The Rocky movies are a guilty pleasure of mine.
There’s no guilt for the first one, of course. That’s just a really good script and a really good story and some really, really good acting from everybody. It even ended with an oh-so-very 70’s ending of “he didn’t win the fight, he didn’t win the title… but he proved to himself that he could go the distance.”
The 2nd one was the cash grab that said, “Okay, you wanted to see him win? Now you can see him win.”
Rocky III had the scariest bad guy in any movie I had seen up until that point: Clubber Lang.
We were all making jokes about “I pity the fool!” for years following that movie (and Mister T himself turned it into a nice little tagline), but, in context, it’s not a particularly funny/jokey line. It’s a magnificent bad guy line.
Rocky IV went through the looking glass. In the same way that James Brown laid it down and said “You cannot parody me – I cannot be parodied,” Rocky IV said the same thing.
http://youtu.be/jZUWQdSTQ7Q?rel=0&vq=720hd&w=660
A movie that cannot be parodied. A movie that mocks itself even as it is awesome.
Rocky V wasn’t very good. It wasn’t as downright *BAD* as you’ve probably heard… but it wasn’t good. I had (mistakenly!) thought that it would be a capstone on the series and, well, it ended like the first movie. You’re left feeling like he won… kinda… on his terms… kinda… but, man. It was kind of a drag. You didn’t want the story to end there. But there it was.
So when Rocky Balboa came out, I was actually kind of surprised. Then I saw it and, dang, it was an *APOLOGY* for V. It came out and said, “You know what? Yeah, we screwed up. Here’s the story you wanted to see.” Then it told it and, you know, it was downright awesome. An appropriate bookend for how awesome the first movie was.
So when I heard that they were making *ANOTHER* Rocky movie, I laughed and thought “What a dumb cash grab!” and then immediately started googling the heck out of the movie.
It’s called “Creed“. The basic story as far as I can tell is this: Adonis Creed (son of Apollo) is an up and coming boxer and Rocky Balboa becomes his trainer.
DO YOU NEED MORE THAN THAT?!?!?
The only (and I mean the *ONLY*) thing that has me somewhat apprehensive is that Stallone didn’t write the script for this one. I find myself hoping that Ryan Coogler (director of Fruitvale Station) and Stallone had many, many dinners together as part of pre-production. Not that Coogler needs to have listened to everything that Stallone had to say… but a lot of it.
As such, I’m going to be watching the movie as a metaphor for directing at the same time that I watch it as a boxing movie.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Photo is “Movie Night“, taken by Ginny, used under a creative commons license.)
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I just picked up Nobody’s Home,, a prequel to The Anubis Gates, which is one of my very favorite SF books. Also Skink – No Surrender, which seems to be a juvenile featuring the last honest governor of Florida. Very much looking forward to both of them.
I’m currently in the middle of Light in August, which, like most of Faulkner’s best books, is tough going but well worth the effort. It’s an unusual book for him, because it’s more about individuals than families; some of the main characters are carrying the weight of family history (Confederate [1] veterans, or abolitionists), but the other is an orphan with unknown parentage, and for him that’s harder still.
1. And also watching the Wossamatta U Bullwinkle arc, which features the annoying Southerner who keeps correcting anything that sounds even vaguely like “civil” to “between the states”.)Report
OOO, can I borrow Nobody’s Home when you are done?
Just kidding, that is one of the few authors I will just order when I hears something is coming.Report
This one’s been out since last year, but I just learned about it.Report
The only thing I remember from reading Light in August in high school is that Faulker was serious about the war on Christmas.Report
His initials are JC and he’s 33 years old. I’m usually immune to symbolism, but even I get that one.Report
Read the play W;t, which was a quick/easy read, even as it was haunting and difficult to deal with. I would love to see a production of it someday.
Otherwise, have been savoring the last Pratchett novel The Shepherd’s Crown, which I am grateful is one that centers on the Witches. Am also close to finishing Under Major Domo Minor, the sort-of literary fairy tale by Patrick DeWitt, who wrote the marvelous The Sisters Brothers.
A little anxious to start David Wong’s John Dies in the End and This Book is Full of Spiders, after having loved the heck out of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Also very much want to get my hands on the new John Irving, and the Elvis Costello autobiography.Report
Oh man, my Tod, you are in for a real treat with those two David Wong books. I’ve read them both a couple of times, and they’re just fantastic. I’m looking forward to scoring Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits when I make my yearly pilgrimage to Powell’s next month.Report
I’m about 4/5 of the way through FVFS and am loving it. Got it from the library and queuing up Wong’s other books next.Report
@zac Is “Spiders” actuallg a sequel? Or just the follow up? Library got me that one but not “John” yet.Report
Well, it’s not a sequel in the sense of a direct continuation of the storyline of the previous one. It’s the same characters and it uses a bunch of the same concepts, and it happens sequentially after the events of the other one, though, so I’d recommend reading them in order. It’s not 100% essential, but I suspect you’ll enjoy it more if you do.Report
I started reading a fairly decent SF from the oughts, Mirrored Heavens, which so far is holding my interest. I also started reading JK Rowlings Casualy Vacancy and while I never read the Potter books, I will just say that from reading Vacancy, she had some things she wanted to get off of her chest. Heroin addiction, teens who hate their parents, swearing, casual and graphic sex. Yeah, she needed to get some things out.
