'Rambo' - C or D?

http://500hats.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/200pxhot_shots_part_deux.jpg

G.O.A.T.!

red dawn also classic

Guy did a DV remake -- more faithful to the book, apparently -- of First Blood, in his apartment for $96. He did all the work behind and in front of the camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMrtTgJ8KnM

haha awesome

not quite, but watchable enough.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=4715

opens in NY today. should be double-billed w/ Buster Keaton in The Playhouse.

M Z Seitz video essay:

http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/how-to-remake-rambo-for-9551/Content?oid=1494242

First Blood classic, doesn't even overdo it with the stupid paranoid 80's conservatism...doesn't really do it at all unless you count John's speech at the end about "didn't let us win"

well, the success of Creed is already paying unfortunate dividends

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/sylvester-stallone-to-produce-probably-star-in-rambo-new-blood-tv-series-for-fox-20151201

Was rewatching the first Rambo, which I've always liked fine, but I could never figure out why the cops in this small town don't like him so much. What is their problem?

Great Goldsmith score, regardless.

Rambo has long hair, is shifty looking, has no car. Another factor is that small town mentality that is against anyone from outside.

The cops - being from a small town - also have no accountability, feel they can do anything to anyone and get away with it.

I bought all that from the off.

That part I got, but they also mock him for being in the military. Or maybe they don't actually believe at first that he is in the military? I couldn't tell from their demeanor whether his uniform was a pro or a con.

They don't believe that he was and they certainly haven't done a check.

He didn't have much of an uniform did he? No medals either.

read the novel

I def. read the novel, but decades ago.

He is wearing an army jacket when they find him, and after they take him to the station 12 minutes in his dog tags identify him as a solider, before all the shit goes down. (Later they do sort of dismiss his awards and medals once they confirm it, but of course by then things have spiraled out of control thanks to the most good l' boy of the bunch). Anyway, I know a lot of returning vets faced resistance from some segments of society, but authoritarian leaning small town police I would think would have supported them, especially since as depicted he doesn't seem scuzzy enough for them to pick a fight with him. I guess that is the specific aspect that's always confused me, since he initially never seems like much of a troublemaker (even if they claim he smells like an animal), just more like a hiker.

Once they confirm he was a green beret/war hero he had already killed a cop.

Rambo seems a bit on edge to me when the main bad sheriff picks him up. I saw Rambo's remark at the end (which I don't think is in the novel, right? I've not read it but will if I see it) of soldiers coming back being dismissed as 'baby killers' filtering down to being seen as damaged goods by yer average pig.

try to track down zero-budget DV remake cited above

Maybe it is just a mundane filmmaking mistake. Stallone is pretty clean and well-kept when he's picked up, hair gelled, not nearly as horrible as he's made out to be. If he was filthy and unkempt he would be more disruptive, so I guess if the film is set in 1972, which it does not really resemble at all, then maybe it wouldn't take much to set off the small-town cops.

Sly way too old for the character as conceived, he should be around 25

was that a "thing" in the 70s? (Deer hunter, Grease)

The script tries to have it both ways: it wants to indict the practically non-existent portion of Americans who mocked Vietnam vets but makes them into cops.

typical H'wood Reagan-era shit

xpost So I'm not alone in noting its thematic inconsistency? (Not that I expect any.)

The second one is typical H'wood Reagan shit. The first is more a loose twist on the vigilante film, with the only honest man not vying with the cops but fighting against them. I don't think your hero stabbing, shooting, trapping, hurting cops is typical H'wood Reagan-era shit, though thematic inconsistency sure is.

it wasn't a Golan Globus film, I know this because only one person died in it

it did have a lil of the "you leeberals didn't let us win" and went out of its way to pose Rambo as the protagonist of Five Man Electrical Band's "Signs" is where it's most Reagan-y

I dunno, I never got too much of a right wing vibe from his rant (which I haven't made it to, upon current rewatch). I got more of a you have no idea what it was like and it was all for nothing tragic vibe. As opposed to (the military fetishist James Cameron written) Part II which gets all do-we-get-to-win-this-time wish right wing fulfillment.

