The Patriot that became a Senior Citizen.

ROCKY V is the ALIEN 3 of Rocky Movies. Back to basics.

It’s about Heart. And it’s about Family. Rocky’s enduring heart. And his struggles to understand his family outside the boxing arena.

Facing potential brain damage from his last fight with Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) begrudgingly retires. Piling insult on injury, he loses his fortune and moves back into the old neighborhood with his family, where he must learn how to deal with what Apollo Creed presaged over the last two films – getting old and irrelevant.

While down financially, Rocky finds spiritual uplift in mentoring an up-and-coming fighter, Tommy “Machine” Gunn (real life heavyweight boxer Tommy “The Duke” Morrison). Neglecting his own son Robert in the process (Stallone’s real life son, Sage, in a terrific debut performance). Due to wife Adrian (Talia Shire) making it clear she wants Robert raised using his brains instead of his fists, Rocky gravitates toward the impetuous Tommy like a surrogate son.

ROCKY V starts with the last few minutes of ROCKY IV, showing Rocky taking massive blows to the head from Ivan Drago (to reinforce the brain damage plot). The first new scene is Rocky coming out of the shower in Russia, directly after the fight, and telling Adrian, while wet and shivering, that his hands can’t stop shaking. He reminisces about his dead trainer Mickey telling him of bouts where sometimes he’d fight so hard he “felt he broke something inside.” The shivering, the hands – Rocky thinks he really broke something this time – or maybe… just towel yourself off after the shower. It IS Russia, dude.

When they land back in the States, the young sandy-haired kid who played Rocky Jr. in ROCKY IV (named, appropriately, Rocky Krakoff) has morphed into Sage Stallone. No wonder Rocky thinks he’s suffering some kind of brain damage. It’s like Michael Gough as Alfred, seeing Batman change from Michael Keaton into Val Kilmer into George Clooney…

To move the plot, the method by which Rocky is divested of wealth is very sudden and a little shark-jumpty, as Pauly (Burt Young) has signed some document that gave Rocky’s accountant power of attorney, who invested all Rocky’s money and lost it. Rocky is told this by two guys who look like lawyers on accounta their office with lotsa windows overlooking the city, and who do line-reads more powerful than a toothpaste commercial. Further, Rocky is prohibited from remaking the money through boxing because he cannot get a boxing license with brain damage (as diagnosed by two guys who look like doctors on accounta their white overcoats).

So although it’s a good story device – stranding the hero with nothing and nowhere to go – it’s done in a slightly unpolished manner.

Richard Gant is mouthy promoter George Washington Duke, hounding Rocky out of retirement, promising he can get licenses, and make Rocky’s fortune back, if only Rocky signs with him. Eventually, after Rocky takes his protégé Tommy Gunn into the big leagues under his tutelage, Duke steals away this person whom Rocky invested his rejuvenated soul in. And Tommy unrepentantly abandons Rocky, insulted for being called “Balboa’s Puppet” by the press. Again, a good plot development, and a tragic moment for Rocky – Stallone’s reaction is heart-breaking when Tommy neglects to thank him after winning the heavyweight dance belt under Duke’s management – but Morrison’s performance of turning on Rocky sounds like he’s playing pretend as the schoolyard bully.

Adrian has become a fleshed out character by ROCKY V, to the point where her actual “character” has changed. Whereas she was initially the shy girl prop, now she is an attractive outgoing woman, Rocky’s equal, pep talking him in III, supporting him in IV, and guarding him ferociously in V. Although I always find it hard to reconcile the fact that her first reaction to any of Rocky’s bouts is “No no no no no!” followed by obsequious submission to the trade that pays her hairstyling bills. Not just submission but downright joy. There’s always something not quite rational with Adrian’s reversals.

There is boxing aplenty in ROCKY V, but Rocky himself never steps into the ring. His one real match is a street brawl against Tommy Gunn. Heart against power. In a few decisive strokes, Rocky puts Tommy down. Tommy recovers, punches Rocky from behind – and it’s ON! We see both Rocky and Tommy use a whole swathe of street moves on each other in a rule-less dustup. Master against student in a battle to the anti-climax.

The Master shows the Student how it’s done: how to wear slimming black and still look fashionable.

ROCKY V is stripped of the blitz and blam of the last two entries (III and IV, both written and directed by Stallone) and reverted back to the “street” ethos it retained in ROCKY and ROCKY II. Stallone still screenplays, but hands over the director’s chair to the man who helmed ROCKY, John G. Avildsen. So V looks a little “tougher,” and plays a little tougher with its storyline about facing adversity and loss.

Mickey (Burgess Meredith) is long dead, but makes a new flashback appearance, where he is made to exhibit a sentimentality his original character never had. This is for the device of giving Rocky a memento – a tiny boxing glove on a chain – so that Rocky may now give that memento to the person he values most…

I salute Stallone for trying to do something original, meaning keeping Rocky’s action right out of the ring, and not feeling the need for a title fight, instead pitting Rocky against a fighter who stands for different values. It is a well-constructed story, with analogies between Rocky’s kid taking on bullies at school and Rocky taking on corporate bullies. (And I think Stallone was just aching for a chance to use the same dopey drawl from the original ROCKY.) It’s just a little untidy and it defies viewers’ expectations of a ROCKY film (not in a good way).

Rocky’s ringman, once Apollo’s ringman – Tony Burton as Duke – is not in this installment, except for a few minutes at the beginning when the team arrives back from Russia. Yet there he is in flashback during the final fight, yelling “Noooo!” Come on, there’s gotta be some bonus points for that magical appearance!

