When mob boss Angelo (Anthony Quinn) is assassinated on the orders of the son of a former rival, bodyguard Frankie Delano (Sylvester Stallone) takes it upon himself to protect Angelo’s daughter, Jennifer (Madeleine Stowe). The problem is that Jennifer, who was adopted by a normal couple, doesn’t know that she is the daughter of a mobster. Her life and her marriage are already falling apart even before Frankie reveals the truth to her. All she wants to do is disappear into the pages of a romance novel written by her favorite writer, Marcello (Raoul Bova) but Marello is not quite what he seems.
Sylvester Stallone has had a long career, full of high points (Rocky, First Blood, The Expendables, Creed) and low points (too many to list). AvengingAngelo, made at a time when it was assumed that the aging Stallone would never again play Rocky Balboa or John Rambo, is a moderate low point. It’s no Rocky but it’s still better than Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! Overall, it’s not very good and a lot of the humor falls flat but Stallone and Madeleine Stowe are both likable and they have a few moments that display what seems like genuine chemistry. It’s still a slow movie that awkwardly mixes comedy and action but it was not the disaster that I was expecting it to be when I first found it on Tubi. It’s more forgettable than bad. If there is anything to really regret when it comes to AvengingAngelo, it’s that Anthony Quinn did not get a more memorable swan song.
AvengingAngelo was Stallone’s second movie to go straight to video. It’s easy to forget not but the conventional wisdom in 2002 really was that Stallone was washed up. There were jokes about whether or not he would follow Schwarzenegger’s lead and go into politics. Stallone, however, proved all the naysayers wrong, proving that he could still throw punches as Rocky Balboa and John Rambo while The Expendables revealed a Stallone who could finally laugh at himself. Avenging Angelo turned out to be not the end of Stallone’s career but instead just a detour. Say what you will about the man and his movies, Sylvester Stallone is an American institution.
When I reviewed THE EXPENDABLES 2, I shared that one of my favorite parts of the movie was the inclusion of “Lone Wolf” Booker (Chuck Norris) in the cast of action legends. This scene is the perfect example of why I enjoy the movie so much. It’s cheesy, corny and incredibly fun!
Happy Birthday, Sylvester Stallone! Thanks for a lifetime of fun movies and memories!
In the near future, law-breakers and other destructive types are not put in prison but are instead cryogenically frozen and left in suspended animation until they’ve served out their sentences. The most fearsome criminal in the world, Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) has been frozen but so has his nemesis, Detective John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone).
In the far future, Los Angeles is a part of a megalopolis named San Angeles. Envisioned and watched over by a seemingly benign dictator named Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne), San Angeles is a wannabe utopia where cursing leads to an automatic fine and all of the restaurants are Taco Bell. When he’s thawed out for a parole hearing, the suddenly super-powered Phoenix makes his escape. The police, no longer knowing how to deal with violence, make the reluctant decision to thaw out John Spartan. Assigned to work with the enthusiastic Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), Spartan must navigate this strange future to defeat Phoenix.
For some reason, DemolitionMan never seems to get the respect that it deserves. Made at a time when both the Rambo and the Rocky franchises appeared to be over, DemolitionMan features one of Stallone’s most appealing performances as he deals with a society where just saying a bad word can cause a scandal. Just as Spartan proves that his brand of destructive police work still has its place in the future, Stallone proved that he could still carry an action movie in 1993. There’s a lot of knowing humor to Stallone’s performance. After a series of failed comedies in the 80s, DemolitionMan was the movie that proved that Stallone could be intentionally funny. Stallone is also surrounded by one of his strongest supporting casts. Wesley Snipes attacks his villainous role with gusto while Denis Leary breaks out his stand-up routine as Edgar Friendly, the leader of San Angeles’s rebels. This is also the film that led to Sandra Bullock getting cast in Speed and she’s so incredibly adorable here that even Stallone breaks out into a smile while acting opposite her
(In 1993, you couldn’t turn on television without seeing Sandra Bullock saying, “All restaurants are Taco Bell.”)
