Category: Z-View

Z-View Twilight Zone: “Escape Clause” [Season 1, Episode 6]

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Twilight Zone: “Escape Clause” [Season 1, Episode 6]
Original Air Date: November 6, 1959

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: David Wayne and Thomas Gomez

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Walter Bedeker [Wayne] is a hypochondriac who despite being perfectly healthy believes he is on death’s doorstep.  While lamenting that life is too short, Bedeker is visited by the Devil [Gomez] who offers immortality for Bedeker’s soul.  

The soul is collected on Bedeker’s death but since he is immortal how will the Devil collect?  Ah, there is an escape clause should Bedeker decide he no longer wishes to live.  

Bedeker accepts and comes to learn rather quickly that immortality in certain situations isn’t all he thought it would be.  

Final Thoughts:  This is a fun episode.  I enjoyed Bedeker’s plan to get rich.  Joe Flynn’s cameo was fun.  A nice twist ending caps the episode.

Rating:

Z-View Twilight Zone: “Walking Distance” [Season 1, Episode 5]

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Twilight Zone: “Walking Distance” [Season 1, Episode 5]
Original Air Date: October 30, 1959

Director: Robert Stevens

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Gig Young

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Martin Sloan [Young] is a 36 year old New York business executive.  Everything for him is rush, rush, rush.  While on a drive back to the city Sloan finds himself at a gas station one and a half miles from the little town he grew up in.  He decides to take a walk to the town while the gas attendant services his car.

Once in the town Sloan finds nothing has changed.  The prices are the same… the people are the same.  Somehow he has gone back in time.  He goes to his home and his parents seeing a grown man claiming to be their son and send him away.  Sloan decides to find himself as a boy to give himself advice.

You know that old saying, “You can’t go home again” — Sloan finds out it is true.

Final Thoughts:  This episode doesn’t work for me.  When Sloan meets his parents his efforts to convince them of who he is are weak.  When his father does learn that somehow his son has come back to the past, dad basically tells his son to leave and go back to the future [not the movie, but the time he came from].  Sloan getting a limp because of something he caused to happen in the past is a nice touch.  Ron Howard has a brief cameo in one of his first acting roles.

Rating:

Z-View Twilight Zone: “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” [Season 1, Episode 4]

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Twilight Zone: “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” [Season 1, Episode 4]
Original Air Date: October 23, 1959

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Ida Lupino and Martin Balsam.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Barbara Trenton [Lupino] used to be a big movie star… but that was 25 years ago and her star has faded with age.  Trenton increasingly spends her days and nights sitting alone in her room running her old films.  Her agent [Balsam] is worried that she is losing touch with reality and attempts to get her a part in a new film.  When Trenton discovers it is a supporting role and she will play the star’s mother — she insults the movie executive and retreats to her film room.

If only she could find a way to the past where she was happy…

Final Thoughts:  This episode feels like Sunset Blvd. lite.  Everything is played straight until Trenton somehow appears on her projection screen in an old movie setting.  When Balsam sees it, he calls to her to “come back” — almost as if he is not surprised/shocked that she is “in there.”  This episode fell flat for me.

Rating:

Z-View Twilight Zone: “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” [Season 1, Episode 3]

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Twilight Zone: “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” [Season 1, Episode 3]
Original Air Date: October 16, 1959

Director: Allen Reisner

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Dan Duryea, Martin Landau and Doug McClure.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Al Denton [Duryea] used to be good with a gun.  Now he is the town drunk.  Dan Hotaling [Landau] is the town bully who takes great pleasure in humiliating Denton.  Hotaling pushes Denton around, makes him sing and beg for drinks even to the point of breaking a bottle of booze and throwing it in the street just to watch Denton scramble for it.

The townspeople nervously laugh at Hotaling’s antics and while some don’t like it, none will take a stand.  As Denton chugs from the broken bottle of booze, a new comer to the town named Henry J. Fate observes from a distance.  Suddenly a gun appears and Denton picks it up.

