I was sitting here at home and I had this feeling this morning that I have had a lot in my life. That feeling is to watch Rocky! Not just one of them either. Ya see, I have a problem in my brain, when it comes to films with sequels I can't just watch one of them. That goes for every movie in a series with maybe 2 exceptions and those are Godzilla and 007. The reason for those exceptions is both of those series don't really have direct sequels and I mean that you don't have to watch one just to understand the other ones. Well, I guess you don't have to watch Rocky to understand Rocky Balboa but in my brain I have to see what happened before in most movies.
I was just a kid when I started to watch the Rocky movies. It was impossible for me to watch the first one when it got released because it came out in 1976 and well, I wasn't around yet. I think when I really started to pay attention to these it was when part 4 came out because it was in 1985 and I was about 8 years old then. Actually I know that's when it was because I remember having the toys for the film. But there is one thing I remember more than the toys and that was my brother and I reliving the matches in our living room. My father always got mad when we used to move all the furniture around and fight but we did it anyway. It wasn't that we didn't fear and respect the man, it was because we liked fighting. Funny thing about it was we didn't have any actual boxing gloves so after we moved all the furniture around we would use the couch pillows as gloves. The both of us would bunch the pillows up in each hand and just beat each other for hours. I most of the time lost to him but I am not embarrassed about it because I was just happy to actually be able to hold my own. He is my older brother and he was always faster than I was. I could hit hard but he would hit me 10 times to 1. Anyway, one particular day, it was either December or early January I know because for Christmas that year we got some new winter gloves. We, being the dumbass kids we were, thought that they just may be thick enough to use as true boxing gloves. So we move the furniture a bit when our dad was away and we grab our new gloves. We commence to boxing for quite awhile and I got lucky this one day, I hit my brother hard enough to knock him down. At least that's what I tell myself. He was probably off balance or tripped on the corner of furniture. He falls down and he hit his head on the table beside the couch, I would have been ecstatic if it weren't for the damn table. So I dropped my guard and ask him if he was okay because it looked painful. He stood up quick and smashed me right in my eye, hard! It just so happened that was when big papi pulled in the driveway. We made like little elves and put the whole living room back in order, we turned on the T.V., sat down and started acting normal. Dad walks into the house and he puts his stuff on the kitchen counter and comes into the living room. First thing he said was, "Why's there blood on your face?". Yep, we almost made it, almost got away with it. Too bad we had 2 chairs in the room and my brother was on my right side and my face was bleeding on the left. I still have that scar, so to end this story, every time I look in the mirror I am reminded of the "friendly" bouts with my big brother and Rocky.
We need to get a few things out of the way first. Too many people say Sylvester Stallone can't act. I am not one of those. If you ever watch him do a real interview he is nothing like the character Rocky Balboa. Rocky isn't too smart and Stallone plays him spot on. Some people also say that the only good one is the first one. Also not true! There have been 6 films in the series and the first 2 are alike, parts 3 and 4 are alike, part 5 has Rocky as manager and part 6 has Rocky coming out of retirement as an old man to do an exhibition match. Each movie has a humongous "feel good" vibe and just lifts your spirits. All 6 have a ton of drama, not as much with parts 3 and 4 but those 2 have the greatest Rocky fights of the series. You can't possibly say to me right now that when Rocky fights Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago that your not on the edge of your seat! So I suppose they all have equal amounts of drama, just 3 and 4 have it during the fights unlike the others.
Another thing about this series is Sylvester Stallone created the entire thing. He was at a Muhammad Ali match when he was fighting a very mediocre talent of Chuck Wepner. Stallone was at this fight and pretty much wrote the movie after it. The fight was supposed to be a real quick knockout by Ali because Wepner wasn't even in his league. Wepner lost fights to George Foreman and Sonny Liston along with a bunch of others. After this set of losses he went 9 for 11 and was offered the Ali fight even though the entire world thought he would never make it 3 rounds. Well...he did. He kept fighting round after round and finally knocked, what most people considered, the greatest boxer in the history of the sport down in the 9th round. Ali went on to pummel this man with everything he had and Wepner kept on coming at him. Wepner did lose but with a TKO with 19 seconds left in the final round. Anyone else see the resemblance to Rocky here? That would explain why Apollo Creed is so much like Ali.
He didn't just write part 1 though. He wrote them all and he wrote a slew of other films he was in. But in my eyes none even compare to Rocky. I guess this is a good time to bring up the fact that Rocky won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976! That is one of the few times where I agree with the Academy Awards. It also won Best Director in John G. Avildsen. Let us not forget that Stallone was nominated for Best Actor and Best Writing, Screenplay. So really people can call him what they want but the first real film he ever made was nominated for a ton of awards. Yeah I said a ton because there were 13 other nominations to go along with the four I mentioned.
Rocky was a fantastic drama the whole way through. Rocky II was just as full of drama and finally gave us a better look at just how low of an education the character has. Rocky III has Mr. friggin' T and Thunder Lips! Rocky IV has Dolph Ludgren in his first and greatest role ever. I love Rocky V, but it is the weak link, but it does have that tense street fight at the end and the return of Mick. Rocky Balboa came many, many years later. It came out 16 years after part V but it brought back the drama that the first two had. I think Stallone should have been nominated for Best Actor for this one as well.
You ask why do I bring up the Rocky's today? Well...it's because word is we got ourselves another sequel coming. Maybe it will be a spinoff, but all I can tell you is that Stallone is playing Rocky Balboa at least one more time. This time apparently he is gonna mentor Apollo Creed's grandson. I can say this...I will be there in the theater opening day for this one because he has been in a lot of my old memories.
I know I didn't really review any of the 6 films mentioned in this post but just kinda ran over all of them in a lump sum but I will eventually get around to doing a single post for each movie.
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