DemolitionMan is an action film and it lives up to its name, with all the demolition that a viewer could want. Even more so, It’s also a satire, of both Stallone’s previous films and what was then known as “political correctness.” DemolitionMan’s portrayal of a sterile society where everyone had been programmed to be docile and inoffensive wasn’t that far off from what a lot of politicians were then promoting for America at large. Luckily, John Spartan was around to put an end to that. The end result is one of Sylvester Stallone’s most memorable films.
I was the target audience for the “Expendables” movies. From the first time I ever heard of the concept, I was all in and gladly told everyone I knew about the upcoming movie. Just the prospect of a big time action movie in 2010 starring Sylvester Stallone and bringing back so many of my favorite actors of the 1980’s and 1990’s was just too good to pass up. After reading updates on the project for at least a year, I was so ready when THE EXPENDABLES (2010) finally hit theaters on August 13, 2010. I don’t remember if I made it to the theaters on opening night, but if not, I definitely made it soon thereafter. Unfortunately, a year of building up my expectations also made it impossible for the movie to completely live up to them. I enjoyed the film and bought the blu ray as soon as it was available, but it just wasn’t everything I hoped it would be. I don’t think anything could have lived up to my expectations to be completely honest. THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012) came out a couple of years later, and with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris added to the cast, I was ready to go again, albeit with admittedly lower expectations.
THE EXPENDABLES 2 follows our group of elite mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) as they head to Albania for CIA operative Church (Bruce Willis) to retrieve a box from a downed airplane. We find out that the box contains a computer that knows the exact location of 5 tons of weapons grade plutonium. The mission goes to pot when the team encounters the ruthless Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), the leader of a terrorist group, who forcibly confiscates the computer and then kills one of the expendables to teach them some “respect.” Obviously, this doesn’t set well with Barney and he decides the best option for payback is to “Track them, find them, and KILL them!” The remainder of the film follows the team as they try to do just that and stop Vilain from selling the plutonium to the highest bidder. They also get some timely help from fellow badasses like the “lone wolf” Booker (Chuck Norris) and Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
THE EXPENDABLES 2 is my favorite film of the franchise, and that’s why I decided to review it today, on Sylvester Stallone’s 79th birthday. The “Expendables” franchise was designed to bring back the nostalgia of 80’s and 90’s action films, and in my opinion, this first sequel gives me what I was actually wanting from the first film. Taking over from Stallone, Director Simon West assembles a film with explosive action scenes, cartoonishly evil villains, cheesy one-liners and over-the-top violence that doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is. The movie leans hard into its glorious, nostalgic absurdity and as a guy who grew up on these guys and their action films, I pretty much enjoyed every moment!
THE EXPENDABLES 2 doesn’t work without the cast of action movie veterans who bring back good movie memories just by showing up on screen. As a massive collector of Blu rays and DVD’s, I own a physical copy of just about every movie made by Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris during their 80’s and 90’s heydays. Most of these discs replaced a previously owned VHS tape, and each of these actors has their own “section” in my collection. These are the movies, along with those of actors like Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood, that I revisit the most every year. I’m a huge fan of Hong Kong cinema and Jet Li as well, but his role here is just a cameo at the beginning of this installment. Jean-Claude Van Damme has ended up showing such strong staying power in his career, and his performance as the villain is a true highlight for me. Also, my son, who would have been around 12 when this came out, had just discovered the “Chuck Norris Facts” and he loved telling me his favorites. That silly pop culture phenomenon brought a whole new level of fun to Chuck’s extended cameo in this film. I did want to shout out Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham as well. I may not put them on as high a pedestal as some of the others, but they’re still awesome! Is THE EXPENDABLES 2 the best work of any of these actors? Of course the answer is no, but the filmmakers dredged up my memories in just the right way and gave me 103 minutes of fan service and fun!
With all that said, I do understand that a person who doesn’t carry nostalgic memories of action films gone by may not enjoy THE EXPENDABLES 2 near as much as I did. The film relies on nostalgia, and without that, the plot itself is very thin and many of the lines will come across as head-scratching clunkers. Even so, most action fans should still enjoy the non-stop sensory assault and violence served up by true genre pros. I loved it and offer no apology for that!