Hotaling sees Denton with the handgun and challenges him to a gunfight.  Denton wants no part of it but Hotaling won’t let him walk away.  Denton is a dead man unless [Henry J.] Fate steps in…

Final Thoughts: This episode had so much potential but ends up feeling disjointed to me.  Since I am picking nits: I don’t think the title of the episode fits.  Landeau comes off as a cartoon bully from the way he is dressed to his actions.  Naming the newcomer Henry J. Fate seems a bit heavy-handed.  Denton, the town drunk gives up booze with no effort — thanks to Fate?  Abruptly, Landeau is out and McClure is in.  When Duryea and McClure realize that they’ve both just drank the potion is a nice touch.

Overall not a bad episode, but could have been better.

Rating:

Z-View Twilight Zone: “One for the Angels” [Season 1, Episode 2]

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Twilight Zone: “One for the Angels?” [Season 1, Episode 2]
Original Air Date: October 9, 1959

Director: Robert Parrish

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Ed Wynn and Murray Hamilton.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Lou Bookman [Wynn] is a street vendor.  Bookman makes enough to get by selling his cheap toys, ties and novelties, but he’s always wanted a chance to make a pitch to really show off his sales skills.

When Death [Hamilton] shows up in human form to give Bookman a chance to prepare for his death later that evening, Bookman requests an opportunity to make the pitch of his, er, life.

As with most deals with death [or the devil], you often get more [or less] than you bargained for.

Final Thoughts:  Serling gives us a tale with a nice twist and just the right amount of humor.  Hamilton does a fine job as Death.  “One for the Angels” has grown on me over the years.  Perhaps because as I get older, I may one day be in Bookman’s shoes?

Rating:

“In Cold Blood” (1967) written & directed by Richard Brooks, starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe / Z-View

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In Cold Blood (1967)

Director: Richard Brooks

Screenplay: Richard Brooks (based on Truman Capote’s book of the same name)

Stars: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the best-selling book In Cold Blood!”

The Tagline: “Written for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks.”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Dick Hickcock [Scott Wilsion] and Perry Smith [Robert Blake Perry] have a plan to steal $10,000 cash from a rich farmer’s safe and then high-tail it to Mexico where they will live out their days safe from extradition.  The two ex-cons violate their parole and drive through the night to Holcomb, Kansas where according to one of Hickcock’s past cellmates, a fortune sits in the Cutter safe.

 The only thing Hickcock and Smith find at the Cutter house are Mr. Cutter, Mrs. Cutter and their two teenage children.  Hickcock and Smith place the family members in separate rooms, tie them up and search for the safe.  There is no safe, no fortune and just a little over forty dollars in cash in the house. Hickcock and Smith brutally kill the Cutter family and then head back towards Kansas City.

The discovery that the Cutter family was brutally murdered makes national news and as the investigation grows, Hickcock and Smith decide to head to Mexico.  They pass bad checks, pawn the items they buy and use the money to get across the border.  It isn’t long before they’re low on cash and decide to go to Vegas to raise more. In Vegas  Hickcock and Smith are picked up on a parole violation.

The cops interrogate them separately.  Neither admits to knowing anything about the Cutter family murders.  As the evidence begins to pile up, Hickcock suddenly tries to pin the murders on Smith.  Smith then turns on Hickcock and the case is made.  A trial, a death sentence and the gallows are all that Hickcock and Smith have left to look forward to.  Sadly, one is left with the feeling that either man alone would not have committed the murders.

Wilson (probably best known to folks as Hershel from The Walking Dead) and Blake (probably best known as the crazy old celebrity acquitted of killing his second wife in 2005) are excellent as the leads.  Robert Brooks deserves kudos for his screenplay and direction.

Watch for cameos by: Will Geer [Grandpa from The Waltons] and music by Quincy Jones!

Award Nominations:

Academy Awards –

  • Best Director
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Original Music Score
  • Best Adapted Screenplay

Rating:

Z-View: “Anatomy of a Murder”

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Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Director: Otto Preminger

Screenplay: Wendell Mayes, John D. Voelker (based on his novel written as Robert Traver)

Stars: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazarra, Arthur O’Connell and George C. Scott

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the best-selling novel Anatomy of a Murder!”

