Author: Craig

Crowining Mr. Sports Movies

Craig / / 2014, Death Race 2000, Driven, Grudge Match, Over the Top, Paradise Alley, Rocky, Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4, Rocky 5, Rocky 6, Rocky Balboa, Victory

On April 9, 2014, Yahoo! Movies took a look at which actor had played the most sports roles in their piece Crowining Mr. Sports Movies by Brian Enk.

Had they counted each Rocky movie individually (as I think they should have) then Sly would have easily come in first.  At any rate, here’s what the said about him…

—Sylvester Stallone: If we were to tally sports movies as a whole, including sequels, the Italian Stallion would be our champ, with six entries as boxer Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies. Sly’s other sports movie credits include “Death Race 2000” (1975), in which he played deadly cross country racer Machine Gun Joe Viterbo; “Paradise Alley” (1978), in which he played Cosmo Corboni, one of three brothers trying to play the wrestling game in 1940s NYC; “Victory” (1981), in which he played a soccer goalie for the Allied forces as they face off against a German team at a WWII prison camp; “Over the Top” (1986), the greatest arm-wrestling movie ever made; “Driven” (2001), in which he plays former CART champion and car racing mentor Joe Tanto; and “Grudge Match” (2013), in which he plays former boxing champ Henry “Razor” Sharp.

Rocky and Mickey by Shawn Surface

Craig / / 2014, Craig's Sly Art, Rocky

Today we have Sly as Rocky with Burgess Meredith as Mickey drawn by Shawn Surface.   The scan doesn’t nearly come close to doing this piece justice — it doesn’t show all of the art and the contrast is off. 

Shawn is an all-around nice guy and his art should be getting more attention. So why not check out his site and give him some love?


“Expendables 3” Character Posters are Big News!

Craig / / 2014, Expendables 3


The  Expendables 3  character posters were big news this week!

Ted Kotcheff Talks Sly, “First Blood” and More

Craig / / 2014, Celebs, First Blood

On March 31, 2014, HeyUGuys posted an interview with director Ted Kotcheff who talked about working with Sly on First Blood   and a lot of other things.   Here are some tidbits…

The received wisdom in Hollywood was that Stallone only worked as Rocky, so my decision to hire him wasn’t championed.

I sent the script to Sylvester regardless, and he called me the next day to say he loved the idea. I’ve never had such a quick and positive response from a star in my whole career in the business (laughs). He only had one request, and that was to do a rewrite on the script with me, to which I agreed. One of the biggest strengths Sylvester has is a great populist sense of what works. He knows what audiences like and dislike in a film.

 …[an] idea he [Sly] had was to keep John Rambo silent throughout the film. Directors love extreme ideas like that (laughs).

 We always considered Rambo to be on a suicide mission, which was how the original script ended. The moment he crosses that bridge he knows his outcome and it’s not going to end well, but he’s doesn’t care because as far as concerned – there isn’t a place left for him in American society anymore. The way it was written originally, [Colonel] Trautman was going to put an end to it all but instead hesitates, so Rambo grabs his weapon and pulls the trigger, blowing himself away. We shot that, which was brilliant, but Sylvester came over afterwards and said the audience would hate us for putting this character through everything only to have him killed at the very end.