Craig Zablo’s StalloneZone

Archive for the ‘Death Race 2000’ Category

On June 18, 2010, Entertainment Weekly ran a review of Death Race 2000 that featured a smaller version of the photo above of Sly in his role as Machinegun Joe Viterbo.  Overall Death Race 2000 was given a B- rating. Here are some of the comments about it…

Jason Statham starred in 2008’s straight-faced remake, but forget that stink bomb and stick with the original…

David Carradine is top-billed, but watch for a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone…

Death Race 2000 isn’t the sharp satire Corman thinks it is, but it’s fun…

To read the whole review click here and here to buy the Death Race 2000 Blu-Ray.

On November 13, 2009, EW.com posted a piece called: “Roger Corman: Scoreses, Stallone, Sayles and other A-Listers talk about the B-Movie King”. Here’s Sly’s section:

Sylvester Stallone (before Rocky, the future Italian Stallion costarred in two 1975 Corman productions, Capone and Death Race 2000, pictured) “In ‘72, Lords of Flatbush came out and I thought that was going to be my entrée into movies. But nothing happened. Henry Winkler got the role of the Fonz on Happy Days. I told him I really needed a break and I could be his mentally challenged cousin on the show. So I swung out into obscurity living way way out in the Valley. It was bad. I had to sell my dog. I hadn’t written Rocky yet. So I would read these trade papers and there was a casting ad for Capone. And I got this tiny part. What happened on that set is I finally got an idea of what it was like to be on a serious movie set. Everything was such clock-like precision. When we did Death Race 2000 in 2 1/2 weeks, it shows you it could be done. It was the only unofficial college of the arts where you got to learn filmmaking for free by a master. I guess after Capone, I must have become a part of the Roger Corman family because when Death Race came up, I got the part automatically. The director of Capone said, ‘You did this classy film, you showed that a dramatic side of yourself, Death Race is gonna kill your career, it’s a step backward!’ And I thinking, ‘Excuse me, Capone was a rip-off of The Godather.’ If anything, Death Race was a lot more original than Capone! I was very happy to do it. Roger’s a very sophisticated man. He looked like a senator and yet his films were done in such an assembly-line way. I really enjoyed it because it was the first time I felt like I was really in the big time. If I hadn’t done those parts I probably wouldn’t be here today. That he was a launching pad who allowed a lot of unguided missiles to be launched into space. He provided a forum for a lot of us to grow. We were the seeds and he owned the farm. If you look at those early movies with Jack Nicholson, you can see it — that he was building his rhythm back then. You can see that he had it. He would allow out-of-the-box people like Scorsese and De Niro to flourish. He didn’t go with the status quo. He was a master at spotting talent.”

On January 13, 2009, Nick Cowen and Hari Patience took a look at “Death Race 2000″ for the Telegraph.uk.com.  The review was positive and gave special praise to Sly’s work in the film.

…top marks go to Sylvester Stallone who shows genuine comedy chops in his portrayal of Machine Gun Joe.
…Stallone is really the best thing about this film.
…Surprisingly enough, Sylvester Stallone, whose knowingly over-the-top performance as Machine Gun Joe is pure comedy gold.
…In Stallone’s hands, every single line of dialogue is laugh-out-loud hilarious.

You can read the entire review here.