Category: Movies

Ranking & Thoughts on All 8 “Rocky” Movies!

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Evan Saathoff at /Film ranked all of the Rocky/Creed movies in his post Butkus to Punchy: Ranking All 8 ‘Rocky’ Movies from Worst to Best.  Here is a comparison of his order with my rankings and thoughts about each.

Saathoff

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8. Rocky IV: “…is silly fun, a skeleton of a film held together through a series of montages. Candy is cool, but you shouldn’t make a meal of it.”

8. Rocky V: I totally agree that binging Rocky back to the street level was a good idea.  Fans hated Rocky has to lose everything to get him there, so it was a tough needle to thread.  I also think that Sly’s Rocky mannerisms go to over the top in spots. 

7. Rocky V: “…Bringing Rocky back to the street level is a good decision, though much of the film feels like a superfluous dry run for both Rocky Balboa and Creed (if you love those films, Rocky V is kind of a necessary beast).”

7. Rocky IV:  is very much a product of the 80s with the music and montages.  I’ve grown to appreciate Rocky IV even more because it sets up the return of Drago in Creed II and we get to see the results of Rocky’s win in IV from Drago’s perspective. 

6. Creed II: “ …the film runs through a mild remake of Rocky II and leads to a good training montage.”

 6. Rocky II:  Rocky II is a worthy follow-up to Rocky.  Sly in the director’s chair!

5. Rocky II: “…Rocky II is special for other reasons. It’s the last bit of “human” Rocky Balboa we’ll see for a while.  “

5. Creed II:  Some fans were upset that an altercation between Rocky and Drago that was filmed didn’t make the final cut of the movie.  I may be in the minority, but I don’t think the scene was needed.

4. Rocky III: “…He’s transformed from a street-level thug to full-on Stallone megastardom. He’s still Rocky, but you have to use your imagination.
That would be fatal if not for Mr. T’s incredible Clubber Lang, the most underrated character in the series.”

4. Creed:  Saathoff’s summary of Creed is perfectly stated.  I couldn’t agree more.

3. Rocky Balboa: “…In 2006, the idea of making an old man Rocky movie was a joke. Yet here comes Stallone, visibly aged and hurting from a long string of flops, delivering the second best film to wear the Rocky title.”

3. Rocky Balboa  Never under-estimate or doubt Sly Sallone.  Despite all odds, Sly brought back Rocky and showed that there was more to his story!

2. Creed: “…the greatest thing happened: a creative handoff to a young and hungry talent capable of seeing the character through new eyes. Ryan Coogler managed the impossible with 2015’s Creed, which simultaneously started a new franchise while offering a deeply respectful seventh entry to Stallone’s. Creed is very much a sequel to Rocky Balboa and yet yields Balboa to a main character who seems his opposite: cocky, smart and brash.”

 2. Rocky III   Rocky is transformed from a street-level, journeyman fighter into a world champion celebrity and I loved it!

1. Rocky: “…No number of decades or sequels can dull the feeling of triumph Rocky delivers in its final moments. It’s one of those rare films that make you cry because you’re happy rather than upset.“

1. Rocky  I’m simply going to go with Saathoff’s quote:  “No number of decades or sequels can dull the feeling of triumph Rocky delivers.”

Michael Mann’s “Collateral” Trivia!

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Rob Hunter at Film School Rejects posted 31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s ‘Collateral‘ Commentary.  Before you click over, here are three of my favorites…

One of the big reasons why he chose to make Collateral was the way Stuart Beattie’s script captures an entire story in a very short period of time. The whole movie is “like the third act of a traditional drama.” He likes how it doesn’t go backward to offer more detail into these characters’ lives, and instead we’re just catching them at this moment. (I like movies that movie in real time or that all the action takes place during a short, specific time frame.  Movies with those parameters seems to really move and probably because of necessity to get the story told. – Craig)

Vincent is being intentionally rude upon first entering Max’s cab, but it’s not because he’s a jerk — he’s testing Max to see if he’s a man with an aggressive streak. Had he been, Vincent would have quickly changed cabs. (And we just thought Vincent was rude.  It’s these little touches that make viewing a movie repeatedly fun. – Craig)

He and Cruise worked out where exactly Vincent came from, and while nearly none of it is mentioned in the film their collaborative backstory is pretty detailed. “If he was in a foster home for part of his childhood, and he was back in public school at age 11, that would have been sometime in the 70s. He would have been dressed very awkwardly. He would’ve probably been ostracized ’cause he’d have looked odd. We postulated an alcoholic, abusive father who was culturally very progressive, he was probably part of Ed Sadlowski’s Steelworkers Local, he was a Vietnam veteran, he had friends who were African-American on the South side of Chicago. The Checkerboard Lounge is thirty minutes away on the Calumet Skyway. The father was probably an aficionado of jazz. There was a great jazz scene on the South side of Chicago, but it’s almost as if the father blamed the son for what happened to the mother. The father never tutored the boy in jazz…” And so on. (Look at the attention to detail!  Funny thing is there are other actors who’d be like, let’s do the scene, I don’t need the background stuff.  – Craig)

“Psycho” – Amazing Poster by Ignacio RC!

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Isn’t this Psycho poster by Ignacio RC one of the most creative and beautiful posters you’ve seen lately?  I love it.  Here’s what Ignacio had to say about his inspiration for the piece…

I always loved Atari box art (Cliff Spohn, Steve Hendricks…) and particularly Steve Hendricks art for ‘Haunted House’ Atari 2600 game, so wanted to play with the same concept for ‘Psycho’, just for fun and practice.