it's not like, layered on thick or anything but he does literally say "they didn't let us win"

That's the point -- the politics are a muddle.

it's too bad the movie didn't have him gutting Galt like the book

it's crazy how many actors were considered/interested/attached during First Blood's development period:

clint eastwood
robert de niro
paul newman
steve mcqueen
al pacino (turned it down because his request to make rambo crazier was rejected)
john travolta
powers boothe
nick nolte
michael douglas
ryan o'neal
kris kristofferson
james garner
terence hill

In a 2011 article for Blade Magazine, by Mike Carter, credit is given to (the novel's author David) Morrell and the Rambo franchise for revitalizing the cutlery industry in the 1980s; due to the presence of the Jimmy Lile and Gil Hibben knives used in the films. In 2003, Blade Magazine gave Morrell an industry achievement award for having helped to make it possible.

and Crocodile Dundee!

I got my first survivalist knife -- the hollow shaft with the fishing line and compass at the end -- thanks to it.

what other survivalist knives are in your collection

I totally got a survivalist knife thanks to Rambo! Man, are Army Navy stores still open? The money they must have made after Rambo ...

what other survivalist knives are in your collection

― Οὖτις,

Swedish synth pop duos.

http://www.nanarland.com/Chroniques/ramboleda/saut.gif

http://www.therobotspajamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Rambo-Animated.gif

Interesting retrospecive on the original trilogy (on the occasion of the new 4K blu-rays):

https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2019/01/first-blood-rambo-first-blood-part-ii-rambo-iii-4k.html

Really good write-up although this:

Yet I'd be lying if I said Rambo's isolation didn't resonate with me now, as I stew in the sads of middle age, unmarried and broke, with an inapplicable film degree (like Rambo's tank training) and a hollow husk of a social life. Adult men are so bad at maintaining friendships without the glue of a social institution keeping them together--just ask the MEL Magazine article "Why Are Adult Men So Bad At Maintaining Friendships?."

Felt a bit off. Its quite startling for a guy of almost no words or any kind of emotional life whose life has been devastated by conflict and loss to track and seek out his old buddy - and as he mentions later he did look up Trautman too.

Disappointed by no mention of Rambo V: Last Blood (and yes, that's seriously happening).

rambo 6: transfusion has a shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vWg5yJuWfs

I don't even see why this is a Rambo film. Looks like Sly vs ... Mexican drug cartel? So basically a full-on Death Wish right-wing fantasy in a way that the even the other sequels never quite were.

rambo cos the name will draw the boomers.

right-wing fantasy in a way that the even the other sequels never quite were

Rambo III is the only one I've seen, which was the most demented right-wing fantasy movie I'd encountered before or in 31 years since, so yeesh @ this assessment

Being a Rambo vs the cartels film makes almost too much sense for this franchise at this moment in time.

From memory, Rambo III was ... him fighting the Russians with Afghan allies? At the very least that conflict was complicated. But lone white badass going down to Mexico to fight the cartels? I dunno.

rambo helps proto-al qaeda good guys against evil soviets is complicated?

The first two sequels fetishize extra-legal (but hush-hush state sanctioned!) vigilante violence, but they're more about Rambo being called in/exploited to clean up US military messes. The third sequel, it's still a (humanitarian, iirc) mess to be cleaned up, iirc, but it lacks the government's go-ahead. This one seems full vigilante.

Wise Blood's already taken.

wow so last blood is absolutely fucking vile, huh

The first one's politics are bat shit. Yes, the Veterans were Spit On, but the police chief (Brian Dennehy!) treats Rambo like a hippie, so the director Ted Kotcheff has it both ways.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 30 May 2019 bookmarkflaglink

Batshit and hilarious. If I catch it on TV I always watch it.

First Blood is great. Haven't seen the others and haven't felt a compulsion to.