The Tagline: “Last year’s No.1 best-seller … This year’s No.1 motion picture.”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Stewart plays small town attorney Paul Biegler who’d rather be fishing than practicing law.  Biegler’s mentor is Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell) who’d rather be boozing it up than just about anything.  When Biegler is offered the chance to defend Fredrick Manion (Ben Gazara), against a murder charge, he sees it as a way to get McCarthy off the booze.  Manion is a soldier accused of murdering the man who raped his wife (Lee Remick).

We spend the first part of the movie learning about the case.

Biegler meets Manion, a quick-tempered, hard-to-like soldier who admits to killing the man who raped his wife about an hour after finding out about it.  This wasn’t a heat of the moment murder.  After meeting Manion’s wife who is sporting a beat-up face and a casual attitude, Biegler finds himself in a case where nothing is clear cut.

Manion is a jealous, thuggish man who likes his wife to dress provocatively and then gets jealous when men give her attention.  Laura Manion likes men, booze and fun.  Being married doesn’t stop her from having a good time where she can find it.  She married Manion three days after divorcing her first husband and admits that Manion was the reason for the divorce.

Was Laura raped?  She was beat-up, but did that happen during the rape or when he husband found out she had been with another man.  The clinical evidence is inconclusive.  Something happened but under what circumstances?

The second part of the movie takes us into the courtroom for one of the best courtroom dramas ever filmed.

The acting across the board is excellent.  Stewart (Best Actor), O’Connell (Best Supporting Actor) and Scott (Best Supporting Actor) were all nominated for Academy Awards.  I’m surprised Lee Remick wasn’t as well, because she is that good.  The film went on to be nominated for seven Oscars as well as other honors.

To the movie’s credit, the jury comes back with a verdict, but knowing the evidence of the case and the things that we see that the jury doesn’t, the audience may come away with a different verdict.  At the very least, there is room for discussion.

The last scene is a treat and adds another layer to the puzzle.

Watch for cameos by: Howard McNear [Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show] and Duke Ellington!

Awards Won:

New York Film Critics Circle Awards –

  • Best Actor, James Stewart
  • Best Screenplay, Wendell Mayes; 1959.

Venice International Film Festival –  

  • Volpi Cup
  • Best Actor, James Stewart; 1959.

Grammy Awards –

  • Best Performance by a Dance Band
  • Best Musical Composition First Recorded and Released in 1959
  • Best Sound Track Album.

Producers Guild of America Awards –  

  • Top Drama
  • Top Male Dramatic Performance, James Stewart
  • Top Male Supporting Performance, Arthur O’Connell; 1960.

 

Award Nominations:

Academy Awards –

  • Best Actor in a Leading Role: James Stewart
  • Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Arthur O’Connell
  • Best Actor in a Supporting Role: George C. Scott
  • Best Cinematography, Black-and-White: Sam Leavitt
  • Best Film Editing: Louis R. Loeffler
  • Best Picture: Otto Preminger
  • Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium: Wendell Mayes; 1960

British Academy Film Awards –

  • Best Film from any Source Otto Preminger, USA
  • Best Foreign Actor James Stewart, USA
  • Most Promising Newcomer Joseph N. Welch, USA; 1960.

Directors Guild of America Awards –

  • DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film, Otto Preminger; 1960.

Golden Globe Awards –

  • Best Motion Picture – Drama
  • Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture – Drama: Lee Remick
  • Best Director – Motion Picture: Otto Preminger
  • Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture: Joseph N. Welch; 1960.

Rating:

Z-View The Twilight Zone: “Where is Everybody?” [Season 1, Episode 1]

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Twilight Zone: “Where is Everybody?” [Season 1, Episode 1]
Original Air Date: October 2, 1959

Director: Robert Stevens

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Earl Holliman and James Gregory.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Mike Ferris [Holliman] suddenly finds himself in a deserted small town.  He doesn’t know who he is or how he got there.  As he moves through the town looking for others, he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched… and he is!

