the groundhog day project

Watching Rambo: First Blood Part II for the last time--I like to toy with the idea that after watching any of these movies for multiple days I will retire them from my viewing repertoire--it strikes me that I haven't had much that was actually negative to say about this film. Sure, it represents an attempt to rebuild American hegemony symbolically, and a manipulation to reconstruct the myth of Vietnam, but it's just so damn fun. So, I figured I'd end this week of Rambo by looking backward, see where Rambo came from. I've mentioned David Morrell, author of the novel First Blood . I've even talked here and there about differences between book Rambo and movie Rambo. But, why does Rambo even exist? Wilder (1990) presents us with a story--I'll just provide the beginning of it: A young boy is raised in a patriotic Christian culture to love god and country; to believe "Thou shalt not kill." At the age of 18, not yet old enough to drink or vote, he is giv...

Reported in 1987 (so, in regards to Rambo III ) in Forbes : Stallone was so shocked by the negative critical and listless box office reception for his latest movie, Over the Top, that he is rewriting the next Rambo to be more philosophical, in the vein of Oscar winner Platoon. Such talk elicits quick denials from Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar, the industry veterans who own 87% of Carolco. They insist that Stallone cannot turn the movie into a talky-thinky film punctuated with a little machine gun fire. "Rambo is an action/adventure film, so if you take out the action," says Vajna, "you don't have a film." (p. 88) Reading this now, I find it actually more interesting than when I referenced this passage in one of my Rambo speeches back in 2009. See, now I've seen some of James Cameron's comments on the script for the second film. I haven't seen the draft [edit: just as I was about to post this entry, I found Cameron's draft online, so I will re...