This, on the other hand: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo:_The_Force_of_Freedom

first blood is great

iii is incredible in its entirely unique mix of greased-muscle homoerotica and full-throated support for the brave fighters of the mujahideen

last blood is a sickening display of anti-mexican torture porn which ends with a gang of drug lords being murdered in rambo’s backyard viet cong-style network of boobytrapped underground tunnels

What I love about it is how a product of the US military completely completely goes off on civilians and police.

Similar to Mr.X's monologue in JFK. The same network trained to commit imperialist war crimes in country after country turning in on itself.

murdered AND mutilated i should have said in that last entry

Was rewatching the first Rambo, which I've always liked fine, but I could never figure out why the cops in this small town don't like him so much. What is their problem?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, September 1, 2016 12:14 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

acab

long hair

First Blood is a masterpiece

anti cop
anti military

watched the first three this week because i was sick and ii is directed by my dude george p cosmatos so i figured, why not? i fully fell in love first blood, it's a reverse horror movie that takes place largely in a forest wreathed in fog, and it's so mournful and sad. low body count weighs weird considering what comes after, iirc only a few dogs and a cop die, and the cop's death is an accident out of self-defense. small town sheriff's department on a power trip seems completely aligned with reality to me, even if the actual politics animating it are way more opaque

first blood part ii is such wild fascist wish fulfillment that i just imagine he hallucinates this entire film during his breakdown in the first film. it fuckin rules though. exploding arrows and a fuckin helicopter chase... cinema

iirc Rambo kills a helicopter with a rock

iirc only one person dies in the first Rambo!

the scene in ii where sly grabs the microphone and says "murdock... i'm coming to get you" has to be one of the greatest sequences in action movie history

george p. cosmatos also directed sly in cobra which, like first blood ii, is a total fascist fever dream and a movie i love dearly for how little it seems to take place in reality

^ OTM on every count.

Thank u for reminding that Cosmatos directed Part II, guess I need to see that real soon.

Cobra is one of them movies I eagerly picked up in the video store in the 80's but barely remember anything about it other than chewing a cocktail stick or a match makes you nuff hard!

he cuts a pizza with scissors too

lol I remember that bit now!

tbf Jamie Oliver probably does the same

F.I.S.T. might also be prime for a rewatch seeing as though I've watched The Irishman about 5 times now

Cobra is an amazing exhibition of try-hard badass behavior which is a) uniformly weird and b) almost always performed for an audience of one so who are you even trying to impress rn, Cobretti

Also: Cobretti. Again: Cobretti.

Is this a film that could have had a different legacy if a different director and star had been picked.
Trying to think how good First blood was as a book. I think it is a scenario that has been replayed elsewhere and not given birth to a bunch of progressively dumb gung ho sequels. Drifter turning out to be much more capable of looking after themself than first thought.
Are there any Darwin awards handed out to people who've picked up on weapon use from this series.

Yes, the Veterans were Spit On, but the police chief (Brian Dennehy!) treats Rambo like a hippie, so the director Ted Kotcheff has it both ways.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 30 May 2019 bookmarkflaglink

weren't a lot of vets also hippies? and hippies also vets?

Disappointed that no one itt mentioned the depressingly sad First Blood end credits song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTPO3Q5DJrE

Best thing about Cobra is that it's a Christmas movie.

And of course James Cameron wrote Part II, right?

Cobra, I don't think I've ever seen it, but boy do I remember the poster and tagline. I wonder what action movie was the first to use laser scopes?

The 'get back to 'Nam and set s#1t right' genre started a few years before Rambo II.

Rambo II was made because Uncommon Valor and Missing in Action made a s#1t ton of money.

Best thing about Cobra is that it's a Christmas movie.

― in a bar, under the (seandalai), Friday, May 28, 2021 5:17 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is also one of my favorite things about first blood

The second best thing about Cobra is that the villains are axe-clanking quasi-satanist NWO-ers.

The third best thing about Cobra is the trivia that this movie was somehow adapted from the same source material:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f1/a3/a8/f1a3a80cef7a342ff92c1ee71aa2ac52.jpg

https://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/749-cobra-gave-the-1980s-the-dirty-harry-knockoff-it-d/

you have a life preserver? ... 'cause your french fries are drowning in there