Like the last two ROCKY films that lacked grip because they had nothing at stake except the ego of the protagonist, V also has absolutely nothing at stake – no title, no dance belt, no money, not even the protagonist’s ego, because Rocky is fine with adapting to life as a regular guy, without money, fame or Pauly’s sex-robot. At stake seems to be Rocky’s mental well-being, that if they pull him back in, he’ll die a quivering neurological death. But that’s really too abstract to get our teeth into. Is the movie saying boxing – like cigarettes – is bad for your health? At times, it seems like the movie itself is trying to stamp out the boxing /gladiator element that made the series so popular, replacing that sweat-drenched ethos with a family-first ethos.

The end titles are a retrospective of stills from all five ROCKY movies. It really was an ending. Rocky Balboa had run his last mile, had punched his last face, had butchered his last dialogue. We will miss thee, Rocky. We will miss the sweat, the muscles, the grit, the heart. We will miss the tiny shorts and man-midriffs and eighties disco. We will miss the montages, we will miss the heartbreaks and triumphs, and the sting of the final bell; we will miss the colorful challengers, from Apollo to T to Drago; we will miss the run up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum to spar in frenzied glory in the light of the breaking dawn. But most of all, we will miss Tony Burton yelling Noooo.

END

The Pussy that became a Gangbanger.

I pity the fool that takes ROCKY III seriously.

ROCKY III is the STAR TREK IV of Rocky Movies. The most glitz and glam-blammo, with a story so basic your dog could have written it; the most color and muscles and shouting – and definitely the most fun!

Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) must defend his boxing title against “wrecking machine” Clubber Lang (Mr. T). And who better to help him than his opponent from the first two movies – Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers)! Cutoff tees, tiny shorts, and man-hugs at the beach ensue.

Whereas ROCKY and ROCKY II retained a hard-edged street grit, ROCKY III has been squorzled through the Hollywood sausage machine by writer-director Sylvester Stallone. No foul – he’s moving with the times, with the slicker production, the harder hitting and the manlier midriffing. On the other hand, the underdog/gladiator ethos that underpinned the first two streetwise films has been lost to wealth and hubris. Rocky is now living the high life, with mansions, cars, endorsements, riches – and having defended his heavyweight title 10 times.

Stallone has found a certain stride with this film, artfully blending comedy and drama, in a slick, caramel-coated apple delight that has very little nutrition, is riddled with cliché, and follows a predictable flow chart of hero being taken to his lowest ebb and rising in a hail of glory. Yet all the ROCKY movies send mixed messages of “battle = right” and “trying = winning,” and none of them can give us reason enough for the characters to “do” what they do. For example, Apollo shouts at Rocky, who is taking lots of hits, “It doesn’t take a man to stand there and get his head beat off.” First of all, did someone say “beat off” in a film where men wear cutoff tees and tiny tiny shorts? Second, Apollo is correct, yet he doesn’t take the logical next step: It doesn’t take a man to enter a boxing ring to prove he’s a man in the first place. Rocky could have actually been a bigger man if he had not taken the bait of his challenger, and just walked away from the silliness.

Hulk Hogan cameos as Thunderlips in a charity match against Rocky. The stupidest thing about this boxer-versus-wrestler scene is that the characters are taking it seriously – Thunderlips is really trying to break Rocky in half. There is no producer coordinating the fighters, explaining the choreography, etc. Yet Rocky seems well-versed in the wrestling moves, bending and flowing with the holds and falls (for fake-wrestling to work, both combatants have to be in on the gag), so Rocky either practiced these moves with Thunderlips or he’s a natural-born fake-wrestler as well! I can’t begin to deconstruct how dumb it is that Stallone thinks WE are dumb enough to believe this is how a charity match would unfold. Reminds me of that idiotic 1976 charity bout between Muhammed Ali and wrestler Antonio Inoki, where Inoki just lay on the canvas and tried to kick Ali’s knees for the whole unsatisfying match. An egregious embarrassment for the wrestling and boxing world because they DID take it seriously.

Trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) has moved into Rocky’s mansion, and, after being sorely ignored during ROCKY II, Pauly (Burt Young) unleashes his demons and almost gets interesting until he too is moved into the boxer’s manse to shut him up. Wife Adrian (Talia Shire) is wearing furs and hooker mascara, and from all the magazine covers and television ads, we see that even Rocky has undergone some kind of beautification surgery, making his face gaunt and tight.

And look at that V-shaped body, a ballistic missile cut like Jesus on the cross. Arguably the greatest shape Stallone would attain throughout his ROCKY/RAMBO years (maybe only rivaled by his shape in RAMBO III, 1988). Sylvester Stallone was in his prime here. He doesn’t even look like a boxer anymore – he’s a bodybuilder, concentrating on the abs and rib muscles, going for definition, not strength or stamina. (Stallone’s body fat was allegedly just under 3% during this shoot). Gone is the pudgy naïve boxer that represented Everyman. In his place, kind of an asshole.

Someone say asshole? Enter Clubber Lang (newcomer Mr. T, mohawked, bejeweled, outrageous-for-this-era), biding his time becoming the number one boxer in the world and then exploding and challenging Rocky at the unveiling of the Rocky statue on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum…

Rocky: art or prop?

That statue. A strange piece of art, no? With a stranger nomadic history. Created specifically for this movie by sculptor A. Thomas Schomberg, the 2-ton, 10-foot tall bronze statue of Rocky Balboa is mounted at the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum steps when Rocky is receiving his honor from the city.

After filming on ROCKY III was completed, Stallone donated the statue to the art museum, who declined it as a “movie prop” – not art at all! Oh, burn!

It was moved to the front of the Philadelphia Spectrum arena (where Rocky battled Apollo Creed in ROCKY). It was brought back to the top of the steps for a few films (including ROCKY V), then returned to the Spectrum.

