Sylvester Stallone’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

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ScreenRant posted Sylvester Stallone’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes.  Below is their list and my rankings using just their top ten.  Regular readers would know that Get Carter would have definitely made my list.

ScreenRant

Craig
10. Rocky II 10. Antz
9. Nighthawks 9. Death Race 2000
8. Cop Land 8. Rocky II
7. Rocky Balboa 7. Creed II
6. Death Race 2000 6. Rocky Balboa
5. Creed II 5. First Blood
4. First Blood 4. Nighthawks
3. Antz 3. Cop Land
2. Rocky 2. Creed
1. Creed 1. Rocky

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe

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If you’ve never read a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe story, you should.  You’d be in for a treat. 

Stout did something unique: he married the British Golden Age, puzzle-solving school of mystery fiction with the street-smart, hardboiled, thoroughly American detective novels of Chandler and Hammett to come up with a seamless blend of thought and action, narrated in a prose that was unfailingly literate, witty, and engaging.

Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories are entertaining with just the right mix of action, mystery and humor.  Neil Nyren (who I quoted above) provides an in-depth look at Stout and his stories at Crime Reads.  Check out Rex Stout: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics.

Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother

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I love this cover to Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother.  Ms. Tree was a comic series created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty that first appeared back in the 1980’s!

I have to admit I didn’t get the title’s pun until my buddy, Jim Ivey pointed it out to me: Ms. Tree = Mystery.  He thought I was messing with him, but I truly missed it.  At any rate, Ms. Tree tales are being reprinted by Hard Case Crime.  Here’s how the first is being solicited…

When her private detective husband is murdered by the Muerta crime family, Ms. Tree takes over the business! Cold, calculating, and tough as nails, no case is too small, no violence too extreme, so long as a mystery is solved… and Ms. Tree is paid.

The creation of award-winning crime and comics writer Max Allan Collins (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Road To Perdition, Quarry’s War), illustrated by co-creator and pulp legend Terry Beatty (Johnny Dynamite, Mike Danger, Rex Morgan M.D.)!

Collects five classic Ms. Tree stories for the first time since the ’80s, plus the rare Ms. Tree prose story “Inconvenience Store”!

The “D-Day” Trailer is Here!

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The D-Day trailer is here!

Some people called it a suicide, but for the Rangers of the 2nd Battalion, that’s another word for #mission. When an elite group of American #soldiers are ordered to take out a series of German machine gun nests, they find themselves blindly venturing into hostile territory. Outnumbered and outgunned they must risk life and limb as they cross treacherous terrain, never knowing where the enemy might be hiding.

“Race with the Devil” and Drive-In Movie Memories

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From time to time you’ll hear me talking about a type of film that I refer to as a drive-in movie.  I was fortunate enough to grow up when drive-in theaters were everywhere.  Drive-in theaters were inexpensive and fun, always offering at the very least a double feature of second run movies, low budget films and often theme nights (Charles Bronson movies, horror movies, well, you get the idea).

Brad Gullickson at Film School Rejects writes about a movie that definitely fits my criteria of a drive-in movie.  Race with the Devil is a low-budget movie featuring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as a couple of buddies who with their wives stumble on a Satanic human sacrifice while camping out.  Before you can say, “Run!” the Satanists are after them with the thought of four more sacrifices.

Check out Gullickson’s Satanic Panic Hits The Road in ‘Race with the Devil’.

“Them!” Trivia

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Mark Mancini and Mental Floss present 11 Fun Facts About Them!.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched Them! over the years.  I’m happy to report it still holds up.  When I was a kid, I loved that Matt Dillon, Spock and Daniel Boone all had roles, heck it still brings a smile to my face.  And now without further adieu, here are three of my favorite facts…

4. LEONARD NIMOY MAKES AN APPEARANCE.
In one brief scene, future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy plays an Army man who receives a message about an alleged “ant-shaped UFO” sighting over Texas. He then proceeds to poke fun at the Lone Star State, because, as everybody knows, insectile space vessels are highly illogical.

10. THE MOVIE WAS A SURPRISE HIT.
Studio head Jack L. Warner predicted that Them!, with its far-fetched plot, wouldn’t fare well at the box office. So imagine his surprise when it raked in more than $2.2 million—enough to make the picture one of the studio’s highest-grossing films of 1954.

11. THEM! LANDED FESS PARKER THE ROLE OF TV’S DAVY CROCKETT.
When Walt Disney went to see Them!, he had a specific objective in mind: Scout a potential Davy Crockett. At the time, Disney was developing a new television series that would chronicle the life and times of the iconic frontiersman, and James Arness, who plays an FBI agent in Them!, was on the short list of candidates for the role. Yet as the sci-fi thriller unfolded, it was actor Fess Parker who grabbed Disney’s attention. Director Gordon Douglas had hired Parker to portray the pilot who ends up in a psych ward after an aerial encounter with a gargantuan flying ant. And while his character only appears in one scene, the performance impressed Disney so much that the struggling actor was soon cast as Crockett.

Area 51 Trivia

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Claudia Dimuro and Mental Floss present 10 Out of This World Facts About Area 51.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO SNEAK INTO AREA 51 WITHOUT BEING SPOTTED—AND USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED IF ANYONE TRIES TO EVADE SECURITY.
Given the intense nature of its secrecy, it comes as no surprise that Area 51 is heavily guarded. Pilots who purposefully fly into the restricted air zone can face court-martial, dishonorable discharge, and a stint in the can. The land is patrolled by “cammo dudes,” men wearing camouflage that have been seen driving around the area keeping an eye out for pesky civilians looking to break into the area. But truth-seekers, beware: Signs placed outside the area warn that Area 51 security is authorized to use deadly force on anyone looking to sneak onto the property.

7. FORMER AREA 51 EMPLOYEES WHO WERE SWORN TO SECRECY ARE OPENING UP ABOUT THEIR WORK THERE.
Some former employees who were once sworn to secrecy about what happened at Area 51 are now free to share their stories. One Area 51 veteran, James Noce, recalled handling various mishaps that were accidentally exposed to the public eye—for example, the crash of a secret aircraft that was witnessed by a police officer and a vacationing family. The family had taken photos; Noce confiscated the film from their camera and told the family and the deputy not to mention the crash to anyone.

Noce recounted how there was no official documentation stating he worked at Area 51, and that his salary was paid in cash. He also confirmed that he never saw any alien activity at the site.

1. AREA 51’S EXISTENCE WASN’T OFFICIALLY ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT UNTIL 2013.
Although it was chosen as a site to test aircraft in 1955, the government did not acknowledge that Area 51 even existed until 2013. According to CNN, maps and other documents created by the CIA were released thanks to Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security Archives, who was granted access to the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Unfortunately, the papers made no mention of little green men running around the facility.