Sly Stallone at 65

Apolitical Sylvester Stallone told Bill O’Reilly that some critics of his blockbuster film The Expendables were reading too much into a simple action entertainment.  He compared it to media flack he got from his Rambo 2 movie line “Do we get to win this time?”  The critics, both film and social, “(made me) a focal point for jingoistic (excess),” regarding the Vietnam War.  This time, Stallone says, some critics are slamming The Expendables because they imagine it “(puts) a focal point onto American intrusion into other countries,” along with the hidden agenda scheme “to overextend our boundaries,” Stallon said, shaking his head, smiling.  “I don’t believe that at all.”

His movie doesn’t exactly pretend to be about art either; “These guys (The Expendables) are patriots and they’re doing something,” Stallone said, groping to find hidden agendas in a film where there clearly are none.  “…they’re proud patriots and (they take) out the bad dictators.” Unartful.  David O. Selznick’s advice (before bennies) was that art is nothing, entertainment everything.

If Stallone was annoyed with any criticisms during the interview it was with the carping in general, saying that “America apologizes too much.”  The ageless star of four decades seems to be pleased that the notoriety is only helping his movie stay at the top.  That will guarantee an Expendables trilogy, franchise and Stallone’s assent from mere legend to immortal.