Final Thoughts:  Nice twist ending provides a solid start to the series.

Rating:

Z-View: “The First Deadly Sin”

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The First Deadly Sin (1980)

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Screenplay: Mann Rubin from the Lawrence Sanders’ novel

Stars: Frank Sinatra; Faye Dunaway; and David Dukes.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders and get Frank Sinatra to star in it!”

The Tagline: “He’s searching for a killer. She’s searching for a miracle …. And time is running out.”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Sinatra plays Edward X. Delaney a NY City Detective who is weeks from retirement with two big problems – 1.  His wife has a mysterious disease that is killing her.  2.  The city has a mysterious serial killer that has taken the lyrics to the Beatles’ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer to heart.  Sinatra has to deal with both.

Since the killer is using what turns out to be a mountain climbing hammer claw, Sinatra gets an old museum curator to follow leads.  This frees up Sinatra so he can yell at and rough up his wife’s doctor when he isn’t sitting at her bedside looking somber or reading to her.  Dunaway plays his wife who spends the entire film in a hospital bed.  Had she been in a better movie, I think her will to live could have carried the day.

As Sinatra’s wife gets progressively worse, he discovers who the killer is.  Hoping to catch the killer before he kills again, Sinatra instead spooks the maniac who returns to his high-rise apartment.  Sinatra meets him there and finds the maniac hiding and crying.  They have a conversation and the killer tells Sinatra he’ll escape justice.  The killer turns the tables and goes to the phone to call the police.  Sinatra pulls a Dirty Harry and then goes to the hospital to read to his wife.

At that point I was looking for the claw hammer.

Rating:

Z-View: “House of Frankenstein”

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House of Frankenstein (1944)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Writers: Edward T. Lowe Jr. from a story by Curt Siodmak

Starring: Boris Karloff;  Lon Chaney, Jr.; J. Carroll Naish; and John Carradine.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie with all three of our biggest stars: Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man!”

The Tagline: “All the Screen’s Titans of Terror – Together in the Greatest of All SCREEN SENSATIONS!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Although House of Frankenstein promises Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man together; the promise is kept but not to the fullest extent.  While Frankenstein and Karloff are in the film, Karloff doesn’t play the monster.  Dracula also stars, but isn’t played by Bela Lugosi [who isn’t even in the film], but instead by John Carradine.  Happily, Lon Chaney, Jr. does return as the Wolf Man, but sadly never shares any scenes with Dracula.  Neither does Frankenstein for that matter.

Still, we do get one movie with the three biggest classic Universal monsters and that goes a long way in satisfying monster fans of all ages.

Karloff plays the mad scientist Dr. Niemann who with the help of his hunchbacked assistant [Naish] escapes prison and heads toward Frankenstein’s old stomping grounds to continue his work.  Along the way they encounter a traveling horror show that claims to have the skeletal remains of Dracula.  Seizing the opportunity [and the road show owner’s neck], Karloff has his assistant kill the road show’s owner so that Karloff can assume his identity and they can travel freely through the countryside.

Before too long they’ve revived Dracula and after a near capture by angry villagers, Karloff and Naish make their escape into the rising sun.  I’ll leave it to you to figure out Dracula’s fate.

Soon enough they find the frozen remains of Frankenstein and the Wolf Man.  Once the two monsters are thawed out we’re left with a battle royal of sorts.  The hunchback wants his brain put in Chaney’s body (so he can woo a gypsy girl).  Karloff isn’t too keen on that idea, not because he doesn’t want a little hunchbacked werewolf running around, but because he has other plans for both the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man.  Of course the village townsfolk come up with their own ideas on what to do with the whole monstrous crew and things really, uh, heat up.

Rating:

Z-View: “In a Lonely Place”

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In a Lonely Place [1950]

Director: Nicholas Ray

Screenplay:  Andrew Solt and Edmund H. North

Starring: Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame

The Pitch: “Let’s get Bogie and Gloria Grahame and make a really noir film.”

