I’m sorry, but a major second-tier film festival like Zurich’s offering a big career achievement award to Sylvester Stallone is an all-around diminisher — half-comedic and half-grotesque. And Variety‘s Steven Gaydos trying to put a gloss on this is…well, business-as-usual for Variety, of course, but also, no disrespect, unseemly.
The number of titanic godawfuls that Stallone has given the movie world cannot be glossed over — Rhinestone, Cliffhanger, Victory, Over The Top, Cobra, Paradise Alley, FIST, Stop of My Mom Will Shoot, Nighthawks, Staying Alive, etc. Decade in and decade out, the man’s instincts and brush strokes have been crude and garish. He’s never once gone the dry, subtle, less-is-more route with anything….not once.
Out of 56 movies Stallone has acted in, directed or voiced, a grand total of seven (three of which are products of his own personal vision) are generally considered to be somewhere between very good, good and half-decent — the original Rocky, First Blood, Judge Dredd (Stallone’s performance was very droll), Copland, the voicing of “Weaver” in Antz, Rocky Balboa and the ’08 Rambo (an inspired looney-tunes, porno-violent comedy which the guy audience very much enjoyed).