In 2006, due to the mayor of the city realizing the statue’s avid tourist draw (i.e. dollar value for his town), and its attachment to one of Philly’s favorite adopted sons (Stallone/Rocky), the statue was relocated to the bottom of the steps of the art museum. Poimanently!

Mickey is against Rocky taking on Clubber, worrying that Clubber is Too Legit; confessing that he had been “protecting” Rocky through his titles, hand-picking fighters that were not exactly chumps, but not exactly killers. Mickey laments, as they sit in his luxurious room, “The worst thing that can happen to any fighter, happened to you – you got civilized.” (Isn’t that the problem with boxing? Only Neanderthals should be competing, because only they possess the requisite ferocity to keep punching another man for no reason. And isn’t that against the whole human ethos of civilized forward momentum?)

Mickey’s meddling is quite a bombshell for Rocky, as it means everything Rocky has won, all his riches, and who he is – are a lie. After Mickey’s death, it is no wonder Rocky goes through a PTSD downer, where even Apollo’s tiny midriff shirt fails to excite him to action. Adrian must give him a platitude pep speech that is totally illogical, but seems to make sense enough to get his head kicked in one more time.

Mr. T was scary as hell back then. All that badass jewelry and leather and gold chains and Native American feathers. He didn’t hate Rocky – he just “pitied the fool!” Remember Eddie Murphy joked about Mr. T coming after him in RAW? That must have been terrifying. Then Mr. T played B.A. Baracus on THE A-TEAM television series and that erased much of the terror and mystery. And nowadays, that mohawk and those overdone gold chains are not so much a statement as a punchline. Does anyone take this guy seriously anymore?

Still, it didn’t matter how scary Clubber Lang was, Rocky once again trains like a chump, surrounded by finery and glitter, disregarding Mickey’s yelling about gettin’ the blood and sweat and tears back. Though Rocky is the hero, by this third outing, we’re wondering if he’s ever going to learn how to properly prepare for a match? Or do we keep turning a blind eye to this hubristic, arrogant dope? I mean, how did he retain his title 10 times?

Mickey has a heart attack on the way to the ring, and is laid out on a table in the locker room, unaware of the bout’s results… In two rounds, Rocky is beaten to a pulp by Clubber, who claims the big gold dance belt from the Stallion. The most poignant moment in the film is when a bloodied Rocky sadly reports back to Mickey, still lying on the table, his eyes closed, leaving out information to make Mickey think he won:

Mickey: “What happened?”
Rocky: “It was a knockout.”
Mickey: “What round?”
Rocky: “Second round…”

During this exchange, a single tear slowly rolls down Mickey’s cheek from his closed eyes. He wants his last thoughts before death to be that of Rocky winning – but the pragmatist in him knows that’s a lie. Yet he keeps up the façade; his last good deed for Rocky – letting Rocky think he never hurt Mickey with the bad news. It would take pages to unpack the greatness of the small things in this moment – suffice to say, this scene alone is what Oscar lives for.

Apollo Creed comes calling, to train Rocky. Why? He explains it, but I’m not buying it. Something to do with man-dancing in the ring, wearing cutoff tees that the Village People would condemn as too gay, frolicking in the surf like male strippers, and making Rocky wear Apollo’s pants. Isn’t that what all boyfriends do?

Cue Bill Conti.

Apollo makes a point about getting old – that there’s nowhere to go for gladiators. He’s right. When you are in a young man’s profession, what do you do after your age takes its toll, and it’s the only thing you know how to do?

For inspiration, Apollo plays the Survivor song, Eye Of The Tiger, while he’s training Rocky, and Pauly makes racist comments about Rocky not being able to train “to this jungle music” – but it’s white guys, Pauly! Playing rock, not hip hop!

Rocky versus Clubber II: More frenzied fists flying, no one blocking anything, just taking it on the head, each punch sounding like a slab of beef hitting the side of a steel shed. We’ve left reality a long time ago, but just to make sure we don’t accidentally step out of fantasyland, fortunes turn on a dime during the match: Rocky let’s Clubber club him senseless – and suddenly starts clubbing Clubber senseless. Because – Eye Of The Tiger.

Honorable mention to Tony Burton as Duke, Apollo’s ring man for three movies now, who once again gets a slow motion shot screaming, “Nooooo!” (Actually, it’s a “strobed” shot – kinda like slomo but not as smooth.) It ain’t a ROCKY movie unless we got Tony Burton screaming, “Nooooo!”

I pity the fool for whom Tony Burton is screaming Nooooo!

END

When phantom punches ruled the world.

The Stallion that became a Pussy.

The giant title floats across screen – ROCKY II –and we are assaulted with the visual of two men beating each other to death. Blood, eyes swollen shut, back-sweat and bruising, bone pounded, ears cauliflowered, cutting an eye open, nose broken – what kind of christian crucifixion torture-porn am I looking at?

Oh, it’s a boxing match.

The story of Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) continues in ROCKY II from the second we left him back in ROCKY (1976). Recapping the last few minutes of Rocky’s bout with Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), we then follow the damaged boxers in ambulances back to the hospital, where the two meet in wheelchairs surrounded by their entourages, both bloodied and battered, eyes swollen shut, with Creed now yelling at Rocky, baiting him for a rematch. Considering that Creed won, and remembering their badly-looped dialogue at the end of that match (“Not gonna be a rematch.” “Don’t want one!”), we can only assume it was the BOX OFFICE demanding a rematch, not Apollo’s damaged pride or emasculation.

(ROCKY was the highest grossing film of 1976. And with a production budget of just one million dollars, its worldwide return was over 11,000 percent.)

