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Three SZoners e-mailed to let us know that Amazon was selling the RAMBO DVD GIFT PACK at a special price. List Price: $39.98 Sale Price: $29.98 Save: $10.00 (25%) Release Date: July 24, 2001. Thanks to Joy, rOb, and John for the tip (and for ordering through the SZ!) – Craig Zablo (July 15,2001)
Our P.O.W. for this week comes to us from Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes. – Craig Zablo (July 7, 2001)
Sylvester Stallone is 56 today! Happy Birthday, Sly!
To keep Sly‘s birthday in perspective, this year…
* Arnold Schwarzenneger is 55… Robert DeNiro is 59…
* Harrison Ford is 60… Al Pacino is 62… and Sean Connery is 72…
Did you know that Sly shares the exact same birthday with Burt Ward[Robin from the 60’s Batman series]? They are both 56 today.
– Craig Zablo [July 6, 2002]
Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes found the pics and info above in the July 2001 issue of Empire.
Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes sent in the following report:
The current [July 2001] issue of AIRBRUSH Art + Action INTERNATIONAL has SLY as Gabe Walker on the cover. There is a big question and answer with renowned movie poster artist Renato Casaroentitled ‘ The Art of RENATO CASARO , PAINTED MOVIES.’
The issue also includes a two page long tear out poster of his work for “Rambo III.” I’ve attached a smaller version of the art used for the poster. The poster has the mag logo on the upper left and the words RENATO CASARO – PAINTED MOVIES across the bottom. It’s the only poster in the mag so it’s nice they chose SLYs “RAMBO III” as the one.
In the Reel World column of Entertainment Weekly, the following item appears:
SLY NEWS: SYLVESTER STALLONE is pining to direct “Driven 2” [we must have missed the avalanche of “popular demand” for that particular follow-up] but he says first he’d like to tackle “an ambitious project that deals with a historical event.” Maybe he’s up for a Rambo sequel after all… [Additional reporting by William Keck]
TNT/TBS Pay $16 mil for “Driven,” 3 More Pix By John Dempsey
NEW YORK (Variety) – Warner Bros. Pictures has sold the network window of “Driven,” “Angel Eyes,” “Exit Wounds” and “The Dish” to Turner Broadcasting‘s TNT and TBS. Turner will pay a total license fee for the four movies of about $16 million and will start premiering them in December 2003.
The license fee amounts to about 15% of the domestic gross of each movie, which means STEVEN SEAGAL starrer “Exit Wounds” will cost far more than the three others, having grossed $51.8 million in U.S. theaters. “Driven,” starring SYLVESTER STALLONE, is heading toward a domestic gross of $34 million and JENNIFER LOPEZ‘ “Angel Eyes” should wind up at about $25 million.
Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes sent in the above. It comes from OK magazine (issue 266, dated June 1, 2001) .Thanks Jazz for sharing!- Craig Zablo (June 21, 2001)
Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes returns with yet another SZ NEWS item. The pics and text can be found in the June issue of TOTAL FILM.
ROCKY: SPECIAL EDITION
The Film: The only real knockout in the Rocky series has aged pretty well. Grittier and nastier (well, relatively) than the four sequels, the dingy look, solid performances and triumphantly teary ending make it easy to understand how this bagged itself nine Oscar nominations and three statuettes (including Best Film).
The extras: Audio commentary with cast and crew, video commentary with Sylvester Stallone, behind the scenes featurette with director John Alvidsen, tribute to Burgess Meredith, tribute to James Crabe, trailers.
The verdict: Not exactly championship material but still able to go the distance,
this is an enjoyable, well-assembled package. The video commentary
(basically a glorified interview with
Mr. Sly) is entertaining stuff, especially if you never realized just how
much of a shoestring affair making the film was (dodging
in and around Philadelphia
trying not to get nabbed by
the authorities, grabbing shots wherever they could ). Also
look out for John Alvidsen‘s
8 mm behind – the – scenes footage (an amusing peek at how the fight was assembled) and the genuinely touching tributes to Burgess Meredith and James Crabe. Completists will be glad to know that the Special Edition is also available as part of the Rocky Anthology box set, but, let’s face it, this is the only one worth owning.
Cerl Thomas
Film: ****
Disc: ****
During rehearsals Rocky director John Alvidsen shot cheap 8mm films of his stars prancing around the ring. He talks us through it on the Special Edition disc…
“When the time came to rehearse, what I wanted to rehearse more than anything was the fighting ‘cos I knew that the film wasn’t going to look good unless the fighting looked good. A couple of weeks before we started shooting I got Sylvester and Carl Weathers into the ring to see what it was going to look like. Well they got into the ring and one guy said: “I’m gonna do this” and the other guy said: “I’m gonna do that!” I realized that we weren’t gonna get anywhere.So I suggested to Sylvester: “Why don’t you go home and write this thing out? A left and a right, an uppercut, you fall down, he falls down. Whatever you want, write it out and bring it back and we’ll learn it like a ballet. It’ll be choreographed and we’ll do the same thing in the ring day after day until we really get it down. So when you do this, he does that and we put a big whack on the soundtrack and people will believe it.
So Sylvester liked the idea and the next day he came back with 32 pages of lefts and rights and that’s what we learned.”
Thanks, Jazz! – Craig Zablo (June 21, 2001)
