I didn't cry

[andygates]

It was a close-run thing, though.  Went to see Rocky Balboa.  If you didn't 'get' Rocky, you won't get this - it's the same downbeat, understated, very human and surprisingly warm stuff.  If you just thought he was a dumb slurring lump, steer clear.  Of course, if you did get it, this is grand stuff.  There's lovely rich continuity and it's nicely shot, making economic use of the changing cityscape to tell the times-they-are-a-changin' motif.  The training montage made me grin a face-cracker of a grin (thudthwacker, note the lateral raises with chains - Westside brutality at its lowbrow best); and the fight was a delight.  Having Mike Tyson do a five-second cameo, like the end-credits scenes of the general public running up those steps, really blurred the line between fact and fiction, deliberately laid on with a trowel - HBO PPV logos everywhere, Bruce Buffer saying "Rockyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Balboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" (something I bet he used to do while warming up the mic) - it didn't put a foot wrong.

It's not a perfect film, but it's a damn fine final round to Rocky's career and better than all of the other sequels (yes, even the one with Dolph).  "A cute kinda ugly, y'know?" 

Comments

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Of course, if you did get it, this is grand stuff.

Wow, really? I have to say, I'm on the far side of shocked. I mean, the trailers I saw just made it look unswervingly awful. It harkens to the original, you say? You say for true, not just to see how many people you can make look in the trap? Cool. Not saying I'm likely to get out to see it in the theater, but I'll keep an eye peeled for the DVD release.

This will be a nice change -- Stallone seems to be good at doing original movies, but the sequels are things of horror. "First Blood," I thought, was a powerful movie, because John Rambo was, in the end, a pitiable creature -- yes, he could flatten an entire police squad with nothing but a knife. But that's all he could do. For all practical purposes, he died in Viet Nam -- the part of him that could be a civilian was gone. So, all he had left was visiting the other painfully broken men who had also survived, walking hundreds -- maybe sometime thousands -- of miles to see them, because he simply had nothing else to do. See them, sit with them, probably not even talk to them -- just to be somewhere and know someone else understood him, a little. He managed to convey a lot -- the sadness, the feeling of being lost, and always a little confused -- with nothing buy looks and body language, the way he had trouble putting words together when he tried to talk to people. Amazing stuff, I thought. And then they did "Rambo," and "Rambo III". Some channel once made the mistake of playing them as a marathon. You do not watch either "Rambo" movie after watching "First Blood," or it can't help looking like a complete satire, like "Gremlins 2." But unintentional satire is just sad.

The Rocky movies fared a little better. The original, again, was powerful, because it had so much heart. I liked that Rocky didn't win the fight. He pushed himself as far as he could go, he gave everything he had for the one shot he was ever going to get -- and it wasn't enough. Sometimes, all you have isn't enough. But he still came out some variety of on top -- he found someone he loved, and he really, truly, found his own limits, which is something few people ever do. And the secondary story of Apollo Creed was also great -- the way he had lost sight of his own roots, and gotten complacent (that story being rehashed, of course, as "Rocky III"), and had to dig down to find his own heart again.

And then "Rocky II" went and flattened the original, by showing, oh, yeah, Rocky had a little more to give, after all, and his actual best is, as it happens, good enough. I liked "Rocky III" a lot, because Mr. T made a great monster before he fell into self-parody, and because Stallone, again, did an unexpectedly great job of portraying Rocky as having grown weak and somewhat broken.

"Rocky IV" was all about the soundtrack, I think. And the zen of his training -- he didn't need a sparring partner, because he was now The Fighter, down to his soul. The training was just about burning away the impurities clinging to that pure essence. And really, what beats eastern mysticism with a Vince DiCola soundtrack?

And then there was "Rocky V", which made me want to claw my eyes out. Or, once my reasoning became more clear, claw someone else's eyes out.

...note the lateral raises with chains - Westside brutality at its lowbrow best

Yoiks.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I agree totally about the Rambo series; mostly what I've been realising over the last few years is how underrated Stallone is as a character actor. Not a creature of great range, perhaps, but that's why he's best in his own stuff. He got a chance to do that very understated character thing here, with moments that were reminiscent of Pacino and others that were pure hangdog Bill Murray (I'm not kidding).

Rocky's disappointment with his son (and the other characters who get involved in that) is there as a layer; Pauly's disintegration into someone really quite unpleasantly pathetic; and in the middle of it is this guy who just isn't quite done yet but can't let go of his past.

It's certainly not the cartoons of the mid-series sequels.

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

I've been realising over the last few years is how underrated Stallone is as a character actor.

I recommend to you, if you haven't seen it, "Oscar." I thought he did a really great job, and the rest of the cast was stellar and really had the slapstick timing down. I think "Oscar" would have done a lot better if it hadn't been lumped in with "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot," as "the Stallone comedies." It was like trying to win a beauty contest with a dead possum nailed to your head.