Stallone’s script for ROCKY had a great hook – a nobody given the chance to become a somebody; it created the flow chart for “inspirational sports movie”; it was responsible for The Training Montage; it spoke to underdogs about going the distance, and it didn’t bow to convention by making the hero win. Stallone’s script for ROCKY II is a forced mélange of tropes where the hero supposedly “discovers himself” but really only proves he’s an unqualified, ignorant mutt.

Rocky retires after his bout with Apollo, figuring he’ll never do anything more box-ier than sparring with the World Champ. He marries Adrian (Talia Shire), buys a house, then finds he can’t hold down any kind of job (TV commercials, abattoir, office job). He is, after all, just a slow-witted boxer. He comes to the conclusion to return to boxing, even though his doctor advised him not to fight anymore for the threat of going blind. But as Rocky laments to Adrian, out of pathos, humility and – let’s face it – ignorance: “It’s all I know.”

Meanwhile, the Champ is getting letters (that’s the olden day’s version of tweets, you idiot children of smartphones) calling him a coward and a loser; newscasts are denigrating his legacy and there’s really no other boxer around to use as villain, so…

Rocky visits his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), hat in hand, asking to be trained to face Apollo again, which Mickey vehemently vetoes. Rocky has lost the peripheral vision in his right eye, and Mickey gets in a good wallop to prove a point: “And that’s from a broken down pug like me. The Champ would hurt you poimanently! POIMANENTLY!”

I feel Rocky’s pain. This is what we all face as we grow older. The dilemma to quit gracefully the only job/avocation we know, or to peter out gradually, getting more ridiculous holding onto our youth as the years wear on.

“You can’t catch me – I’m the Gingerbread Stallion.”

ROCKY II is like a chick wondering what to wear. Rocky is made to look indefinite and purposeless. Adrian doesn’t want him to fight, so Rocky timidly starts training again, like a wuss. He doesn’t show us anything that Mickey says he possesses – heart. If anything, he’s got NO heart. No principles, no ambition. And also, no talents outside of beating up people. Either go against her wishes and TRAIN LIKE A DEMON, or comply with her wishes and DON’T FIGHT. Instead, he girl-taps the punching bag quarter-heartedly, which is exceedingly annoying, and Mickey is totally justified in once again calling Rocky a bum being ruled by the puss.

Then Adrian goes into a coma (pregnancy complications – whoops! We’ve just lost all the male viewers), and she lies in a hospital room disturbingly devoid of intravenous tubes, heart monitors and machines that go ping. The method used to sustain her life and keep her healthy until she regains consciousness was seemingly to Just Wait Around.

Then Rocky begins reading to her. Oh, so now it’s a horror movie. Rocky “reads” for just a few minutes of compressed time, but it seems like a two-hour ordeal from our end, and we praise the dolphin god Bathuselah that Rocky’s droning brings Adrian out before it puts us under. When she wakes, she doesn’t say, “I’m glad you didn’t fight and risk your physical health and brain damage, because we have a child on the way” – no. She shyly says, “You know what I want you to do? Win!” Why did she capitulate? Because it’s 1979 and she’s a chick, I guess.

Cue Bill Conti’s fanfare.

There’s something very poignant about that now-famous run through the street market in this film. In ROCKY, it was guerilla filmmaking, with no permits, no prep, a Steadicam following Rocky through a bemused group of vendors and customers. Now, a reveling group grows to hundreds of kids following Rocky through the market, through Philly streets and up the stairs of the art museum. Because in the movie – and in the real world – everyone knows Rocky. In the last movie, Mickey kept begging Rocky to “stay down” to avoid further beating, but now, nothing and no one can keep Philly’s favorite son down…

ROCKY told us that if you train hard you can be a TRYER. Most people misread that message as ‘If you train hard, you can be a WINNER.’ Now ROCKY II mixes up its messaging: It tells us if you train half-heartedly, you can be a winner. Sure, Rocky started training properly with growls and one-handed pushups after half his training period was over, but Apollo was training at peak capacity throughout that time. Either Apollo is a terrible champion or Rocky is one helluva natchell-born fighter. And if Rocky’s successes came about because he’s a natural, then no matter how hard YOU train, you’ll never be as good. Because to be a winner in real life, you need to train as hard as you can, as long as you can. The movie is trying to have it both ways, saying you can slacken off and then cram all that training regimen into a montage – the most annoying filmic device since Red Digital Readouts on bombs – and come out on top.

Having written the script for 1976’s ROCKY, Stallone wanted to direct it as well. He didn’t have the clout at that time. Now, with ROCKY’s Oscar successes (10 noms, 3 wins, including Best Picture), he has been granted that hallowed seat. And his directing is not half bad. Unfortunately he has given himself a pile of clichés to work with that do not inspire anything creative or exciting. For example, Pauly (Burt Young, who plays Adrian’s brudda and Rocky’s caustic pal) was a volatile, unpredictable presence in the last movie; here he is a fifth wheel; both Adrian and Mickey suddenly change their minds on Rocky fighting, with no compelling reasons as to why; the Champ comes off as a little too obsessive about fixing Rocky’s little red wagon; Rocky goes up against Apollo completely unprepared physically and mentally and still wins. How much of this contradictory storytelling are we prepared to accept? Yes, we wanted to see the continuing story of Rocky, but what percentage of actual story are we prepared to sacrifice to see our favorite boxer make cauliflower soup with his ears again?

Amidst gladiator music, Rocky punches Apollo and Apollo punches Rocky. Tony Burton yells Noooo! Both fighters adopt the age-old Marquess of Hollywood rules of no one keeping their hands up to guard their faces. Both punchers punch, and both go down. Rocky gets up first and wins.

Sorry, Stallion, Mickey was right: you should have stayed down.

