Past Entertainment Articles.

Article for the week of 1/30/06

Sylvester Stallone’s Career Officially Over
By, Grey Entertainment

It’s sad really, watching a former box office leader reduced to a TV movie special guest appearance. The latest Rocky movie for example, while bad enough in itself, was released straight to video, not DVD.
“Rambo IV: Jihad This Mullah” failed to even ignite protests of religious and cultural insensitivity, even when Rambo storms the Vatican and kicks Pope Benedict in the face while saving him from the Communists.
However it is not slapdash plot or poor acting that dooms these otherwise noble (from a certain point of view) efforts.
Ever since “Copland”, critically hailed as proof that Sylvester Stallone can act, the aging actor has found it all but impossible to gain support for a movie project that isn’t spat out onto the nearest available medium.
Much of the problem is typecasting, Hollywood loves to typecast actors into niches. Except of course when the actor defies these conventions.
When Sylvester Stallone was acting in brainless action movies with mild moralistic overtones and gratuitous explosions everything was fine. When he actually acted people got scared.
While others have managed to survive this breaking of type, most have managed to do so by sheer fluke. Jim Carey for example has managed to make several serious movies simply because no one laughs at half his comedies anyway.
Sylvester Stallone has not been blessed with such fortune, and thus the change was badly received, with most believing he had suffered some sort of seizure or dementia that impaired his judgement and ability, his existing speech impediment making verification difficult.
To his credit Stallone has tried to make the most of things, plodding along in low budget affairs and Reality TV, fighting like a trooper, even working alongside fellow tragic acting figure Burt Reynolds.
Even swapping notes with this impoverished veteran cannot help Sly after uttering the one phrase other than ‘What Hooker”, “I found her like that” or “I thought he was a she” that can spell utter doom for an actor.
“My mother thinks I’m cool”.
To date only Frank Sinatra and Charlize Theron have managed to say those five words and still work.
Sinatra used that phrase at the height of his career and all those who mocked him for it were “disappeared” over the course of a month.
Theron survived her use of the line because she is incredibly beautiful and talented. Though that may change once the long-term effects of Aeon Flux are assessed.
Stallone has none of these assets, consequently what meagre support he has left is evaporating.
According to rumour not even Burt Reynolds or Jodie Foster bother with returning his calls.
Though this is a sad turn for one of the great action stars, we must remember that many have made comebacks, John Travolta, Paris Hilton and Lassie (the third male, not the much publicised second female). It is entirely possible that Sylvester Stallone will find his “Pulp Fiction”, cheap personal porno or snuff film that catapult him back into the public eye.