The #1 Sylvester Stallone Fan Site in the World!
The extremely talented, extremely nice, Gene Gonzales created his take on Sly from “Rocky II” at the last Heroes Convention. Gene is funny, knowledgeable and really nice.
At every show he attends Gene is constantly signing autographs and sketching for fans, so I was happy to find he could fit me!
You can see more of Gene’s work at his blog. Gene is also available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.
Thanks again Gene!
Elliott Fernandez makes his third, but not hopefully not last appearance in our Stallone Sketch Gallery with his take on Sly as Rocky Balboa.
You can see more of Elliott’s art here and here. If you want to keep up with Elliott’s latest, you can follow him on Twitter.
Andrew Bujalski wrote a thoughtful overview of the Rocky series: A Unified Theory of the Rocky Movies which is posted at The New Yorker.
A Unified Theory of the Rocky Movies should be required reading for all Stallone / Rocky fans!
Sly made a few headlines this week…
On February 27, 2015, USAToday posted Every “Rocky” Movie, Ranked by Chris Chase. For details check out the piece, but here are Chris’ rankings and mine. We differ quite a bit, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
|
Chris Chase
|
Craig Zablo
|
| 6. Rocky V | 6. Rocky V |
| 5. Rocky Balboa | 5. Rocky II |
| 4. Rocky II | 4. Rocky IV |
| 3. Rocky | 3. Rocky III |
| 2. Rocky III | 2. Rocky Balboa |
| 1. Rocky IV | 1. Rocky |
Rocky and Adrian by Aykut Aydoğdu.
On October 24, 2014, SciFighting posted the Top Ten Most Memorable Boxing Movies by Marcus Hogan. Rocky [II, III, IV and V] came in at #1. What? Rocky Balboa didn’t make it?
Here’s what they had to say…
1.) Rocky (II, III, IV, V)
Rocky was the highest-grossing film in 1976, making $225 million worldwide on a $1 million budget. The film was shot in only 28 days, but won 3 Oscars including Best Picture. It is the rags to riches story of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) who is a loan shark by day and boxer by night. Although this film is not considered non-fiction, former heavyweight boxer Charles “Chuck” Wepner claims that this and all the proceeding Rocky films where based on his life.
These are three limited edition posters that Mondo released at the Alamo Draft House in July in celebration of Sly’s birthday. The posters were then offered to the general public in August.
The Rocky poster was created by Cesar Moreno. 24″x36″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 150. $45
The Rocky II poster by Matt Taylor. 18″x24″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 150. $40.
The Rocky III poster by Matt Taylor. 20″x36″ screen print. Hand numbered. Edition of 150. $40.
For more details on the posters and to see slightly larger version click over to The Fire Wire.
On July 6, 2014, Entertainment Tonight recognized Sly’s birthday and posted The 12 Craziest Character Names Created by Sylvester Stallone.
Earlier this week, I received the following e-mail:
Hi Mr. Zablo,I’m Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Producer of the Sequelcast, a podcast looking at movie franchises. I’d thought you and your StalloneZone readers would be interested in checking out the podcasts we did of the Rocky films this past month. We also covered the Rambo films a few years ago. The podcasts might contain brief moments of explicit language.Here are the links:ROCKY III (Guest Paul Goebel of Beat The Geeks): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast170.mp3ROCKY IV (Guest Eric Lichtenfeld of The Ultimate Stallone Reader): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast171.mp3ROCKY V (Guest Ryan Hoss of the Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast172.mp3ROCKY BALBOA (Guest West Anthony of The Auteurcast): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast173.mp3FIRST BLOOD (Guest David Morrell [author of the original First Blood novel]): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast31.mp3RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II: http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast32.mp3RAMBO (Guest Eric Lichtenfeld [author of Action Speaks Louder]): http://traffic.libsyn.com/sequelcast/sequelcast34.mp3Keep up the good work with StalloneZone. The Expendables 3 looks to have a mightier cast than the second. I’m just wondering where Barney’s goatee went in all the promo shots for the film.Thanks,Mat Bradley-Tschirgi
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.