Sly to Receive: Hollywood Career Achievement Award

On October 4, 2010, it was announced that…

The 14th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards, presented by Starz, are pleased to announce that Hollywood icon and Academy Award-nominated Sylvester Stallone will receive the “Hollywood Career Achievement Award,” Oscar-winning Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary will be recognized with the “Hollywood Innovator Award,” and director Tom Hooper will be honored with the “Hollywood Director Award” at the Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony.

“It is a privilege to honor and to celebrate Sylvester Stallone‘s extraordinary talent and remarkable career, as well as the great innovative work of Morgan Freeman and Lorie McCreary in the convergence of technology and filmmaking, and the outstanding directing talent of Tom Hooper in his new film “The King’s Speech,” said Carlos de Abreu, Founder of the Hollywood Awards Gala.

The press release also has this to say about Sly:

ABOUT SYLVESTER STALLONE

Academy-nominated Sylvester Stallone has received worldwide recognition as an actor, writer and director ever since he played the title role in his own screenplay of “Rocky,” which won the Academy Award in 1977 for Best Picture, and brought Oscar® nominations to Stallone for acting and writing.

After the success of that seminal motion picture, “Rocky” grew into a franchise of five sequels. In 2006, Stallone concluded the series with “Rocky Balboa,” a critical and popular success that resolutely confirmed both Stallone and “Rocky” as iconic cultural symbols.

Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed and starred in “Rambo,” which continued the saga of Vietnam vet John Rambo 25 years after the debut of “Rambo: First Blood,” shot on location in Burma.

This summer, he released his most ambitious project to date — the action thriller “The Expendables” — which he wrote, directed and starred in, and which opened as Number One at the Box Office, making him the only actor to open Number One Films across Five Decades.

Sylvester Stallone‘s first role came in 1974 when he was cast as one of the leads in “The Lords of Flatbush.” He also received his first writing credit for additional dialogue on the film.

Stallone’s other credits as actor/writer/director are Rocky II and Paradise Alley. As actor and co-writer, Stallone filmed “F.I.S.T.,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Rhinestone and Rambo III.” He co-wrote, directed and produced “Staying Alive” and starred in “Nighthawks,” “Victory,” “Tango & Cash and Lock Up. Rocky V, starring and written by Stallone, opened in 1990.

He also starred in “Demolition Man,” “The Specialist,” “Assassins and Daylight.” He starred in the challenging and unique role of Freddy Hefli in “Cop Land,” had the starring role in “Get Carter,”  and wrote and starred in the number one box office race-car thriller “Driven.” He filmed “Avenging Angelo” and starred as “The Toymaker” in the hit film “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. “

To read the full PR Newswire post, click here.


The Expendables Rack Up Awards

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from Lisa at IGN

To celebrate the best of the summer box office, IGN recently released its 3rd annual “Summer Movie Awards” that honors the best heroes, villains, babes, weapons, creatures and more, to have hit the big screen since May.

As you can imagine, The Expendables won some awards…

Best Ensemble Cast The Expendables

Best Explosion – Attack on the dock – The Expendables

Coolest Gunfight – Hale Caeser mows ‘em down – The Expendables

Congrats to Sly, the cast and crew of The Expendables.  To see the full list of awards and winners, you know the drill.

Sly Tops List of Ultimate Action Heroes of All Time

Recently OK Magazine posted a list of The Top Ten Ultimate Action Heroes of All Time.  Any guesses who came in first?  Yep, Sly Stallone.  Here’s the list…

1. Sylvester Stallone – 31%

2. Arnold Schwarzenegger – 24%

3. Bruce Willis – 15%

4. Bruce Lee – 9%

5. Jean Claude Van Damme – 7%

6. Steven Seagal – 4%

7. Angelina Jolie – 2%

8. Chuck Norris – 0.8%

9. Will Smith – 0.6%

10. Jason Statham – 0.2%

To see the full post, go here.

Of course the story was picked up by…

StalloneZone Exclusive: Sly Receives Award

Earlier this week I heard from my buddy Miguel Insignares and here’s what he sent…

Hello Craig

Hope all is well.  I had a great time at Comic-Con and wanted to share some photos of the EXPENDABLES cast and EXCLUSIVE video of Sly receiving his award at the IGN VIP party! Everyone was great and special thanks to Terry Crews who was very excited to be a part of this ensemble and very
generous with his time–a class act.

Keep up the great work.

Thanks,
Miguel

Thanks to Miguel for sharing… and be sure to check out his site: The Rufnex: Island of the Dead! – Craig

Top 10 Training Montages: Rocky Series Wins

When IGN.com decided to post their choices for The Top 10 Training Montages, you just knew that some from the Rocky series would make the cut.  I’m happy to say that Rocky, Rocky III and Rocky IV all made the top ten.  Both III and IV made the top five and IV came in at #1.  Here’s a bit of why…

10.  Rocky: The original and most iconic, Rocky demonstrated how powerful and popular a movie montage could be. Set to Bill Conti’s rousing ‘Gonna Fly Now’, the locals cheer on Rocky as he pounds the pavements of Philadelphia in preparation for his David vs. Goliath battle. The final shot of Rocky running up the 72 stone steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art became so culturally significant that it’s now a popular tourist destination, was re-named ‘Rocky Steps”‘ and has a bronze statue of Stallone by sculptor A. Thomas Schomberg at the foot of the building.

05.  Rocky III: It’s a given that any scene set to ‘Gonna Fly Now’ will be thoroughly enjoyable and writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone knew better than to tinker with greatness. The music may be the same but everything else is different; old foe Apollo Creed is now helping Rocky train, the ‘Rocky Steps’ have been replaced with a beach and the cheering children have been swapped for homoerotic slow-mo shots of Rocky and Apollo’s bulging thighs.

01.  Rocky IV: Rocky may have inspired the movie montage as we know it, but it’s Rocky IV’s fantastically ludicrous four-minute training sequence that gets the fan vote every time. With John Cafferty’s synth-tastic ‘Hearts On Fire’ blasting in the background, Rocky and his opponent Ivan Drago’s hardcore training sessions overlap throughout, allowing the audience to judge which is the most ridiculous. Whilst Rocky crumples photos of his opponent, lifts the weight of three people and does sit ups at an impossible angle, Drago trains the old fashioned way, with injections, a bank of hi-tech computers, and Brigitte Nielsen. It also has the distinction of the greatest end to a montage, with Rocky’s triumphant sprint up a mountain followed by a primal scream that says he’s ready to do battle. Endlessly watchable and ripped off by everyone from Family Guy to fans on YouTube, Rocky IV dealt a knock-out blow to the competition and remains the montage champ.

To see the full list, simply click here.

Sly & Dolph Receive Awards

From Yahoo News!

Actors Sylvester Stallone (L) and Dolph Lundgren receive an award from the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the most successful sports franchise in film history with their movie “Rocky” during a news conference for the upcoming Lionsgate motion picture “The Expendables” at Comic Con in San Diego, California July 22, 2010.

REUTERS/Mike Blake