5 Essential Sylvester Stallone Films

On January 30, 2013, AZCentral.com posted 5 Essential Sylvester Stallone FilmsTheir choices [with embeded trailers]:

  1. Rocky
  2. First Blood
  3. Cop Land
  4. Rocky Balboa
  5. The Expendables
While it would be hard to argue with their list, I think I would pair Rocky/Rocky Balboa and First Blood / Rambo.  This would open up two slots and I’d add: Get Carter and Nighthawks. – Craig

Director Walter Hill Not Sly About Working with Stallone

On January 29, 2013, AM New York posted a short interview with Walter Hill.  Here’s some of what he had to say about Sly…

Sly and I, we have known each other a long time. I met Sly the first time before “Hard Times” came out [in 1975] and before he had done “Rocky.” He and I had and still have the same lawyer. We were introduced way back then. I’d sent him scripts a couple times to try and tease him out and get him to do something. He’d done the same with me, and it just never quite [worked out] – whether it was time and circumstance, or whatever. But I’ve always admired him.

I came out of the experience of those films really on a positive basis with all these guys. At least when I run into them, they’re very nice to me, so it seems OK. The first premise is they have a great gusto for the genre … Bruce and Sly are much more alike than Arnold is. Arnold’s hard to define. I always thought whatever you said about him, there were always these other things that were true … Bruce and Sly are both trained actors. They’ve gone through the process, they learned, they studied, they went out, they tried, they were rejected, they failed, they succeeded marginally and then they succeeded and then they became gigantic successes. Whereas Arnold was a world figure before he ever did a movie.

 

Robin Holstein Got Carter

I met Robin Holstein for the first time at Heroes Con in 2011.   I’d see a bit of Robin’s art online and so I made sure to swing by his table and meet him. After talking to Robin a bit, I decided to commission a Stallone sketch from him.

Robin came up with this sketch. Upon seeing it, I immediately asked if he had room on his list for another piece — my buddy, LittleJohn312 was with me and he also asked to get on Robin’s list. Lucky for us, Robin was able to fit us both in.

This piece you see today is my second piece by Robin. If want to see more of Robin’s art, you can at his site.