Posted on 09 February 2010
This is the first entry in a new column reminiscing on my adolescent movie crushes, in which I explore my memories of the objects of my obsession. Join me.
Sometime in the early ’90s, my young adolescent existence went from nerdy and tomboyish to boy-crazy, nerdy and tomboyish. Once it happened, I started noticing cute boys everywhere and I found that my girl friends did, too. We would have sleepovers and hang outs and talk for hours about the objects of our obsessions, pick which ones were our favorites (making sure to choose diplomatically, in case two girls picked the Justins and nobody picked the Lances), and replay particularly swoon-worthy scenes in our heads (i.e. “Remember that time Jonathan pretended to be a girl to get on the soccer team!?”). Only these boys weren’t the cootie-carrying classmates we went to school with; they were the dreamy, pretty, charismatic nice boys the likes of which could only be found in fantasy land. These were our movie crushes.
To kick-off this new column celebrating our collective childhood movie crushes, I’m taking it back to the first onscreen boy that ever made my heart beat with (innocent!) romantic palpitations. (Check out Jessica Barnes’ Michael Biehn post for a much more respectably nerdy first crush.) The year was 1992, his name was Michael Treanor, and he was one of the young stars of a major motion picture that had girls the world over swooning while simultaneously asking their parents to sign up for karate lessons: 3 Ninjas.
Filed under: Fandom, Home Entertainment, Stars in Rewind
Continue reading My Movie Crush: Michael Treanor in ‘3 Ninjas’
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Posted on 21 November 2009
While new Blu-rays of old movies are sometimes dubious replacements for prior editions (hence the need for this column), box sets released in the high-definition format have thus far been fairly helpful, at least in terms of shelf space: many or most of them forego a lot of the frills and flourishes of their standard-definition iterations in favor of more streamlined packaging. Unfortunately, that’s also sometimes extended to their extras, thanks in no small part to the legal entanglements of transferring commentaries and bonus content from one format to another.
Both Warner Brothers and Fox have faced this challenge a couple of times thanks to their ownership/ adoption of the libraries of MGM and United Artists, which until a few years ago issued their own releases. Rocky, which is one of United Artists’ premier franchises, was recently released on Blu-ray in The Undisputed Collection, a set that contains all six of the films in the series, but it remains to be seen whether complete also means comprehensive in this particular case.
What’s Already Available:
Filed under: United Artists, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Home Entertainment
Continue reading Making The (Up) Grade: Rocky
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Posted on 06 October 2009
Dolph Lundgren with the Alamo Drafthouse’s Lyrae Anderson
Dolph Lundgren isn’t the first name that springs to mind when you think “chemical engineer,” is it? You might be surprised to know that the guy who has made a career out of playing muscular bad dudes in movies has a masters in that field from the University of Sydney, and he was also a Fulbright scholar to MIT. However, he dropped out after two weeks to pursue acting full time, and that’s left us with his performances in everything from Rocky IV to The Punisher to Universal Soldier.
He’ll also be going toe to toe with Sylvester Stallone once more in The Expendables, but we found him returning to his Universal Soldier roots at Fantastic Fest in Austin with a sneak peek at Universal Soldier: A New Beginning. Read on beyond the break for the full interview, including an homage to Rocky IV that you’ll see in onscreen.
Filed under: Fantastic Fest, Interviews
Continue reading Fantastic Fest Interview: Dolph Lundgren from ‘Universal Soldier: A New Beginning’
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Posted on 28 August 2009
Naturally, when asked to pick a favorite montage I had to be painfully obvious and choose
Rocky IV. If I could program Star Trek Holodeck adventures for myself, one of them would totally be set in Hollywood’s version of the Cold War, where it was better to be dead than red, and nuclear war was just five minutes away unless Stallone or Schwarzenegger stepped in. This is the culture that spawned characters like Marvel’s Black Widow, and I too want to be an agent provocateur for one side or the other. Preferably Russian. They always had the cool black outfits.
That’s why I dig the Rocky IV montage. It’s steeped in images of what America firmly believed the Soviet Union to be — a country of superior technology and gigantic athletes that could totally crush us. This is the stuff of my Reagan era childhood, when my teachers told us we would inevitably fall to the hammer and sickle because the Soviets were just so relentlessly ruthless and badass. No one captures this better than Ivan Drago. To gaze on him is to look into Reagan’s fear of the Evil Empire. Drago’s the poster child for why we needed a lot of nukes in the 1980s. Even better, this montage also captures what we believed pre-Revolutionary Russia to be, which is clearly something out of Doctor Zhivago. Like Leo Tolstoy, Sylvester Stallone clearly believed that Russia lost its way when it strayed from its peasant soul, and he embraces its hearty lifestyle of serfdom in order to achieve true victory.
Watch the video after the jump
Filed under: Classics, Sports, Fandom, Film Clips, Trailers and Clips
Continue reading Our Favorite Montages: Rocky IV
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Posted on 25 June 2009
There are many reasons why Dolph is a go to man to be part of The Expendables. First of all, he has a great history with Sylvester Stallone, with Rocky IV being his big break. This film also flirts with some humor as well as heavy and hard action…
See more here:
Dolph Lundgren On The Set Of The Expendables
Posted on 22 May 2009

LEGOs really are the perfect toy, aren’t they? Think about it: no pesky gender divide about what boys and girls like, they thrive off of pure imagination, and they come in handy for some pretty geeky fan art. Now, we’ve already seen Silence of the Lambs done in LEGO, recreations of our favorite scenes, but now an industrious group of individuals at Speckyboy Design Magazine have compiled some great examples of movie posters that are made of those oh-so adaptable plastic building blocks. There’s a poster here for everybody, including a few nods to the current summer movie season (my favorite just might be the Inglorious Basterds recreation courtesy of Dr. Sinister — it’s not easy to find a bat that small), but we’ve also got some classics like Jaws by LegoLyons, and Rocky by Marcin ImpreSariO to round out the mix.
So it just goes to show that with a little imagination and a few plastic blocks, there is no limit to what a fan can, or will do. Check out some of our favorites in the gallery below.
Filed under: Fandom, Images, Posters, Fan Made
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Posted on 17 December 2008
We’re getting down to the wire when it comes to holiday shopping — and there is surely a man on your list who is impossible to shop for, one who’s allergic to sweaters, never needs ties, and doesn’t play golf or fish. You should buy that man a Rocky Balboa robe. I don’t think very many men would sneer at a Rocky robe, even if they aren’t collectors. This isn’t just a goofy prop, this is useful clothing! He’ll feel really macho as he wears it around the house, he’ll look respectable when he goes out to get the Sunday paper, and have a very clever Halloween costume in a pinch. Hey, it might even inspire him to take up a new fitness regimen!
You can get this at the Official MGM Store, where it just happens to be on sale — I suggest you use the extra money to buy the red, white, and blue boxer shorts as a solemn reminder that we all can change … or at least so he can amuse himself shadow-boxing Ivan Drago.
Filed under: Holiday Movie Junk
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