The Tagline: “The Bogart Suspense Picture with the Surprise Finish!”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Dixon Steele (Bogart) is an ex-military screenwriter who hasn’t had a hit since before the war.  Since his return home, Steele’s quick temper and willingness to fight at even the smallest slight has left him with a bad reputation with the studios and run-ins with the law.  So when Steele gets the chance to write the screenplay adaptation for a popular novel he knows he’s going to have to even if he can’t bring himself to read it.

As fortune would have it, the hatcheck girl at one of Steele’s favorite restaurants has read and loves the book.  Steele invites her to his apartment late one evening after she gets off work with the idea that she can tell him the story.  Steele’s neighbor (Grahame) sees him taking the young lady into his apartment.  Later, as the girl tells Steele the story, he sees Grahame on her balcony.  It’s late and Steele gives the girl money for her time and cab fare home.

The next morning a Detective informs Steele that the girl was murdered and her dead body was found at the side of a deserted road.  Steele’s only alibi is Grahame who is called to the police station.  Although they had never met before, there is an immediate spark between Bogart and Graham.  Although she saw the girl enter with Bogart, Grahame didn’t see the girl leave, but that’s not what she tells the cops.  Instead Grahame offers that she did see the girl leave on her own… which is just the alibi that Bogart needs.

Over the next few weeks, Bogart and Graham fall in love and she begins to question if she alibied a killer.

Final Thoughts: The tagline touts a surprise finish and that is what you get.  This is a dark film and one of Bogart’s best roles.  I’m a fan of Gloria Grahame and this is one of her most famous movies.  Robert Warwick is also excellent in a small supporting role.

Rating:

Z-View: “Cat Ballou”

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Cat Ballou  [1965]
Director: Elliott Silversteen
Screenplay:  Walter Newman  and Frank Pierson from a novel by Roy Chanslor
Starring: Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a funny western!”

The Tagline: “It’s That Way-Out Whopper Of A Funny Western…A She-Bang To End All She-Bangs!!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

If you’re going to make a funny western it needs to be two things: 1] A western and 2] funny.  Cat Ballou manages to get one out of two right.  It’s a western, but it’s not funny.  Of course humor is all relative.  If you’re a fan of the tv series F-Troup  which premiered the same year and was set in the old west, you’ll definitely enjoy Cat Ballou more than I did.

Jane Fonda plays the daughter of a rancher who was killed by a hired gunfighter [played by Lee Marvin] for his land.  Fonda sends for a gunfighter of her own and ends up with a drunk [also played by Lee Marvin] who shoots best when half lit.

The story is pretty much by-the-numbers except for the fact that every ten minutes or so there is the appearance of two minstrels [played by Nat “King” Cole and Stubby Kaye] who show up to sing us the next chorus of “The Ballad of Cat Ballou.”

Most folks enjoy this film more than me so remember your mileage could vary.

Rating:

Z-View: “Snowpiercer”

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Snowpiecer  [2013]
Director:  Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterson
Starring: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Ed Harris, John Hurt and Tilda Swinton.

The Pitch: ”Hey, let’s let Bong Joon-ho make a movie of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige – he’s hot off of directing The Host and movies based on comic books are killing at the box office!”

The Tagline:  “Fight Your Way to the Front.”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Snowpiecer is set in an apocalyptic future when the only surviving humans live on a huge train that continually speeds along a track that takes a year to circumnavigate.  All plant and animal life outside the train has died due to a climate change that has left the world a frozen wasteland [Winter World, anyone?]

Those in the front cars are living the life — plenty of food, nice furnishing and clothes – the party rages on.  For those in the rear, life is a struggle – they survive on a gelatinous protein rationed to them, their living quarters are cramped, and they are at the mercy of Minister Mason [Tilda Swinton] and her armed guards who sometimes come to collect an adult or some children that are never seen again. [I know, I was thinking Soylent Green, myself.]

Chris Evans leads a group who are determined to fight their way to the front of the train and change the social order.  There are surprises [and not just who will live or die] as the group fights their way to the front.  The action scenes are well done and the movie moves at good pace.

