New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Let’s face it, whether we’re talking about movies, music, books or whatever, we all think we have great taste. Because we only see things from our own perspectives, we usually use our personal tastes as a way to judge quality.

But even so, we all have our guilty pleasures. I’m talking about that song you stop humming when someone walks into the room. Or maybe it’s that movie you claim your significant other dragged you to. Whatever the case, we all have guilty pleasures and that includes me, of course. With this column I’m going to try to encourage people to stop being embarrassed for liking things they normally wouldn’t or that aren’t considered cool. I’m going to do this by celebrating movies that are my personal guilty pleasures.

Growing up, there was no one more badass than Sylvester Stallone. (Sorry AHHnold.) In my opinion he was the epitome of everything cool. Like most people I was first introduced to Stallone through Rocky. That movie made a huge impression on me. I love all of the movies in the series and ever since I saw Rocky go toe to toe with Apollo Creed, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the Stallone and all of his action movies. Luckily for me, Stallone was a very productive actor and from 1976, when Rocky was released, until 1997 there were only two years in which he didn't star in at least one movie. (1977 and 1980) But during that time period there were several years in which he starred in multiple movies. (1978, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1995) So I think it's safe to say that Stallone was a very busy man.

But if Stallone action movies were one of my childhood staples, another equally important staple for me growing up was reading comic books. What can I say, I was a simple kid. I just wanted to watch Stallone kick ass and bury my head in comic books to watch some superheroes do the same. So when I heard that my main man Sylvester Stallone was going to star in a comic book movie, Judge Dredd, (1995) you know I was excited. I believe that some things are just meant to happen. Lois and Clark will always wind up together, what goes up will always come down and in this case I was always going to love Judge Dredd. I mean, this was the most badass actor (in my opinion) starring in a movie based on something I loved just as much as movies (comic books). Not only that, but it was one of the "dark and edgy" comic books that I was too young to read. So by the time I saw the first trailer it was already set in stone that I would love this movie...and I did (do.)

By the time I was born (1984), Stallone was already a superstar so I was introduced to most of his movies second hand on TV or VHS by my older brothers. But Judge Dredd was the first Stallone movie that I was fully aware of before its release. I remember watching the trailers and being blown away. I didn't get to see it in theaters. I was only 10 and it was rated R. But that didn't stop me from yelling out "I am the law!" to the few friends I had. And when Judge Dredd was released on VHS, my cousin and I snatched it up at Blockbuster as soon as we could.

Continued:       1       2