aquafina that I drank earlier. So, like most rational people in that situation, I went to go for a leak. I'm standing there, taking the piss of a lifetime, when my US history professor strolls in, takes position at the urinal next to mine, and exchanges greetings with me. Now, I don't know about you, but there are few things in this world that I find more awkward than standing next to your teacher while the both of you have your dicks in your hand.

Anyway, so we're peeing, and just as I was about to finish up, I heard what sounded like a *PHWONK*. Yes. he farted. Right next to me. It wasn't really a stinky one, but it sure was loud.

I didn't know what to do. He cleared his throat, and then I just lost it. I started laughing so hard that the last remaining drops of my pee hurt on the way out.

What happened next surprised me. He started laughing too! It was an embarrassed laugh, but still a "fart laugh" nevertheless. Now that we both felt comfortable among his flatulence, I felt compelled to compliment his fart.

"Good one, sir."

"Um...thanks Mr. Gardner. See you on Thursday."

And that was it. It's a good thing that it was the end of the semester because I really couldn't take that guy seriously anymore.

Project Stallone: "Cliffhanger"

Cliffhanger
By Peter John Gardner

If my memory serves me well, which all too often it does not, this is the first Stallone movie that I saw in the theater. Normally that wouldn't be something that one commemorates, but I guess it's relevant to the Project. I saw it with my friend Scott, who looked like a human version of Bart Simpson, and I recall us in the theater saying to each other, "This would make an AWESOME videogame!"

Cliffhanger eventually was made into a videogame, and it was far from awesome. The movie, on the other hand, still holds up as a solid action movie. It starts off with Stallone accidentally letting his friend fall to their death from thousands of feet in the air between mountain tops. Haunted by the event, Stallone goes into exile. Monthes later, he returns to the mountain rescue team for reasons left unexplained in the movie, and walks right into a terrorist situation where the bad guys have crashed their plane in the mountains and lost several suitcases full of money in the crash. Stallone and his team are forced to help.

These are cool terrorists, though, because they're led by John Lithgow! Even when he's killing his own henchmen, it's hard not to love Lithgow. The guy was born to play a villain. I'd join a heist with him.

As with just about every action movie from the late 80s/early 90s, there are plot holes galore, but as long as you're willing to turn your brain off for two hours, "Cliffhanger" is good. Unable to secure permits to film in the USA, the filmmakers filmed all the mountain sequences in Europe, so the scenery in the movie is breathtaking, and the filmmakers use all the mountains, waterfalls, and cliffs to their advantage. Really, it's refreshing to watch a well made Stallone movie after suffering through stuff like "Rhinestone" and "Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot".

That being said, this is still a Stallone action movie, and it doesn't have any themes or messages that I haven't covered already in past entries. This project has become an exercise in pulling something out of nothing, and these past few entries have had me pulling nothing out of nothing. I guess I'll go with a metaphor. Stallone lets his friend literally slip out of his hand at the beginning of the movie, and she plummets to her death. I've let a few women slip through my fingers over the course of my life. I'm oblivious when it comes to flirtation a lot of times. I either chalk it up to general playfulness, or I don't pick up on the signals at all until long after the fact. I'm not exactly the type of guy that women clamor for, so when it does happen, I'm usually ignorant.

"Peter, she was trying to flirt with you"
"Huh? Really?"
"Um...YEAH!"
"Oh...really? Me?"
"Shut up, peter"

It's a good thing these poor girls didn't fall thousands of feet to their death afterwards.