END

When the fight devolves to girl-pushing, it’s all over.

The Underdog that became a Stallion.

That epic fanfare, a giant name floats across screen – ROCKY. Movie opens in elation, as we fly with Bill Conti’s soon-to-be-immortal theme, Gonna Fly Now, and then suddenly comes crashing to Earth–

— a small-time boxing match, a pudgy, young and decidedly graceless boxer belts it out with a bigger truck of a guy. Bloody and sweaty in their dungeon dressing room after the match, the two boxers receive their payment from the manager, deducting his fees for “shower and towel,” locker and commission, until the pudgy boxer comes out with a little over forty bucks. He asks, “When do I fight again?” “Maybe two weeks. Gimme a call.” The boxer walks home on grim urban streets, and feeds his pet turtles while talking to them.

An inauspicious start to one of the greatest legacies Sylvester Stallone has bequeathed to Earth culture: Rocky Balboa – the world’s most lovable… loser.

Due to its six sequels (II, III, IV, V, ROCKY BALBOA and CREED), we think we know Rocky, but we’ve retconned him in this first seminal underdog movie. That uplifting theme music has been fooling audiences for decades now. But see for yourself, Movie Maniac: Balboa is an ignorant boor, a rudderless thug, full of indecision and negativity, and he loses to Apollo Creed in the climactic battle. Because ROCKY was never about winning or losing; it’s about “going the distance.”

ROCKY is mistaken as a film about a great winner, when it is instead a film about a great TRYER. And that, says the film, makes you even greater than if you won, because you gave it your all. In the phrase “Win – or die trying,” the story of ROCKY is the “or die trying” part.

“Yo, Adrian. Save summa dat hot tender lovin’ care for me!”

Stallone is that pudgy young boxer, Rocky, who gets by on small-time club bouts in Philadelphia, working at the local gym swabbing floors for Mickey (Burgess Meredith), and being the muscle for the local loan shark, Gazzo (Joe Spinell – you know him as Cicci in THE GODFATHER PART II). In a 4^th of July publicity stunt, the world heavyweight boxing champ, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) chooses Rocky as his contender – “a local Philly boy given the opportunity for the greatest title in the world.” And all inspirational movie breaks loose.

Surrounded by a cast of colorful characters, everything about Rocky exudes Loser. Acerbic gym owner Mickey never has a kind word for Rocky (“You got heart but your fightin’ is a goddam heap!”), maintaining that Rocky squandered his skills as a “two-bit leg breaker”; Rocky himself has a lazy attitude about moving up from his station in life – when asked by the promoter if he would like to fight Creed, he declines. The colorful characters are also people who might have had a shot, but lost: Mickey himself, Gazzo the shark, the guy who owed money to Gazzo (whose thumbs Rocky should have broken), the barman, the guy in the puddle of piss outside the pub (whom Rocky kindly lifts back into the pub)… There is that line of thinking that if you are surrounded by these “types,” it is hard to break out of the circle of their influence. You become one with them, a loser.

The one bright light in Rocky’s life is Adrian (Talia Shire, hot off THE GODFATHER, Parts I and II), a shy plain girl who works at a pet store, sister to one of Rocky’s acquaintances, Pauly (Burt Young), another desperately lonely loser unsatisfied with life, whose methods of dealing with misunderstanding or family crises is to lash out. (His hand gestures are priceless!) Rocky’s flowering romance with Adrian would be the heart that drives this movie and Rocky himself, but no one will see past the punching.

Carl Weathers is Apollo Creed (styled after Muhammed Ali’s big mouth), the wealthy champion stud, with an entourage of yes-men, publicists and managers.

After Rocky is publicized as the contender, suddenly dismissive Mickey wants to train him. Such a great performance of pathos, as Mickey asks to be Rocky’s manager; we feel the desperation in his voice (the last shot at glory from a spent man), and we can feel that last hope slip away from him as Rocky turns him out, angry that Mickey never believed in him enough to even keep his locker space at the gym. In one respect, Mickey is right – that Rocky never made anything of himself with his natural ability. And when Rocky gets a break into the big time, Mickey is still right – that Rocky needs a manager. And Rocky is morally right to be outraged – that only when he gets the breaks do people give him the time of day.

In the reconciliation scene, we see the beauty of John Avildsen’s non-intrusive directing, as he holds a long shot, as we watch Mickey sadly shuffle away from Rocky’s apartment into the night, with Rocky ranting from within, about his house being stinky. Under the soundtrack, Rocky runs out, chases Mickey. Mickey turns at the last minute – flinches – until Rocky quickly puts an arm around his shoulder in reassurance. We don’t hear what they say, we only see Rocky move away happy. It’s all in long shot, yet such emotion in that soundless encounter.

Also proving what a great actor Stallone is. With this role, he convinced the world he was a doofus. Rocky is not very bright and his delivery is drawled, the content of his dialogue littered with lowbrow observations and kitchen philosophy. And lord knows his incessant yapping in attempts to get into Adrian’s panties is insufferable. But having written the script, Stallone knows exactly what he’s imparting through all these characters. This is no sloth. This is a guy playing a sloth.

Stallone did not create the underdog movie, but ROCKY surely was mightily responsible for forging the “inspirational movie” flow chart and its many tropes. Was this movie the first to have a “training montage”? Before the iconic fanfare heralding Rocky’s readiness, we see the iconic scenes of him drinking raw eggs and the pre-dawn run in the gray tracksuit, ending by puffing up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum. He holds a stitch in his side as he limps down them. (The Steadicam tracking Stallone up the stairs was created by the operator Garrett Brown, and it was only the third major motion picture to use this tech.)

FDA approved beef. And some dead cows.

