You Are Not Stallone



Everyday is littered with tell-tale signs reminding us of the unwavering passage of time. One such sign i find particularly affecting, is how motherfucking far i have to scroll down the DOB year list when i'm buying plane tickets or whatever. Bums me out. The Fat Jewish hit on another one recently. Discmen.






Another one i find a little stinging, is that the film Cliffhanger is so close to my heart.







Anything you watch when you're like eight is going to have a profound affect on you, and my brother and i wore the tape in this VHS down to the fucking nub. But the above looks so old it could be a fucking retro James Bond poster. And that makes me feel old. I envy the youth of today, with their angry birds and their snapchat and most of all their attention spans.


But no youth of today has ever watched, or will ever watch Cliffhanger. As a result, no youth of today will ever be able to describe the unbridled motherfucking joy of finding the best acting performance of all time, hidden within the first five minutes of this staggering bit of cinema.


It concerns the - in almost all respects - pretty tense scene when the chick falls from the trip-line. 






Strange the way Sly's monumental triceps can't take the weight of a 9-stone girl, but plot inconsistencies to one side, it's the performance of Frank the helicopter pilot that deserves closer inspection.






As the scene nears it's disturbing finale, Sly's doing his absolute worst to keep hold of this chick who's about to fall to her death. Looking on from the side is the husband of the lady, some seriously hench rock-climber with even less acting prowess than Stallone, and our aforementioned man Frank.


And it's the performance of Frank that steals the show. While this lady is evidently about to die...


Frank is absolutely CREASING himself.






C H E C K  H I M  O U T







Seriously just watch the scene. 








At 0:15 he's just warming up, but it's on 1:10 - as she's falling - that he's in HYSTERICS.






I don't know if Universal weren't paying him jack and he'd decided to botch the film in the only way he knew possible, but i mean how else can you explain this behaviour? I'll tell you one thing. 


At that moment in time acting was pretty fucking low-down on the list of Frank's priorities.


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My brother and I used to spend DAYS rewinding and watching this again and again and again.



I love the fact we weren't alone either. A youtuber has uploaded the scene and hit upon the magic too.







Check out his description.







So am i buddy, so am i




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So yeah as an up-yours to all those little ragamuffins born two decades after me, no i can't fucking play angry birds - i could but i refuse to - and no i won't live to see the 2070 World Cup final. But i can still recall the unbridled fear of buying a porn mag, and i can tell you about Ralph Waite's frankly unbelievable performance in the first five minutes of Cliffhanger. And that makes me happy.



3 comments:

  1. the background in the profile shot of "Gabe" and the chick is clearly a studio

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  2. don't make them like they used to

    ReplyDelete
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