As our song of the day shows, Sylvester isn’t the only Stallone with talent! I don’t care how many jokes people make about Frank, this song always makes me dance.
Today, we celebrate Sylvester Stallone’s birthday with one of the most definitive montages of the 1980s. From 1982’s Rocky III (which was directed by Stallone himself), here is the famous Rocky/Apollo training montage.
The year is 1958 and four Brooklyn teenagers, all members of a largely non-violent street gang called The Lords of Flatbush, have enough grease in their hair to start a city-wide kitchen fire. It’s their senior year of high school. Chico (Perry King) tries to hook up with a new, blonde transfer student (Susan Blakely). Butchey (Henry Winkler) makes everyone laugh and hides the fact that he’s secretly really smart. Stanley (Sylvester Stallone) deals with his impending marriage to Frannie (Maria Smith). Everyone has to grow up eventually but at least the Lords of Flatbush will always have their memories and probably their leather jackets.
Nostalgia films that were extremely popular in the 70s, as the baby boomers were already starting to mythologize their youth. Lords of Flatbush is very much about that nostalgia, leading to a film that feels sincere but which is also pretty predictable. With its coming-of-age storylines and its mix of drama and comedy, Lords of Flatbush owes an obvious debt to American Graffiti. The movie, like its characters, is likable but not exactly memorable. Today, it’s really only known because it featured early performances from Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler. Winkler got his signature role as the Fonz on HappyDays largely based on his performance as Butchey, though Butchey is nowhere near as cool as the Fonz. Pre-Rocky, this movie was Stallone’s calling card in Hollywood and he rewrote enough of his own lines that he got an additional dialogue credit. Stallone actually gives a pretty good performance, even if he is obviously closer to 30 than 18.
Stallone’s best scene is when Stanley is trying to buy an engagement ring and Frannie insists that he buy one that costs $1,600. For the first time, Stanley realizes that getting married means committing to something other than hanging out with his friends and working on his car. Stanley buys the ring but threatens the jewelry store owner afterwards, telling him to never show Frannie a $1,600 ring again.
TheLordsofFlatbush is a film about the past but it’s mostly interesting due to the future of its stars.
Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday June 2nd, we are showing FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975) starring Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O’Halloran, Joe Spinell, and Sylvester Stallone.
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY finds Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe being hired by paroled convict Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend Velma, a former seedy nightclub dancer. All kinds of intrigue ensues as Robert Mitchum puts his droopy-eyed, world-weary spin on the famous detective!
So join us tonight for #MondayMuggers and watch FAREWELL, MY LOVELY! It’s on Amazon Prime. The trailer is included below:
Kotcheff directed a lot of classic films but perhaps the most influential was 1982’s First Blood. In today’s scene that I love, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is arrested by Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). Teasle may think that he’s keeping his community safe and teaching Rambo a lesson about respecting authority but, needless to say, he’s making a huge mistake.
I love Billy Dee Williams. When I was a kid, I remember Florence from THE JEFFERSONS loving him. I also loved him as Lando Calrissian in the STAR WARS movies. I’m sure I had his action figure. As I got a little bit older, I started to appreciate his larger body of work in movies like NIGHTHAWKS with Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer, and NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET with Robert Carradine. On his 88th birthday, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate Billy Dee Williams, and one of my favorite action movie scenes. This scene from NIGHTHAWKS features three unbelievably cool actors in their prime!
When mob boss Angelo (Anthony Quinn) is assassinated on the orders of the son of a former rival, bodyguard Frankie Delano (Sylvester Stallone) takes it upon himself to protect Angelo’s daughter, Jennifer (Madeleine Stowe). The problem is that Jennifer, who was adopted by a normal couple, doesn’t know that she is the daughter of a mobster. Her life and her marriage are already falling apart even before Frankie reveals the truth to her. All she wants to do is disappear into the pages of a romance novel written by her favorite writer, Marcello (Raoul Bova) but Marello is not quite what he seems.
Through the Shattered Lens 