There is also the iconic scene of Rocky punching sides of beef, which comes about by Pauly getting mad at Rocky, “Are you screwing my sister?!” and punching a beef side in anger. Rocky moves Pauly aside and tentatively hits the beef. Then he goes to town on it, serving two purposes: strengthening his knuckles, and putting Pauly in his place. The rest is history. It’s these small things that make the movie the juggernaut it is. For those who came for the boxing, there is very little – just two matches, one low-end bout to open the movie, the other at Spectrum Arena against Apollo Creed, to close the movie. Creed’s ringman is real-life boxer, Tony Burton, whose job is to yell “Noooo!” in slow motion.

By the time Rocky is doing one-handed pushups and sprinting to the art museum up the stairs, the training montage and its attendant fanfare have beaten us into submission. Okay, okay, he’s a lionheart for training like he should’ve been training all along.

Rocky gives the film’s key monologue in a Garden of Gethsemane moment. During his greatest doubt (“take this cup away from me”) he realizes that if he can “go the distance” then he won’t be just another bum from the neighborhood.

Thus, after the match, the announcement of the winner is secondary to the fact that Rocky lasted the full 15 rounds. Though he loses the match, it is “going the distance” that made him a hero in the eyes of his fans. And the movie public – too incognizant to hold nuance in its collective brain – simply attached the “winner” tag as well. We can hardly hear the “split decision” over the soundtrack, the crowd, and Rocky screaming the iconic, poignant-yet-comical, “Adrian!!” She returns the cry with “Rocky!” as she runs to him through swarming bodies. Whereupon we hear from him, “Adrian!” And on it goes – “Rocky!” “Adrian!” “Rocky!” “Adrian!” – like two gibbons trying to locate each other in the rainforest to mate…

So let’s get this straight in our heads after 40 years: this icon whom the junkets tell us fought his way to the top, was actually a loser who was given the opportunity as a contender by pure chance. He rose to the occasion not through hard work, but innate skill. By Mickey’s estimation, he trained only as much as any regular fighter, while we see Apollo training like a maniac. In the final telling, this means that PURE LUCK set the wheels in motion and INBORN SKILL saw him through the ordeal. Even though the movie frames it as a villain versus a hero, the hubris of Apollo and the hunger of Rocky don’t enter into the equation, because neither of those elements was instrumental in the final fight. It was LUCK and SKILL.

And this unlikely fictional “hero” became such a cultural phenomenon (winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 1977) that Rocky supplanted real-life boxers as the high water mark by which all boxers are measured. Muhammed Ali was old news; no more Joe Frazier (who cameos in the film) or even Rocky Marciano! People would mean Balboa when citing being “as tough as Rocky” or “Get him ‘Rocky’!” or “the guy thinks he’s Rocky or something”…

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone he lost…

END

Idiot Clause.

I feel most embarrassed for Dudley Moore. What a talent! Wasted in SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE; not just wasted, but defiled, besmirched, and shat upon!

SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE is a nauseating mess of brainless plotlines and platitudes. The trailers allude to the villain: “Now someone wants to take the magic out of Christmas!” Don’t look now, movie, but you’re doing a great job of that yourself…

Opening in some snowy clime, we find an old man named Claus and his wife Anya (David Huddleston and Judy Cornwell) delivering toys to kids during a snowstorm. When they try to sleigh it across town with their two Germanic reindeer (Donner und Blitzen), they become snowbound and – from all appearances – they die frozen in their sleigh, while their reindeer collapse in the snow! Soon a Star of Bethlehem shines down upon them, reviving them, and a troupe of elves appear and say they’ve been “waiting a long time” for the Claus’s arrival…

Wait – are they still dead? And is this whole tale nothing but the last firing synapses in an old man’s hallucinating brain? “Waiting a long time”? Supposedly, Claus fulfills some mad prophecy foretold by Burgess Meredith’s elder elf. Okaaay… but when they show Claus the elf workshop at the North Pole, it has obviously been fully outfitted and operational for centuries. What were you elves doing sitting on all this undeliverable product? Contrary to the junkets, this is not some “magical elf kingdom” – it’s a gateway to horrifying madness!

The elves name him “Santa” Claus and the madness only escalates…

Dudley Moore is elf Patch, an overzealous inventor who tries to modernize the workshop and fails. A plot point that goes nowhere. He’s listed as the star, even though he is nothing but a B-character with no defining arc or heroic moments. This comedic titan (BEYOND THE FRINGE, DEREK AND CLIVE, NOT ONLY BUT ALSO), noted jazz pianist, a versatile actor who had already proven himself a lead in movies like 10, ARTHUR, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS, is subjected to this dreck! Was his agent high? Moore is completely stultified in this children’s throwaway sludge-bucket. No lashing out with his furious energy and razor-sharp ad-libbing; no startling display of musicianship, not even a titter to be found in the feculent script where the puns run like diarrhea: “He just needs to learn some elf-control.” “Isn’t it elf-explanatory?” “Heaven helps those who help their elf.” It is heartbreaking to note that Moore would not command another memorable role after this pigshit, for the remainder of his life.

Claus and his wife are told they are going to live forever, delivering toys to kids. What the fuck?! Firstly, how is this physically possible, just by stating it? Secondly: I’m stuck in this day-glo nightmare of smiley-faced elves with no souls hammering rocking horses and painting wooden trains FOREVER?!

“Stick with me, boy, and we’ll rule the Gay Mardi Gras!”

