Rocky Reviews

Update: Events in my personal life have made me question whether perhaps my original title for this review, “When Eights Don’t Hate” was a little naive about the Classic American Enneagram Eight, you know—like, it’s natural, maybe, to want to let the ‘man of the people’ have his day in the sun, but it can lead to naivety and un-realism/cheerleading for kinda un-naive, un-idealist people who don’t exactly lead in with their heart, you know. Some things more closely related to the movie itself—the acquaintance who loves the movies, the scene where Rocky tries to tame the ‘tough girl’ from his neighborhood, right, among other scenes—kinda support that idea. (Re-assessment.) I mean, it’s not the worst movie, or the most unambiguous red flag, by any imagination, right: it’s not like saying, ‘Oh yeah, I saw “Get the Gringo”, it was Excellent’, right. It’s just that, there is a sort of naivety in America about the essential smash-and-grab personality type, given our history: and even though at the very same time we can sometimes often be extremely uptight about people who aren’t proper and classic-rich and uptight, you know. But there’s the mythology of the colonial governor’s mansion and the mythology of the colonial fighter, (the latter being a fighter not only against the British, lol), and they’re just—you know, very naive, and in the case of the fighter, about someone who isn’t even classically naive, right. 

Maybe the obscure 70s Poitier adventure really WAS better, you know. The white guy in that movie—I’m sorry, I don’t know all actors—arguably WAS still the most important character, but, it was more of a collaboration, rather than a cheerleading thing, you know. 

But either way there’s no way to make a perfect movie, or a perfect anything. Actually very few movies do I find to be exceptional, regardless of whether or not they are ‘classics’, you know. (shrugs) But anyway. 

………..

In the Enneagram, the Eight is the lusty, aggressive number. 

So yeah, I liked this, pretty uncontroversially, I guess, as much as the 1975 Sidney Poitier adventure that I liked but has been largely forgotten, right, (The Wilby Conspiracy), and I actually think that you would make yourself smaller by only liking serious, edgy, whatever it is—I mean, I hear Rocky won an award but it does seem pretty popular and simple, and not, you know, serious or edgy or whatever it is; I actually feel like I’ve seen too many, proportionally, of the serious adventures, the adventures into grandness, as opposed to other kinds of movies. The movie apparently does impress people, but not by trying to impress people, and I think that’s a valid style. 

And it is rough, but it has heart…. And he’s not, I don’t know, the perfect man, the ideal man for marrying, even though in a different time, a time that probably hasn’t come yet, it’s easy to imagine him being one sort of ideal man…. If I were Isis, or even Aphrodite, I wouldn’t select him as my first round draft pick, right…. But if he’s not the ideal man, IMO, he certainly is A man, and that’s a valid choice, you know. 

…. It’s funny, these kinds of guys can be jerks, you know: but I know I want to experience this movie, because if you had asked me before, when I was meditating on the “dark/scary” tarot cards in my way meditating through the Mythic Tarot, like if you had said, Suppose you drop a jar of processed corn syrup, basically, because you’re still spinning subconsciously about your co-worker (I work at a grocery store) there, and his, you know: a more accurate thing would have been, “Don’t mind me, Theodore; I’m just leaking from my leaky negativity canister: it leaks in between January and December…. Love you bro! Or I dunno: whatever”—that’s almost the sense of it—and something about being attacked triggers my skittishness, which turns off the basic life strength needed to hold a jar of corn goo, you know…. (I was only supposed to be picking up my check and was waiting for the bookkeeper to come back, so I didn’t have a bag on me.)…. But yeah, I knew even as I was writing about my decision to not flinch at the sometimes hairy, ugly disgusting nature of life that I wasn’t rooted in that yet, although somehow I didn’t think like Life was going to show me up within the hour or whatever…. Although people seem to perceive me as a very calm person, and will occasionally give me unsolicited positive feedback along those lines, sometimes while I’m wondering why my mind is like…. Making monkey noises while trying to tame a wild horse, basically…. Although I suppose I must have a lot of foundational calmness, despite the surface of my mind getting skittish or riled up easily—or maybe I’m just the philosophical equivalent of the pretty girl who never knows when she’s having a good hair day, right. But skittish, yeah—that’s why I gave up my horror movie hobby I once had—it just seemed like…. “The professor must have been discovering science before he got interrupted by the—ah! Jump scare!—“ You know, it didn’t feel like training for anything; jump scares are too intermittent and trivial to be consequential, although they are irritating…. But yeah, Leaky Canister wouldn’t have noticed anything angry about what I said, because I wasn’t angry…. But yeah: I do want to experience this movie. Carlos, son of the Jungfrau and Amadeus Mozart, once (apparently) said something like, “The best way to handle the other person’s negativity is to know your own”—or something like that, right…. 

