OVER THE TOP TOPPLES OVER

Our sick Sylvester Stallone thing once drove Mike and I to watch trucking/arm-wrestling epic Over The Top and I could write a novel about that day. We watched it at like 2 pm on a weekday in a basement cuz we figured no one we know could happen by and discover our crime. As insurance, a shit ton of pot was smoked so we could deny intent and avoid a first degree Stallonicide charge. And to be honest, the movie retroactively justified our paranoid and over-reaching precaution. Shit was horrible, coast to coast; the opening credits of that movie are unintentionally hilarious, and they should get a group Oscar for Best Tone-Setting In A Credit Sequence (Opening). Ok I'm looking at IMDB and the producers are named giggle Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus giggle giggle. Golan directed, while writing credits go to Stallone and some Tom Robbins character come to life named Stirling Silliphant. Are you saying this shit out loud? These are hilarious names holy christmas. 

Naturally we figured these were aliases to shield those responsible for an awful rendering of a horrible story acted by dunces. But then Mike's dad knew of Golan and Globus and vowed they weren't villains in Lord of the Rings; Silliphant cropped up in some biography I read that apparently wasn't interesting enough to remember. It turns out I count a lot of phantoms among us, cuz my world is again rocked to find that Pantera co-producer Sterling Winfield isn't an inside joke concocted by Dime and Vinnie. Or a paycheck scam they ran on Atlantic. That's him (above). Wait a second. How do we know he's not some impersonator, like this fuckface or this sad dingus. Or what if he's an android from the future to decimate metal with clamped-down, arid production. You're welcome people. Know what my first clue was? He's looking for work!

UNDER THE BOTTOM

I'm only mostly ashamed to admit that as a founding member of a Sylvester Stallone society -- OK fine the only Sylvester Stallone society, namely the Society for the Appreciation of Sylvester Stallone (S.A.S.S.) -- I've watched and discussed a Stallone masterpiece on a weekly basis for months. It's no secret that Stallone is godawful, but did you know that each of his films is exactly the same? Oh but it's true. At open, Stallone is a disenchanted loser, crushed by society's betrayal. Then, he's drawn into some web of deceit, the solution to which only he can determine. If only you philistines would listen to him. But no, you just don't understand, and so it's silently that Stallone carries his Christlike burden until he saves your ungrateful asses at the end of the movie. Credits. 

And then there's the homoeroticism. I swear Stallone is either gay or extremely immature. Apparently somebody agrees with me, somebody who effortlessly put together this re-cut trailer to arm-/wang-wrestling epic Over The Top (above, via Film Drunk) to cast Stallone's trucker Lincoln Hawk as a child rapist. It's hilarious, but those of us who've seen/been haunted by Over The Top will tell you it doesn't even require crafty remixing to play as a disturbing pedophile fantasy. Not with a central character who grapples sweatily with other men at trucker hangouts while his prissy son looks on. Not with lines like "Why doncha slide over and see if you can work the equipment?" And especially not with the closing credits song sung by Sammy Hagar (below). Hagar and Stallone should 'work together' more often. Down at the gym or at a highway rest stop, perhaps.