John Lithgow (whose overacting still can’t disguise what a good actor he is) is millionaire toy manufacturer B.Z. who creates toys with nails and glass shards inside them. (Do even KIDS find this plausible?) When Patch is kicked out of the workshop for his malfunctioning conveyor belt toys, he offers his services to B.Z. to create lovable toys. Unfortunately the spastic elf-juice that he ladles into every toy has made them combustible. But B.Z. doesn’t care. Against the advice of his lawyer, he wants to sell them anyway and corner the market on Santa Claus, declaring “Christmas II” and trying to usurp the old man’s crown. By now, we are wondering which seven-year-old wrote this script, and how that seven-year-old must be old enough now to bitchslap without fear of child abuse.

Santa shows some kind of blinkered favoritism toward a street urchin; urchin meets cute with niece of B.Z.; B.Z. ingests some elf-juice and floats into space, where apparently, you can breathe just fine; Santa rescues Patch in an insensate flying sleigh chase that has us asking: If Santa can teleport, and take people with him as he does so (as he does many times, as does Patch also), why is he bothering screaming at his Nazi reindeer to catch Patch’s flying car? Why not teleport over there? When Patch discovers his flying car is about to explode, why not teleport outa there? No, instead we are subjected to yet another of the film’s innumerable, unspeakable stupidities, as Santa flies under the flying car, does a loop-the-loop over it and then comes down under the car again, where he catches the falling Patch. Uh, why not stay under the car in the first place, instead of that useless loop procedure?

SANTA CLAUSE: THE MOVIE tries hard to be an origin tale, as it starts in the 18^th century (when simple minds worshipped the Madonna) and lands in the mid-80s (when the charts worshipped Simple Minds and Madonna). But every detail is hair-pullingly irritating and contradictory, with the ubiquitous excuse that the movie is for kids: urchin has a fever, until the next scene where it’s not needed any more; evil businessman wants to make millions, then is cajoled into giving away presents free because “that’s how they do it at the North Pole” – but he’s still sneering and treating it like he’s cheating someone!; two reindeer have the flu, and Santa can only use six for his mad dash to save Patch, but it’s a pointless fact as it does not drive the plot or make any difference to the outcome or the characters’ arcs. In fact, realizing that six employees can do the work of eight, without any extra pay, is what corporate greed is built on. Is this a commentary on Santa being more like B.Z. than he realizes? No, just idiots at the jingle-bell helm of the sleigh.

Written by David Newman (writer of the SUPERMAN movies) and Leslie Newman, SANTA CLAUS is directed by the same man who surprisingly directed JAWS 2, Jeannot Szwarc (but unsurprisingly also directed SUPERGIRL). This is one of the last feature films he would direct, before moving to TV where he belongs. Also connected with the man of steel, this film’s producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, whom we now realize, fluked the quality of the first SUPERMAN feature film starring Christopher Reeve (1978), the sequels produced by them proving their low bar for quality, as they singlehandedly brought down their own franchise with under-funding and lackluster directors.

Now singlehandedly bringing down a grand comedian, an empathetic saint and a pagan celebration of winter solstice.

END

”Welease the Kwaken!”

Titan-ic Kraka-lacken.

Greek mythology explodes in Harryhausen splendor!

CLASH OF THE TITANS is written by Beverly Cross, directed by Desmond Davis, and stars Laurence Olivier as Zeus the king of the gods, but the man whose footprint makes this adventure fantasy memorable is the king of Dynamation – Ray Harryhausen!

Blank-faced Harry Hamlin stars as Perseus, son of Zeus, half god and half showroom dummy, who falls in love with Andromeda (blond and brainless Judi Bowker), but due to Andromeda’s mother boasting of her daughter’s beauty, Andromeda is destined to be sacrificed to the Kraken. (Wait, mother did the boasting – why is daughter paying the price?) With his magical appliances – sword, shield and helmet – Perseus vows to stop the sacrifice.

Aided by the man who trained Rocky against Apollo, Burgess Meredith, Perseus must first tame a flying horse named Pegasus, then chop off the head of the gorgon Medusa (who has that womanly power of being able to turn a man to stone just by listening to her), and use that gorgon’s stone-turning power to ward off the Kraken. It all sounds pretty scientific, so Perseus feathers his hair, exposes one nipple and flies off to get ‘er done.

Example of the gods’ vanity: Andromeda’s mother boasts that Andromeda is more beautiful than the goddess Thetis herself. Thetis appears and curses Andromeda to become Kraken bacon. But who is playing Thetis, that she could possibly be so insulted? Maggie Smith. Yes, Professor Minerva McGonagall believes she is more beautiful than a 24-year-old, alabaster-skinned, bulimic bikini model. Now that’s vanity.

There are only a few moments with Sir Lawrence Olivier in his heavenly realm, looking down upon the Earth with the other gods in their toga party maximus, although it becomes worthwhile when we spy Ursula Andress as Aphrodite in said toga. And by the way, there are no actual Greek Titans in this movie. Yup, none of the 12 Titans are mentioned or portrayed: Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Cronus, Crius, Iapetus, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea, Themis. Neither are their god-spawn (sometimes regarded as second-gen Titans): Helios, Selene and Eos, Leto, Asteria, Atlas, Prometheus, Epietheus, Menoetius, Metis, Astraeus, Pallas, Perses. Recognize any names from the movie – or even from the 2010 remake? It either goes to show how little people know, how little people care, or how little people are paying attention…

Ray Harryhausen – at work, or at play?

CLASH OF THE TITANS is a direct descendant of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), with Ray Harryhausen on electric overdrive, at the apex of his stop-motion special effects career: the giant vulture, the clockwork owl, Pegasus the flying white stallion, Dioskilos the two-headed dog, Medusa the snake-haired gorgon, Calibos the goat-man, and of course, the magnificent multi-armed, gigantic amphibious terror – the Kraken!