I am also still working on Kaputt, which is starting to give Blood Meridian a run for its money in the fun deptment.Report
I read MIRRORED HEAVENS. Kind of liked it, but not enough to read the sequels. However, just browsing around, I see now that John C Wright – whose “Golden Oecumene” trilogy is near the top of my all-time sci-fi list – has written a four book “sequence” that began with COUNT TO A TRILLION. May set that aside for first non-philosophy, non-history, not code-related book-reading in a long time…Report
I liked Wright’s contribution to Songs of the Dying Earth a lot; he really captured both Jack Vance’s voice and the feeling of the Dying Earth stories. But I can’t enjoy his work any more since I’ve learned what an awful human being he is.Report
Wud he do was awful othern practice law?Report
That’s forgivable, particularly since he was apparently very bad at it. It’s the bigotry against gays, woman, and Muslims, not to mention his embrace of the execrable Theodore Beale, that leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.Report
I reserve the words “awful human being” for people who have actually done awful things or done things awfully.
I also don’t presumptively apply the word “bigot” to people like Wright, based merely on their positions or stray utterances – though I might to others whose views overlap with theirs, and to others whose views are opposite – but we don’t need to re-open that discussion today, and I won’t lecture you on my views on the views of writers. I’ll just say I found his books quite enjoyable, certain passages quite transportively beyond whatever government of his or anybody’s political conscience, and that that was enough for me.
As I think about it, the Golden Age books can be read as the far-futuristic romance of a retrograde (quasi-traditional) hero seeking a place and a mission in a universe of psychedelically polymorphous perversity. The scenario of his recent series seems to be open to a similar reading. One of these days, I’ll dig up an interesting passage on this theme, the one I think of most often when I think about his books. Haven’t looked at it in a long time, so I’ll be curious to see how well it holds up as writing.Report
So, basically he is your Hillary Mantel*?
*(Borderline competent author who props up their writing with Right On! ™ politics.**
**Its right on! for the right crew of readers, if you are not of that crew it sticks out like a sore thumb. Others include Tom Clancy, Iain Banks, Mike Resnik, Steig Larsen. Children seem to like these writers, as they get to say Right On! a lot and they do not engender any thinking.)Report
“(Borderline competent author”
Whaaaa?Report
Mantel is horrific at differentiating voices in a text. She simply didn’t have the skill to do what she wanted with the work and it ended up a confusing hash. One star.
(Seriouly, I haven’t been that angry at a book I read since Still Life With Woodpecker, and I am a redhead.)Report
(Seriouly, I haven’t been that angry at a book I read since Still Life With Woodpecker
I literally, and I don’t mean figuratively literally, but like literally literally threw that book across the room.*
*I might be exaggerating a bit for effect.Report
That is an appropriate response to Tom Robbins.Report
I’d say pretty much the opposite of that, aarondavid, based on my recollection of Wright’s books – and even on Mike’s concession regarding Wright’s contribution to the Jack Vance book.Report
Iain Banks? I wouldn’t call him political at all, at least based on the first three Culture books,Report
There is a reason I didn’t put the M in there. His mainstream fiction is what I prefer and am refering to.Report
I was wondering about that, but I can never remember which books he used the M for. The only one of those I’ve read is The Wasp Factory, and I wouldn’t call it political per se.
Now, for an SF writer who’s unreadable if you don’t care for his politics, there’s Jerry Pournelle, especially when he collaborates with Niven (while Niven writing by himself was completely different.)Report
Hey, I like Lucifers Hammer!
Wasp Factory isn’t really political, though it does hit on a few topics. Mostly I was thinking of his ’90’s and later output (the last of his I read was Dead Air) such as Crow Road or Complicity (which I massively recomend.)Report
I finished S2 of The Fall. Boy, that was terrible. Do not bother. Aside from Anderson, the only bright spot amongst the serial killer cliches and icky exploitative stuff and contrived plot elements, was a pretty good David Holmes score – the main theme sounds a lot like the 1985 New Order instrumental “Elegia”.
https://youtu.be/Mitw5haqx5YReport
I am flailing a bit in my reading and watching due to some personal worries I won’t get into here.
But! Jaybird and I watched an episode of Babylon 5 together today and I just started Book 4 of Ex Machina and I’m about to leave to go over to C’s house to watch the librarians and I’m halfway through Proven Guilty (Dresden) on audiobook and season 4 of Continuum just hit Netflix and…
So it’s not that there is a lack of things to enjoy, just a lack of focus on my part, and/or ability to settle down.
Also I have read few writers as fluid and elegant (including in their characterization) as Hilary Mantel, and I can’t possibly imagine feeling any of her books were a confusing hash. So now I am confused. But I’m sure it will pass. De gustibus, etc.Report
“DO YOU NEED MORE THAN THAT?!?!?”
No. No, I do not.Report