Edward
Bartender
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- 25,071
- Location
- London, UK
John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone--they're part of a long list of actors who managed to create their own on-screen personas that were/are worth their weight in gold. People didn't/don't go to see their movies because they want to watch great performances, they go because they want to watch Wayne, Eastwood, et al, do what they do best. It's not much of a "problem" when they and the studios are making the kind of money those movies pull in.
I've never been convinced by John Wayne, though my maternal grandmother was a big fan. I remember when I was very young, one of my earliest memories of her place was a picture of John Wayne overlaid on a grained faux-wood type thing (similar to a gloriously tacky image of Elvis I keep in my toilet as part of a shrine of sorts) that hung above her chair by the fire in her house at the time. As a small child I believed it was a picture of my grandfather, who did bear sometihng of a resemblence to 'the Duke'.
If you think Cobra is Stallone's worst movie, it's pretty clear you've never seen Rhinestone, Over the Top, or Oscar. I've heard Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is truly terrible as well, but I could never bring myself to watch it.
I've never seen In Harms Way, but the other three are probably my favorite John Wayne movies.
Rhinestone - is that the one where he works in the family fuyneral parlour, and for a bet Dolly Parton turns him into a country and western star? I remember watching that, really late one night right after Aliens in TV... I'd have been about fifteen, I think. It was hilarious in a quite likely unintentional way.
Stop or my mom will shoot is not the worst mainstream family comedy I've ever seen.... I saw itg with parents in the cinema, and it's an unchallenging watch youj could imagine having on at that pointg during Christmas week when all you want to do is sit by the fire and not think while the looking box is on. Stallone in that is really just playing the straight man to Estelle Getty.
There are elements of the original Judge Dredd film that weren't so bad in the way they realise a live action portayal of the souce material. Alas, Stallone was not one of those elements. Quibbles about the uniform aside, the character he played bore even less relation to the comic-book page than did Adam West's Batman. Which was, to be fair, not entirely Stallone's fault as a performer (he was much stronger in similar fare in Demolition Man). Eastwood would have been a superior fit for the role - not least because Judge Dredd, who is ultimately a brutal representative of a fascist regime and has been involved in, even directed, many repressions of pro-democracy protests, over the years is an anti-hero who was not a little directly inspired by Harry Callaghan himself.