I’m as guilty as the next man of laughing off Sylvester Stallone in the face of his largely catastrophic latter-day film career, but I’m still willing to defend the man on a few counts.
“Rocky” has become one of those unfortunate good films needlessly punished for beating great films to the punch on Oscar night, and “Cop Land” isn’t so distant a memory that we should entirely dismiss his onscreen ability. Hell, some people I know were making similar claims recently for “Rocky Balboa.” (No comment.)
Nonetheless, I think the organizers of the Venice Film Festival may have taken such revisionist charity a bit far by awarding him the “Jaeger-Le Coultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award,” which is given annually to “an artist” (ahem) “who has left his mark in contemporary cinema.” Previous recipents include Abbas Kiarostami, Takeshi Kitano and Agnes Varda. I repeat: Kiarostami, Kitano, Varda … and Stallone.
If you think that’s bizarre, wait until you read the press release that delivered the news to my inbox this afternoon, excerpted after the cut.