So yeah: hairy, ugly, disgusting: that’s what you gotta get into sometimes, if you wanna live, right…. “Gawana kite?” Huh? (takes out mouth guard) “You wanna fight? C’mon; I’m Rocky—I’m a contender; (punch punch) (miscellaneous bar brawl fighter slang, lol) 

You gotta get in the ring. 

…. But yeah: even in boxing movies, there’s plot points and build-up, right…. Although, more so than in a horror movie or political drama, there’s a sense of, I don’t know, the brutally quotidian underbelly of the city, right. To you, it’s Thanksgiving. “But to me, it’s Thursday.” 

As for the love interest, certainly whether you write a men-centric or woman-centric story, it’s a patriarchal society, and one of about half a century ago now, right. And part of basically any society is that some stories are men-centric, so what’re gonna do, right. In a story like that…. And I mean, you could even argue that they’re not setting up beauty standards for Everywoman, right: although I think you have to ask if it’s beneficial that the main girl be essentially mousy and inconsequential, right. She’s not a fighter; she’s not a contender. People push her around; she goes along with it…. And that scene with Rocky and the tough girl who wasn’t the love interest, right, that he lays down the Law of Reputation to, you know: there’s no fucking doubt in my mind that that scene is way too fucking long and way too fucking stupid…. If he’s a fighter, he should Want a girl with a little life in her; who tells fighters to obey the rules that church mice set up, right? Or do they do the punching that the church mice are afraid to do? 

But yeah, it’s bordering on kinda an older movie in that sense, but because I wanted to appreciate a snow-white or whatever Creed called the idea, a snow-white fighter, alongside and to the same extent as the obscure Sidney Poitier/South Africa political adventure, I’ll say that this is not just a basic-good four stars movie, but I’ll give it that extra point and call it 9/10 for being the first movie in a successful franchise: because I liked the basic emotive idea and theme of it being about life in the hairy, ugly, disgusting underbelly of the city, day in day out, and how you gotta be a contender, you know. 

…. But yeah: I was with my family, and especially when I was trying to follow my dad’s ineffective driving, I wanted to go back to the 70s so I could pull up besides a couple I didn’t know and say, Take her to the zoo~ you know. I understand the appeal of popular culture. 

I wanted to have spies tell me petty details of my relatives’ lives, so I could say, I hear things. Don’t you think I hear things? ~They’d probs be duly impressed, right. 

(cartoon old lady voice) I hear goosecap’s doing real good now—I think he runs the mafia. 

My family is just like Gen Z—they slay…. Although more in the sense of, “You’re killing me, Smalls.” (face palm emoji) 

…. But yeah, he’s not a bad guy. I don’t know that I admire him, but he’s not a bad guy. Certainly not as an individual. Maybe he is a little bad; we all partake in things that aren’t ours. But people told him education wasn’t for him, and, anyway, he needed to learn things that “our” schools don’t really teach, right. 

But yeah it’s funny: they said “dago” in the 70s and they still half-meant it, right; although America always wants the guy on-the-bottom-but-not-quite-on-the-bottom to feel taken care of, right…. Although, what did they ever ~really~ do for him, right? Did they form in him an admirable character? 

And, yeah: it’s a library DVD I was watching bit by bit, and Mercury is slowly easing into retrograde, right, but: the DVD got bad on me for a minute or two of the movie—and it took longer than a minute or two to figure out where the bad patch ended, probably five or six minutes—right as the classic-rich-guy asked Rocky if he “believed America was the land of opportunity”. I don’t know how you read that, assuming you believe in meaningful coincidence. Like in the real movie of life, does moment not happen, or does it maybe happen, but in the movie God makes about life, does a different music play, or something…. 

I mean, he’s not a “bad man” in himself: and it’s curious to see him represented as a good one, you know. 

…. The depths of the man who thinks he’s no good who’s friends are telling him he can make it and he says that they’re no good and that he doesn’t think that they think that he can make it. 

…. And yeah: it’s funny or whatever, right—Rocky wants to make out~ It’s A Good Idea; Rocky doesn’t want to make out~ It’s Not A Good Idea. Ok. 