In Greek myth, Andromeda was chained “naked to the rock” – diaphanous robes in this PG-rated fantasy – and Perseus swoops in on Pegasus and rescues her from the advancing Kraken while the royal court looks on, astounded. We’ve grown so inured to mind-warping special effects that CLASH OF THE TITANS has unfortunately dated considerably in this department, even though this would be the pinnacle of stop-motion thrills in its day.

Harryhausen would never top himself after this clambake. The actors and director, though, should shoulder some of the blame for the climax’s lethargy, as the effects only augment the story if the actors are in the moment. Sadly, these actors imbue this climactic action sequence with the excitement of a car insurance commercial.

In the end, it’s a lackin’ Kraken.

END

Holy jumble! Where’s the hope of the world now?!

The Bat. The Robin. The Cheese.

BATMAN: THE MOVIE, the big screen fintuzula of the mid-60s fruitopia TV series (released in June 1966, between the first and second seasons of the TV show). The dark avenger of the night, The Batman, played by the greatest actor of his generation, Adam West. Batman’s life partner squeeze peach Robin played by that altar boy fantasy Burt Ward.

As the Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin employ their superior fighting skills, indomitable intellect and subterranean lair where everything is marked in blind-sized lettering to defeat the most heinous archrivals that the city of Gotham – nay the world – has ever known: the rambunctious Riddler (Frank Gorshin), the jesting Joker (Cesar Romero), the pernicious Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and the deadliest of them all, the calamitous Catwoman (Lee Meriwether).

This United Underworld plans nothing short of dehydrating the leaders of the free world for their own criminal ends! Can the caped crusaders stop them in time? Fending off shark attacks (that leave no bite marks), escaping a magnetic buoy (thanks to a noble porpoise) and disposing of a bomb will drive our heroes to the brink of their abilities. Will they triumph, gentle confessor?

The Cuked Crusader!

Meanwhile, at stately Wayne Manor, Ms. Kitka and her pointy bra slink their way into the heart of millionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman’s civilian alter ego. Unbeknownst to our tumescent playboy and closed-lip kisser, Ms. Kitka is in actuality – the fiendish Catwoman, whose shimmering spandex pearbottom will stop at nothing to entrap Bruce for her dastardly den of devious death-dealers!

Bruce is kidnapped to lure “that Cossack Batman” to his aid. But unbeknownst to the villainous scum, Bruce is Batman, and his only hope is to escape, in order to slide sensually down his bat-pole to acquire his costume and bring the fiends to justice. A justice that, at the end of his mighty fist, they will not soon forget.

Stop laughing. What’s so funny? You think these heinous villains are not evil? How about Cesar Romero not even caring to shave off his mustache for the Joker role and just painting his whiteface over his mustache? Now that’s evil.

And you think that bomb scene was played for laughs? With Batman carrying that hissing bomb above his head and being closed in by nuns and a stroller and a Salvation Army band and some lovers in a boat and some wooden ducklings that were supposed to be real, and the same army band and the same stroller and the nuns… you think that was a joke? Holy tourniquet green panties, Robin! How come Christopher Nolan replayed this scene identically in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES when Batman races against time to stop a bomb exploding in Gotham? “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!” (Was that Nolan or Adam West? And were they talking about the explosive prop or the movie?)

Like THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, BATMAN: THE MOVIE also addresses the ambiguity of their sexuality—did I say sexuality? I meant vigilantism – the ambiguity of their vigilantism, when Ms. Kitka speaks of Batman and Robin as “vigilantes like the American west” and is put in her place quicksmart by the overacting of Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), who tells her that Batman and Robin are fully deputized agents of the police force. I wonder, does that extend to their faithful liege Alfred (Alan Napier), who, when entrusted to drive the Batmobile on surveillance, wears a batmask? (On a side note, it’s a good thing the Batmobile is such an inconspicuous undercover surveillance vehicle.) Alfred and Robin surveil Bruce’s date with Kitka, whose idea of “slipping into something more comfortable” was apparently a dressing gown with an even pointier bra underneath.

From the answers to two riddles – an egg and apple sauce – Batman and Robin realize an attack on the United Nations is imminent. Well done, chum! How’d they figure that? Don’t you see? You fools!

The nine leaders of the nine countries of the world gather around a table at the U.N. (because that’s all the countries in the world, right?), all speaking their own language to the others, with no translators. And we wonder why nothing gets done at the U.N. The Penguin, Joker, Riddler and Catwoman appear and dehydrate them into vials of dust. With all their powers the caped crimefighters were too late!

They give chase and the final great battle for the soul of humanity is waged atop the Penguin’s penguin submarine, where we can actually see the folds in the sky cyclorama stretched out behind them! This was a metaphor for the world being flat and ruffled like a curtain. As Batman and Robin BAP and KAPOW in this fight scene that would put the fear into Bruce Lee, with choreography that only the fiercest ballerinas in Russia have ever attempted, the filmmakers are not even trying to disguise the stuntmen any more, wearing Joker wigs and Riddler spandex and a slightly paunchier Batman. It must be a metaphor for the dark avenger’s struggles against a world he can no longer recognize.

Batman and The Boy Wonder restore the U.N. to their non-translatable glory, as Batman sucks in his gut and Robin punches his hand for the hundred-and-fiftieth time. While the fiendish foursome – Catwoman, Riddler, Joker and Penguin – are put behind bars where they belong! And even though the dark avenger does not do the Batusi here, you will be 2-degrees less intelligent for having watched BATMAN: THE MOVIE. And you’ll thank me for it.

But can the jails of Gotham hold the quintessentially quarrelsome quartet, camp counselor? Or will Gotham’s finest prove ineffectual against the scurrilous schemes of the wrathful wrongdoers?

Tune in next week – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

END