Sgt. Angle Reporting For Duty!

At ease, maggots!

Today I’m starting up a new type of briefing report, one that you’ll get monthly. It’s meant to be a lesson to you, a recap of the good and the bad of a filmmaker — the ups and downs…the highs and lows. Different than a spotlight, “The High Low Country” is a listing of the best and worst in the professional journey of the person in focus — rather than a simple summary of a career under the spotlight.

Hope you get a little out of the new feature. Now, to this week’s High Low Country, we take a journey through: Sylvester Stallone.

Name: Sylvester “Sly” Stallone

Ranking: Three Star General

First Battle Victory: Rocky. Career-defining film about an underdog boxer made more incredible by the fact that the film overcame the odds and defeated Taxi Driver and Network for the Best Picture Oscar. Stallone himself, nominated for Actor and Screenplay, which he wrote on his own, became the third person nominated in both categories — after Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) and Charles Chaplin (The Great Dictator). That’s Chaplin, Welles, Stallone.

Deepest Depths: Rocky II, Staying Alive, D-Tox, Rocky V, Driven

Signs of Life: Rocky IV, First Blood, Demolition Man

Best Asset: His veins. And buckets of red paint during Rambo and The Expendables.

Weak Point: The Specialist and Judge Dredd. You, Sly, are certainly NOT the Law.

Secret Weapon: Cop Land. Here’s a quick scene to give you a taste, Stallone’s sheriff getting schooled by the big city cop played by DeNiro.

Declassified Missions: According to a recent Q & A at Ain’t It Cool News, Stallone was offered the job of writing, starring in, and directing Godfather 3. He basically turned it down by shatting in the head of Paramount’s neck.

Victory March: Rocky Balboa, Rambo, and The Expendables have brought Stallone out of isolation and back into the fray.

Sly Stallone’s file, thick and padded with battles and blood, nevertheless keeps  you guessing at what you’ll see next if you were to take the time and watch his entire career in one sitting.

Determination: Remains a three-star general, fully qualified force in the celluloid battlefield.

You are dismissed!

Sgt Angle