That said, I don’t know if I’d say “most”, but many, I suppose, men who are probably old enough to remember this movie (way back at the back end of the ethnic miracle in the 70s, right) are, in the context of this sorta thing, doing a somewhat good job—not punching people in the face, too often, etc. Some of the time, obviously. 

Although I don’t mean “punching” literally exactly—boxing isn’t really my thing to watch, basically because the score/outcome is usually so arbitrary, you know; American football is probably at least as “violent” and to some extent it’s a perfectly amusing sport to watch, you know…. But yeah, boxing lends itself to storytelling, right…. 

…. We all have negative thoughts, but I do wonder if the message of the movie isn’t basically, You can think like a loser, feel like a schmuck—and you can still be the title character!…. All you need to do is learn this little trick by your fellow didn’t-used-to-be-white ethnic American…. Some of the lines are really crazy: you can’t make this crap up, right (crying laughing emoji) …. Although they almost let the girl be like, a real supporting character: it gets very close, right—so close…. And her brother is like the difficult-to-believe stereotype of the guy like that, so that he can take the fall and we like the title character better…. It’s all about the title character…. 

But it’s better than having your car get worked on, lol. “Hey Rocky tell that guy his car is ready!” (Rocky) Uh hello Mr. Nobody; my name is Nobody; I mean—Rocky. Your car is ready for pickup, will you be paying cash or card?…. 

~But yeah: it’s interesting perspective-for-life, you know. Sometimes you meet guys, masculine men, especially but certainly not exclusively older and/or white, and it’s like…. Yeah, that guy’s not doing so bad. Think of how he was educated by society, right? First he was told he wasn’t worth no education, and then he was educated in a bunch of bullshit ideas nobody who respected him ever told him to question, right…. 

The training scene was certainly entertaining. 

…. And the other thing is, it’s not really paced properly, you know. My guess is that the fight should have ended about 80% of the way through a story of this length, and I’m over 80% of the way through, and it’s just, about, to begin, right. Really, it’s going to end, and there’s going to be just enough time for him to raise his hands up into the air and shout some vague, stupid thing, before the credits roll. There is a difference between fighting some kind of sports-fight to win at life and prove you’re a real champ or whatever, and being like an escape artist who literally just punches people sometimes, you know. Very indifferent storytelling; mediocre, really. 

…. But yeah: no matter how American you are, epithet, the Irish-Italians will always be more American just by advertising their supposed countries of origin, right. 

(draws self up) And that’s because this is the United States of America. (beat) (chuckles)  

…. And yeah, it would be funny to make a list of the things Apollo/Apollo’s people promote so that we can have a laugh at their expense, right. (Money/fashion/Canada, etc.) 

But don’t do that. You’ll get a headache. lol. 

…. Life lessons: if you punch people enough, eventually, I don’t know, their whole face, right. It looks different…. 

But yeah, now we know what Rocky has to go through before he can feel the slightest emotion, lol…. 

…. …. “Do you hate anybody, Rocky?” No man, I don’t hate nobody. I don’t hate nobody, nothing like that. I don’t feel…. I don’t feel…. I mean…. Say, boss: what was the question?”

The Rocky series may have ultimately degenerated into a flashy, soulless boxing franchise, but this first instalment is unlike the majority of its follow-ups - it is a remarkable, heartfelt, inspirational sports drama and a poignant character study concerning the determination of one man. It's easy to dismiss Rocky as just a motion picture about boxing, yet it works on several levels - the film is an inspiring fable of the underdog, a warm love story, and a dramatic tale of unrealised dreams all wrapped into one. While a low-budget picture without major backing, Rocky was a hit; earning a mint at the box office, transforming Sylvester Stallone into a star, and collecting three Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Picture). The weight of multiple sequels and several imitators may have tarnished Rocky, but the movie nonetheless stands as a true highlight of classic American filmmaking, and one of the greatest movies of all time.

Rocky is the story of the Philadelphia inhabitant Rocky Balboa (Stallone), who earns a living by partaking in small-time boxing matches and working as an enforcer for a local loan shark. Whenever Rocky is not in the ring or twisting the arms of indebt Philadelphia residents, he socialises with the shy, reserved Adrian (Shire) and her brother Paulie (Young). By all accounts, Rocky's life is unremarkable, but he is soon given the chance of a lifetime. Heavyweight boxing champion Apollo Creed (Weathers) is seeking an opponent for his next fight, and decides that giving a low-ranked boxer a shot at the title would be a terrific publicity stunt. Apollo chooses Rocky on account of his moniker “The Italian Stallion”, and believes the fight will be a walk in the park. Rocky, on the other hand, perceives the fight as an opportunity to go the distance with the champ and gain some respect.

