“Rambo” was the icon of an age, or at least of the Reagan administration. But is he art?
Sylvester Stallone, sometimes called the American Olivier (ha ha, just a joke), thinks “Rambo” can be.
Stallone is looking to do something new, and that something new is–no jest, really–“art” movies.
Yes, “art” movies.
This is not exactly Stallone’s forte. He started out in action movies (actually, he started out in skin flicks, but let’s not belabor that). At first, he was a brilliant success. “Rocky” won an Academy Award and earned Stallone millions and sequels (or was it millions of sequels?). The subsequent “Rambo” also earned him millions and sequels, though some thought “Rambo” was actually a sequel to “Tarzan of the Apes.”
Then, though he continued to be paid millions, and continued to shave off all his arm and body hair to better display his musculature, Stallone’s action film career began to flag in the U.S. So he turned to comedies. But each of these efforts (and that’s the word for them) flagged, too.
So he went back to action films, and was paid even more millions. But except for “Cliffhanger,” his efforts there flagged. “Judge Dredd,” “Demolition Man” and “Assassins” might as well have been sequels to “Dumb and Dumber.”
Even when he was teamed with Sharon Stone in “The Specialist,” everything seemed to flag, especially during their nude shower scene.
His latest action film, something called “Daylight,” hasn’t even been released yet, and it’s already flagging, or at least clanking. As Stallone recently told Variety, the movie makes him feel “very hollow, like you are just part of an erector set.”
So now he wants to do art movies, just like Jeremy Irons. He is talking to Miramax about starring in an art house production of theirs called “Copland,” a movie with a total budget of $10 million–about half the $18 million Stallone gets for his “erector set” pictures.
When I first heard about this, I thought it was a film about American composer Aaron Copland. This gave me pause. I do not believe that composer Copland shaved his arm and body hair, or that he was terribly nifty with a handheld .50 caliber machine gun.
But the title means something else–it’s “Copland” as in “Cop Land.” The role Stallone seeks is that of a jerky, jokey sheriff in a little New Jersey town where all manner of big city New York cops live. He idolizes them. They’re his heroes. But they’re also corrupt, evil and racists. What’s a small town sheriff to do?
This moral dilemma, I suppose, is where the art comes in–that and the fact the part calls for an actor who’s ridiculously overweight.
I’ve seen Stallone in movie scenes where he’s trying to figure out how to open a door. He shouldn’t go near moral dilemmas.
He should skip the overweight roles, too. One Marlon Brando on the screen–even “the big screen”–is enough.
Stallone is really bent on “art.” He’s willing to work for mere union scale in “Copland,” just to show off his seriousness. In Hollywood, that’s real serious.
But a movie about cops is just too close to his old non-art genre. What I’d suggest instead is a period piece, like “Queen Margot.” That was “art” movie enough to draw actual college professors, but the Catholics depicted in it spent virtually the entire film rutting in the streets or slaughtering Protestants, at the rate of a dozen decapitations, disembowelments and throat-cuttings a minute. In other words, minus the subtitles and theological overtones, it was just like “Judge Dredd.”
Instead of “Margot II,” perhaps Stallone could borrow from the more “arty” moments of his own oeuvre. Two uninterrupted hours of Sly and Sharon Stone lying there motionless in the shower would have made a perfect Andy Warhol movie.
Or how about a “Rocky XXXVIII,” but done as an “art” movie. Rocky Balboa could once again finish his boxer’s workout by running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Only this time, the museum would blow up, scattering paintings to the heavens; clouds would race by, and a little wide-eyed girl would come up to Sly and throw rose petals into his face that would turn into seagulls, screeching prophetically.
Actually, I think “Judge Dredd” was kind of like that, too.