Ignacio RC is an illustrator from A Coruña in Spain.  If you’d like to see more of Ignacio RC’s art, you can check out his gallery.

Source: Poster Spy.

Check Out the Amazing Animated Short “Dernier Round” (“Last Round”)

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Check out this amazing animated short, Dernier Round (Last Round) created by a talented group of student filmmakers from France.  Dernier Round felt like the set-up for a wonderful full-length movie that I’d love to see!

“In a Parisian suburb, a promising young boxer must find a way to finance the future of his little sister, a piano prodigy.”

Source: FirstShowing.net.

See Kurt Russell Accidentally Destroy 145 Year Old Guitar!

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Here’s a movie tidbit that I didn’t know until today.  During the scene in The Hateful Eight when Kurt Russell destroys a guitar, the instrument wasn’t a prop, but instead a $40,000.00, 145 year old museum piece!

The Hateful Eight saw Kurt Russell fill the boots of a weathered bounty hunter named John Ruth. While transporting a known murderer across the snow-topped mountains of Wyoming, a blizzard forces Ruth’s party to hunker down in a nearby lodge. In response to his bounty’s incessant singing, the bounty hunter eventually takes a six-string guitar and smashes it against a wooden beam. “Music time’s over,” Ruth growls. But Unbeknownst to Kurt Russell, the guitar was an irreplaceable 145-year-old museum piece, which the studio was borrowing from the Martin Guitar Museum. – James Fenner from Top 10 Blunders That Will Go Down In History – 2020 at Listverse.

Check out the scene below and watch as Jennifer Jason Leigh, in shock at Kurt’s actions, breaks character!  She obviously knew what Kurt Russell hadn’t been told!

The All-Time Best Comedies

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Matthew Jackson at Mental Floss posted his choices for The 30 Best Comedy Movies of All Time.  I’m a big fan of lists, more for the discussion they create than any definitive ranking.  Jackson’s list is what resonates with him.  My list, or your list would be different.

I’ve seen 23 of Jackson’s 30 listed films.  My favorites from his top 30 are Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.

Movies that didn’t make his list but would have made mine include…

  • Arsenic and Old Lace
  • Christmas Vacation
  • A Christmas Story
  • Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
  • The Great Race

And that’s just off the top of my head.

“FBI/MLK” – The Poster and Trailer are Here!

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We have the poster and trailer for FBI/MLK.  I like them both and look forward to seeing the film.

Director: Sam Pollard
Starring: Martin Luther King

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered today as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic documentary, award-winning editor and director Sam Pollard (Editor, 4 LITTLE GIRLS, MO’ BETTER BLUES; Director/Producer, EYEZ ON THE PRIZE, SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME) lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.

“Hunter Hunter” Poster and Trailer

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Here are the poster and trailer for Hunter Hunter.  I like both!

Directed by: Shawn Linden
Starring: Camille Sullivan, Summer H. Howell, Devon Sawa & Nick Stahl

HUNTER HUNTER follows a family living in the remote wilderness earning a living as fur trappers. Joseph Mersault (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan), and their daughter Renée (Summer H. Howell) struggle to make ends meet and think their traps are being hunted by the return of a rogue wolf. Determined to catch the predator in the act, Joseph leaves his family behind to track the wolf. Anne and Renée grow increasingly anxious during Joseph’s prolonged absence and struggle to survive without him. When they hear a strange noise outside their cabin, Anne hopes it is Joseph but instead finds a man named Lou (Nick Stahl), who has been severely injured and left for dead. The longer Lou stays and Joseph is away, the more paranoid Anne becomes, and the idea of a mysterious predator in the woods slowly becomes a threat much closer to home.

The Best Boxing Movies of All-Time

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Christina Newland at Paste Magazine took on the monumental task of ranking The 50 Best Boxing Movies of All Time.  Her list is a pretty good one, including several lesser known films (and some silent movies).  Before you click over, here are her top five compared to mine (using just her list) and then some overall comments.

Newland

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1. Body and Soul (1947) 1. Rocky (1976)
2. Raging Bull (1980) 2. The Set-up (1949)
3. Rocky (1976) 3. Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
4. Fat City (1962) 4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. The Set-up (1949) 5. Rocky Balboa (2006)

Most folks know of my appreciation of the Rocky series so I thought it only right that my best boxing movies using Newland’s list, start and end with Rocky movies.

Looking at Newland’s top five – Usually the top spot in boxing movie lists is held by either Rocky or Raging Bull, so I give her props for picking Body and Soul.  That’s a good film, but it wouldn’t make my top five.

All of my top five are films I can watch and re-watch.  Outside of the Stallone films, I’ve probably watched The Set-Up the most.  It is such a great movie, if you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend you give it a view.

“The Killing of Two Lovers” – The Poster and Trailer are Here!

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Next up we have the poster and trailer for The Killing of Two Lovers.

After seeing the trailer, I am surprised by the poster.  The trailer has a gritty, crime drama feel and the poster doesn’t give that vibe at all.  I’m surprised also by how much I liked the trailer.  Reading the synopsis, this doesn’t seem to be my type of movie, but having seen the trailer, I now want to see The Killing of Two Lovers.

Starring: Chris Coy, Clayne Crawford, Arri Graham
Directed By: Robert Machoian
Synopsis: David desperately tries to keep his family of six together during a separation from his wife. They both agree to see other people but David struggles to grapple with his wife’s new relationship.