If you buy the premise, you’ll probably enjoy the movie.  I had a hard time taking things at face value because the movie took itself so seriously.  The ending was supposed to be upbeat but left me hanging.  I think that polar bear is in for some train treats.

Rating:

Z-View: “The Cat and the Canary”

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The Cat and the Canary  [1939]
Director: Elliott Nugent
Screenplay: Walter DeLeon and Lynn Starling based on the stage play by John Willard
Starring: Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

The Pitch: ”Hey, let’s team Bob Hope in a film with Paulette Goddard.  We could do a remake of the 1927 silent film The Cat and the Canary which is based on the 1922 stage play of the same name.”

The Tagline: “A Chill-and-Chuckle Chase!… A Fortune at Stake and a Monster at Large!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Ten years after the death of an eccentric millionaire, Cyrus Norman, his remaining family members are brought to his spooky-looking mansion deep in the bayou.  Before the will is read, his former caretaker informs the group that the spirits have said one of them will die that night. Sadly there is no way to leave the mansion until the next day.

Norman left two wills: The first leaves everything to Paulette Goddard [much to the disappointment of all except Bob Hope]; the second will is to be opened only if Goddard dies or goes insane before the month is out.  The second will leaves everything to one of the others [although who is unknown until Goddard dies] which of course puts Goddard’s life in danger.  To make matters worse, the group learns that a homicidal maniac known as the Cat has escaped from a nearby insane asylum and is in the area.

As the night wears on things get progressively worse – lights go on and off, people disappear, real eyes in paintings are watching, secret passages are found and what? Someone has been murdered!

Rating:

Z-View: “Creed”

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Creed  [2015]
Director:  Ryan Coogler
Screenplay: Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone and Tessa Thompson.

The Pitch: ”Hey Sly, my name is Ryan Coogler and I have an idea to continue the Rocky legacy…”

The Tagline:  “Your legacy is more than a name.”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Sylvester Stallone was content that after six feature-length films Rocky’s story had been told.  Ryan Coogler had a different outlook and movie fans are better for it.

Creed  isn’t a sequel as much as an expansion of the Rocky Balboa universe.  In the past films, Rocky was the center of attention and Rocky’s struggle was the reason for the movie.  Now the focus shifts to Adonis Creed, Apollo’s illegitimate son.

In less adept hands Creed could have been a straight-to-video attempt to squeeze out the last few dollars from a series that many (including Stallone) thought was over.  Instead we’re treated to one of the most satisfying, emotional and uplifting movies that I can remember ever seeing.

Michael B. Jordan is an amazing actor.  He is required to go through a gauntlet of emotions throughout the film but they are never overstated or hammy.  He and Stallone share a couple of scenes where the actor talking isn’t the most important part of the scene.  The range of emotions that they go through is subtle and all the more powerful because they pull us into the scenes.

Sly has never been better.  Never.  An Oscar nomination should be in the bag.  Don’t believe me? Rewatch the scene with the doctor when she tells Rocky his diagnosis.  Or when Rocky returns to the gym.  Or when Rocky talks to Adonis about Adrian, what she went through and what he would go through for one more day with her.  Heck, think about the scene with Rocky and Adonis in the holding cell.

Ryan Coogler deserves special mention for making Creed happen.  Not only can Coogler write, but his direction is spot-on.  Coogler creates a world where all of the characters are believable.

There are so many cool touches Coogler puts in the film – Adonis watching the second fight between Rocky and Apollo with Adonis mimicking Rocky’s punches – Rocky talking about how everything he cared for has moved on [Adrian and Paulie have died, his son lives in Vancouver, even his turtle tank now only contains one turtle] – the fact that Rocky is still recognized as a celebrity “When were you going to tell me your uncle was Rocky Balboa” is just one example] but that time has moved on as well..

Coogler made what could have been a simple boxing movie into a drama about so much more than boxing… yeah, I guess you could call Creed a modern day Rocky.  And you know for me, there is no higher compliment.

Rating: