Distilled Awesomeness of Sly

I was very enthused to watch "Paradise Alley" starring Sylvester Stallone. My anticipation only heightened when I had to wait an extra few days because it wasn't available at my nearest netflix shipping facility.

Why was I excited? Because the netflix teaser says this:

Stallone makes his directorial debut and even sings the theme song.

Was it sufficiently awesome? I'll let you decide





Other brief points of note:
- Dennis and Sweet Dee's mom plays one of the female leads.
- There are two climactic physical scenes, one is an arm wrestling match that seriously lasts for about three minutes, the other is a body wrestling match in an outdoor ring so everytime someone gets slammed (which is frequently) there's a great splash effect.
- Largely forgettable plot aside I was actually pretty impressed with what a good job Young Sly did at creating a very genuine 1940s Hells Kitchen atmosphere. Not that I was ever a working class dago in the 40s, but it didn't feel like 1978 either so congrats, Sly.
- I'm beginning to think Sly might have some weird repressed sexuality. There's a throwaway gag in Paradise Alley where the villain is revealed to be wearing a thong and stockings. Couple that with the Nighthawks drag-fest and I'm on the edge of being weirded out. If there's drag in The Expendables I may have to walk out.