The opening credit sequence to this 6th installment of the Rocky franchise is aurally and lyrically portentious. I recognized instantly the melody and "do do do do" of Take You Back (by, you guessed it: Frank Stallone) from the first film and it seemed to me a clear signal that Sylvester Stallone intended in this movie to find those elements that made that first film so emotionally resonant and superior to all the sequels.
I've never been ashamed to admit that I think quite highly of the original 1976 Rocky, and nor should I be. It did win Best Picture and Best Director at the 1977 Oscars, after all, and the screenplay, as well as four(!) of its actors were nominated: Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire, and Burt Young. (In verifying the Best Picture award, I also noticed that Stallone was only the 3rd person to be nominated for acting and writing the same year, following Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles. Impressive!) That original film is not an action movie - what one would expect of a movie about boxing - but a drama about personal courage and dreams. If you understand this movie, you get that the decision of the judges after Rocky has gone the distance with the champ is irrelevant. That's something that the sequels were just unable to incorporate because the messages in those films became too ridiculously simple in their metaphorical attempts (Hey, look! Rocky is beating the hell out of that Russian! U-S-A! U-S-A!). This film gets the closest to returning to more human themes.
Rocky Balboa is about the lead character "cleaning out his basment." He has lingering sentiments about his career and gets back in the ring once more so he can ostensibly put them to bed. What the film doesn't explain is why he should feel that way, and so Rocky comes off a bit more egoistic than before. This movie might have made more sense if the 3rd, 4th and 5th films hadn't been made and his legacy not so explicit: kicked the crap out of Mr. T, kicked the crap out of He-Man, kicked the crap Mullet Man. It would have been more fascinating to imagine from scratch his career after winning the title. Of course, I'd have been content with only the first movie having been made, but if your going to make the second, then you can make this one, or the one I am suggesting they might have made, without the intervening pollution.
Anyway, in order to settle things for himself, he gets back in the ring to fight Mason "The Line" Dixon, a virtually unchallenged champ who has been suffering self-doubt, especially after a computer-generated fight between the two has Rocky winning. The movie is very short on story about Mason and I'm not sure that's entirely problematic. Nothing much was said about Apollo Creed's backstory in the first film, but Carl Weathers' perfomance gives you all the detail you need about who Apollo is and what he's about. Antonio Tarver is not so capable as that, but his character was meant to represent something more subtle, and one can only expect so much out of an actual fighter, not an actor.
A returning character with a bit part in the first movie - Marie, a streetwise teen - returns and helps connect this movie to its past much more than all the efforts in Rocky V combined. it's not the same actress, but she was convincing enough that, watching it, I wasn't sure at the time. Also returning is Pedro Lovell as Spider Rico, whom I will be honest enough to admit I didn't recognize. Meh. Unimportant, really.
There are wonderful moments of symbolism that amplify the message of this film, such as Rocky replacing the burnt out bulb in Marie's porchlight. It means something for the both of them that a light long-thought extinguished can be brought back brighter than ever. And Rocky's ascent of the steps takes place in this movie during full snowfall, an apt visual parallel to Rocky's age: the winter of his life. These things are what made me believe I was in the hands of someone who understood the key elements of this story.
What did NOT help was the too-long excursion at the beginning of the movie where Rocky visits all the meaningful places of his relationship with his now-deceased wife (oh...uh, *spoiler alert*.. but then, if you've seen the cast list, you know Talia Shire isn't in this), and the ineptly executed story of Rocky's relationship with his son - though, in defense of the latter, it yielded probably Rocky's best speech in the film. It feels like these side stories are there mostly to fill in the spaces until we get to the meat of Rocky's moment, but they aren't entirely insignificant. They just don't seem relevant to why Rocky wants to embark on this journey.
The ending - if you can guess it - is as satisfying to this movie as the ending to the first film was to it. Which is to say, this is a lesser version of that film, and the ending is less satisfying than that one for only that reason. I didn't leave with any answer as to why Rocky felt the need to go toe-to-toe once more, but his future can now be entertained in the imagination with the same degree of satisfaction as his past might have been had we not seen episodes three, four and five. And that's at least saying something.
How about Star Wars done by hand?
or: "Oh, the Horny Manatee"
Conan O'Brien should be ashamed of himself. And the more times I watch this, the more ashamed I think he ought to be. And right now, I'm thinking he should be VERRRRRY ashamed.
Just to go for the trifecta, I figure since today is the return of American Idol, why not have my own favorite AI starlet atop not one, not two, but three different blogs. Suffer for it ...
Personally, I wasn't fond of the big hair, but Carrie wore it well. And her voice matches up incredibly well to Ann Wilson. What's worth noting from this performance is that it led to the original song being ranked #1 on iTunes the following week. Go figure that she's peddling a triple-platinum solo release these days.
New digs here for the blog. If you see this, then the new URL for posting should be in effect as well as the other toys installed. Enjoy.
Undercover surveillance video from an undisclosed location at an undisclosed time with unknown subjects. Be Afraid. Be very afraid.
Jr. and I finished Bully this weekend, and what a satifying thing that is to say. I've owned GTA:San Andreas for two years now and I've no idea how close I am to finishing it, but my sense is not very. Perhaps over 50%, but who knows? Anyway, Bully is better than GTA for a number of reasons:
1) Though the narrative scenes are longer than GTA, they actually serve to invest one in Jimmy Hopkins' success more than GTA ever did with C.J. In GTA, C.J. always seemed put upon, and there was never a sense of the stories going in one direction. With Bully, you have a more central group of characters and more desire to see it resolve.
2) The missions are WAY easier in Bully than GTA... and that's a good thing. Missions in GTA that are too hard (ala "Supply Lines", which I just CANNOT DO) frustrate me to the point of just screwin' it all and walking downtown to light people on fire. Gets old in a hurry. But going from simple task to simple task and getting them done in Bully moves the plot along much quicker and means less time-wasting (except for the nightly beatings administered in the boy's dorm just before going to bed. Hey, a bully's gotta relax!)
3) The "wanted" system in GTA was the 1-5 star indicator that specified how much you were wanted, but provided little to no help in figuring out where to go to lose the cops. The stars sprinkled throughout town that you had to find to lower the wanted level were too few and far between and you never knew where the cops were coming from next. In Bully, the "wanted" meter is a sliding scale, assisted with an indicator on the map of where the prefects and cops are, as well as a sort of "radar" scope that emanates from them so you know where they are and in which direction they are looking. BIG improvement.
4) Related to the above point somewhat, the total setting area is vastly scaled down in Bully because he doesn't drive everywhere as C.J. does in GTA. It means you are less amazed at the scope and detail of the locales, but it's also less frustrating because you can begin to get familiar with where you are going and how to get there. I may be familiar with GTA now, but that's because I cheat and get the jetpack and fly over everything. Makes more sense when you can see it from above.
Speaking of which, the value of the game being easier (2) is that, though I searched once when we first bought the game, I never looked back for cheats to help complete missions. Unnecessary. With GTA:SA, I can think of a few tasks that would have been extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, without the aid of cheats for a) unique weaponry b) additional health c) lowering the wanted level.
I heartily recommend that Rockstar continue along this line. Make the tasks challenging, but not so hard that the player just throws up his hands and starts the random killing (or more commonly for me, going to the airport repeatedly to steal a plane and fly it into a building... yeah, I'm sick like that.) I saw where a recent review said there wouldn't or shouldn't be a Bully 2, and that makes sense since the story resolved nicely. But the elements of this game that were improved from earlier Rockstar releases certainly ought to be retained. $.02.
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IMPORTANT to keep in mind when studying for the brewery certification