Slaughter's Big Rip-Off

Speaking of Rambo and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo: First Blood Part II won the Worst Picture award in 1985, and Stallone holds the all-time lead in acting nominations and awards), we have the Golden Raspberry award nominations out, so let's look at the relevant categories.

Worst Sequel or Prequel:

Aliens vs. Predator

Daddy Day Camp

Evan Almighty

Hannibal Rising

Hostel: Part II

...and in the Worst Remake or Rip-Off category:

Are We Done Yet?
(Remake/Rip-Off of Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House)
Bratz
(A Rip-Off If Ever There Was One!)
Epic Movie
(Rip-Off of Every Movie it Rips Off)
I Know Who Killed Me
(Rip-Off of Hostel, Saw and The Patty Duke Show)
Who's Your Caddy?
(Rip-Off of Caddyshack)

Quite a step down from last year's clever citation of Little Man as a rip-off of the 1954 Merrie Melodies toon Baby Buggy Bunny. While it's nice that the ballot saw past The Money Pit all the way back to Mr. Blandings, Who's Your Caddy? is the only other legit citation here. I understand the impulse to heap scorn on these flicks, but:

a) Bratz is a cash-in and a marketing ploy, but I don't think you can rip off the intellectual property of a company paying you to make them an feature-length advertisement.
b) Epic Movie is a parody, idiotic though it may be, and a parody is not a rip-off.

c) I Know Who Killed Me has nothing whatsoever to do with Hostel, Saw, or The Patty Duke Show. It's certainly bad, but hating a movie isn't reason enough to level false accusations at it. They were very specific about that when they threw my Spider-Man 3 lawsuit out of court.

Lord, I was born a Rambo man

Easing back into the swim of things with a mention of today's main sequel release: Rambo, an indirect sequel to Rambo. Stallone seems to have become his own man as an auteur: after some success in 2006 with Rocky Balboa, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, he hat-tricks the new Rambo as well.

The series began the adventures of John Rambo with First Blood in 1982, with Rambo properly the name of the sequel. I've long found the series to be one of the most confusingly named groups available. In order, it goes
First Blood (1982)
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Rambo III (1988)
Rambo (2008)

So we can see that Rambo III should actually be Rambo II: First Blood Part III, or First Blood III: Rambo II. Now consider that First Blood has also been shown as Rambo (on US TV - is this canon?), and we can add that Rambo is a sequel to both Rambo and Rambo. This makes today's release Rambo: First Blood Part IV: Rambo III.

Sadly, that's not on the list of alternate and working titles: Rambo IV, Rambo IV: End of Peace, Rambo IV: Holy War, Rambo IV: In the Serpent's Eye, Rambo IV: Pearl of the Cobra, Rambo: To Hell and Back, Rambo IV: Quantum of Solace, John Rambo.

Disclosure: I have never bothered to see a Rambo film.