LIVE (for Nothing) OR DIE (for Something)

A couple of things re: the most recent Rambo that I've talked about a lot w/ friends: 1) my feeling that Sylvester Stallone GETS IT. That is, he understands his appeal & the appeal of his movies; shoots for that target and hits it. What do people want from a Rambo movie? Not action, but violence. Not suspense, but people getting blown up. Therefore we get the movie we wanted. A completely unredeeming movie which is really just a frame around two scenes of massacre via modern weaponry.

Is there a less redeeming movie than the new RAMBO? There's really nothing to take away from it; none of the characters are developed, it doesn't give you any reason really to root for the "good" guys v. the "bad" guys, except for the generic - southeast asians are obviously generally "bad" either because/or the cause of their constant living in squalor. Maybe there is some meta-critique about the way racists characterizations work (not to mention the wierd homosexuals are evil (or was it evil leads to homosexual pedophilia) shit in the middle) - as in why develop the evil bad guys when we already know that Rambo is going to kill them all - or maybe even a comment about the moving goers expectations. The game played in the middle by the "bad" guys being a microcosm of what the movie goer is expecting from the movie. Indiscriminate and random violence (those two scenes being the most suspenseful and cringe-worthy in the whole movie).

I've seen a lot of very violent, unredeeming movies, (perhaps i've lost my edge) but Rambo made me uncomfortable in a way a lot Zombie and Cannibal and Gore movies have not. Which nicely leads into my second talking point about this movie... 2) do you think Stallone has seen Cannibal Holocaust? It's not out of the realm of possibility, and I'd even say it's likely, given that Sly's son Sage Stallone is 1/2 of Grindhouse Releasing (also home to Cannibal Ferox & Fulci's the Beyond) that was the force behind the recent Cannibal Holocaust DVD (and limited theatrical run.) Cannibal Holocaust is a movie that I know well (the year I worked in a video store I only went to the theater three times - once to see Miike's Ichi the Killer and twice to see Cannibal Holocaust) and, depending on yr stomach, more unsettling than Rambo. On the short list of MOST GORY MOVIES EVER Cannibal Holocaust is FUCKED UP, but really, more nuanced/self-aware than most gore-for-gore's sake movies and more nuanced (though maybe not more self-aware) than Rambo.

It's an interesting question, because the similarities between CH and Rambo are there. From the plot = group of 1st world we-can-beat-the-world-with-our-1st-world superiority types go into the jungle and get fucked with & the canny world weary one has to go in after them, to certain uses of music (esp. in the first massacre scene where the symphonic music cuts in while the killing continues - see the "massacre" in CH) and other cinematic techniques. Most importantly the "BIG" question of both movies being Who is the real Savage? (obviously undercut in both movies by the exploitive/voyeuristic use of violence.) I think Stallone wants to awkwardly propose a visual connection between the two massacres esp. w/ the pan over the post-massacre bodies that is almost identical after both (which in Rambo is further undercut by the Hollywood touches of the "good guys" winning and Rambo-going-home endings.)

All that said, I think Rambo would have been MUCH MUCH BETTER if Stallone had stolen even more from Cannibal Holocaust, in particular the plot structure (but not more violence/gore). I think it could have elevated it from OK (and awkward/discomforting) to Great (and awkward/discomforting). Oh Well, His Loss.

I had planned to tie this all into another gore movie, Beyond the Darkness, the DVD extra interview that I had a life-changing effect on me, =ing my redemption/non-redemption, to now my epiphany-maturing-to-lameness re: gore movies (tied into other Stuff) but I'll save that for another time.