Sylvester Stallone's inspiration for Rocky was derived from the boxing bout between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner. In the 1970s, Wepner was a low-ranked boxer who surprised everybody (and probably bankrupted a few bookies, too) when he almost lasted 15 rounds in the ring with Ali while the champion was still wearing his belt. Impressed by Wepner's determination, Stallone (with a measly $106 in his bank account) worked in his kitchen to pen the screenplay for Rocky in 86 hours. He soon began shopping around the script, and insisted that he be the one to star as Rocky instead of a big-name actor. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff ultimately agreed, and the movie was filmed in 28 days on a diminutive $1 million budget. The rest, as they say, is history. While Stallone faced ridicule in subsequent years for ham-fisted acting within brain-dead action films, it cannot be denied that he created a magnetic character in Rocky Balboa; a figure whom many perceived as an inspiration to overcome the ostensibly impossible in their own lives. Rocky may adhere to clichés, but Stallone managed to effectively apply them in a way that captivated viewers and did not seem over-the-top.

The brilliance of Rocky is that it's primarily a drama concentrating on characters rather than sports. It would be erroneous to state that the climactic boxing match is unimportant (it is the centrepiece), but the production is not just about the action. In the lead-up to Rocky's match with Apollo, time is spent developing Rocky as a person. He is not traditional hero material - he's boorish, somewhat dumb, and has limited aspirations. Yet, there's something inherently endearing about Rocky, mainly due to the gentle, caring way he treats his new girlfriend Adrian. The relationship between Rocky and Adrian affords the film its emotional core, and it's key to making the ending so triumphant. Plus, it is a joy watching Rocky progress through the proceedings with confidence in himself while at the same time realising his limitations. Several dramatic moments within Rocky have been mocked over the years in parodies and knock-offs, yet it's still easy to let yourself be absorbed by this masterful film.

Rocky is widely considered to be Sylvester Stallone's movie since he wrote the screenplay, played the protagonist, and choreographed the boxing sequences. However, he did not direct the movie - John G. Avildsen was at the helm. Avildsen was a director of no particular distinction in 1976, yet the success of Rocky propelled him to a moderately rewarding career. And Avildsen's efforts should not be underestimated - while Stallone deserves some credit for generating the film's heart, Avildsen's directorial work was equally beneficial. Most impressive is the climactic fight, which in the hands of Avildsen feels like a real boxing match. There's a great deal of tension, too - you do not know who will emerge victorious. The definitive touch was Bill Conti's music. With an exceptional main theme, an equally exceptional title song (the Oscar-nominated Gonna Fly Now), and an all-round engaging score, Conti's contributions topped off the movie immaculately.

Prior to his performance in Rocky, Sylvester Stallone was virtually an unknown. Yet, this movie launched Stallone's acting career that catapulted him to the highest orbit of action stars where he ranked among the highest paid actors in Hollywood. In Rocky, Stallone displayed legitimate acting talent, and even acquired an Oscar nomination. He truly brought the titular role to life in endearing ways. We love Rocky not just because he's an underdog but because he's honest, caring, generous, humble and disciplined. It's nothing short of amazing that Stallone created a schmalzy character and a maudlin story, yet made the elements feel completely believable rather than sugar-coated. The supporting cast, meanwhile, is comprised of a number of low-profile actors. Burgess Meredith is a standout as Mickey; the old timer who trains Rocky. A colourful and tough performance, Meredith pulled off the role with commendable passion and conviction. Also in the cast is Talia Shire, who was known at the time for her role in the Godfather movies. Shire's performance as Adrian is tender and endearing - it's easy to understand Rocky's love for her. And as Apollo Creed, Carl Weathers is terrific, while Burt Young is excellent as Paulie.

Decades on, a lot of cynical movie-goers and critics still proclaim that Rocky did not deserve Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards over two of its competitors, Taxi Driver and Network. Nonetheless, this reviewer whole-heartedly believes that Rocky deserved Best Picture. Not only was it arguably better than its competitors, but the movie, like its protagonist, was the underdog - this low-budget film grabbing the Best Picture Oscar was as unlikely as Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed. Added to this, the film was an allegory for Stallone's life in the mid-'70s. Prior to '76, Stallone was a low-ranked actor, but Rocky gave him the opportunity to become a big star. Much like what happened to Rocky Balboa, the gamble paid off. The film's success even spawned five sequels, beginning with Rocky II in 1979.

10/10