#rocky movies

[demigoddessqueens]

Rest in Peace, Carl 😞 😢 💕💔😭 you were a good one

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

All those years watching anime really did leave an impact on Michael B. Jordan. Because the plot of Creed III being “righteous protagonist must fight their best friend who turned to the dark side due to jealousy/ego/wanting to prove that they’re better than the protagonist” is straight up a shonen anime storyline.

[mattykelevra]

Burt Young, who played Paulie in the Rocky franchise, was actually trained by Cus D'Amato (who trained Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson) and went 17-0 as a professional.

According to Wikipedia: Young served a tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1959. While in the Marine Corps, he won 32 of 34 boxing bouts. He later turned pro and compiled a 17-0 record under three different aliases. His manager was Cus D'Amato.

[charismaticsage]

Florian deserves!! He was really good as Viktor and gave a layered performance. A one off movie will be great.

[luciano6254]

Art made with Clip Studio Paint and finished with Photoshop CS5 during 1 day.

 DO NOT RE-POST OR REPRODUZE MY ART WITHOUT MY PERMITION OR YOU WIL BE BAN!!! Rocky Balboa © By Sylvester Stallone Ashita no Joe © by Ikki Kajiwara & Tetsuya Chiba/TMS Entertainment.

[prettycrappyaesthetics]

🥊💥

[laurenreviewsmovies]

Creed III

Director: Michael B. Jordan

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson

Release Date: March 3, 2023

My Rating: 7.5/10

My Review (NO SPOILERS)

Okay, so I still haven’t seen Creed I; take everything I say with a grain of salt. I did see Creed II, but I saw it opening night, four and half years ago, and haven’t ever watched it again.

Whenever a threequel comes around, I get worried that it won’t live up to its predecessors. That’s not an issue with this movie. Then again, I’ve not seen the original, so I’ve been judging these sequels solely on their own merits.

This movie had a lot of great fighting sequences, and packed a heavier emotional punch than I can remember Creed II delivering. The stakes didn’t feel quite as high, but they were certainly a lot more personal. The characters felt a bit underdeveloped and static, but I guess you could also maybe expect that with a third movie in a franchise, when the characters were already developed in the previous two movies.

The plot was coherent but felt a bit jumbled and rushed at some points. Right as the movie would started to dip into something deeper, it would change directions. It kept toeing the line of being something *more*, but it just never fully crossed that like.

Furthermore, even though I only saw it once, the final fight sequence of Creed II was so incredible. The sound mixing, the shots, the action? I was nearly standing up out of my seat cheering. I felt like I was there in the arena. The final fight in this movie…it got a little two symbolic for me. The imagery was over the top (Good guys in white, bad guys in black? Give me a break). Without spoiling too much, you’re really taken out of the boxing match atmosphere and it’s all focused on the boxers in almost a sort of dream sequence. It was interesting at the very beginning but then began to drag and went on a bit long. The fighting atmosphere only came back for the final round. The final fight just didn’t live up to the final match from Creed II in my opinion.

That being said, I really did have a great time watching this movie. It made me laugh, gasp, cry, smile, and hide behind my hands (I’m a bit squeamish, sue me). The acting was phenomenal, and the resolution was very fitting. It wrapped up the Creed trilogy nicely, and actually kinda of set up the possibility of a next generation Creed story. I found myself really hoping for that possibility.

If you liked the other Creed movies, this one is definitely worth seeing as well.

[thekidsfromyestergay]

Just saw a video like "um actually rocky horror isn't good queer representation because frank sexually assaults janet" girl he kills and eats people. It's called the rocky HORROR picture show not the rocky cute gay rep tw t-slur picture show

[give-a-rating]

[wmcken12]

Rest In Peace Carl Weathers(AKA Apollo Creed)

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

After doing some thinking on this, I think the most interesting movie in the Creed-Rocky universe is “Creed II”:

While most of the movies in the franchise are good, Creed II fascinates me since it’s actually different in how it approaches the main conflict. Most of the movies follow the same formula of underdog boxer must triumph over superior opponent, while Creed II feels more focused on the behind-the-scenes drama and history.

This movie could’ve easily just been a revenge story. Adonis wants to avenge his dad, so he beats up the son of his dad’s killer. However, it feels like the writers of the movie wanted to dig deeper into this. While the revenge story would be simpler and more theatrical, Creed II instead asks the audience how this would be realistically.

And the answer is…really sad, actually.

You’d think that Adonis would be at Kill Bill-levels of vengeful, but he’s not. Instead, he’s more frustrated by how he’s expected to want to avenge his father. He just became world champion and yet the media is only talking about him fighting Viktor Drago. Even Donnie admits you can’t talk about the Creeds without talking about the Dragos. Sure, he does resent Ivan, of course he would. But he doesn’t have a beef with Viktor, and it shows.

Viktor wasn’t doing any better. Although he was trash talking Donnie, you can tell how frustrated he was with how he was being used to “restore” Ivan’s honor. He hated how the Russian leaders, especially his mother, were only treating him and his father well after he started winning in the ring. None of it felt genuine, it’s like he was just a racehorse to them.

When you look at Donnie and Viktor’s arcs as a whole, it’s fascinating just how the arcs work as an overall discussion on legacy. Legacy ends up being the true villain of the movie:

1) Donnie can’t establish his own legacy since he’s chained to his father’s legacy. Even though he has the belt, no one cared. They just wanted the spiritual successor to Apollo vs. Ivan.

2) Viktor was literally raised in hardship because of what happened to his father in the 1980s. Then, he realized he was being used as a way to restore his father’s legacy, which disgusted him.

3) For both Adonis and Viktor, neither of them harbored any actual hate to each other. Any feelings of resentment came solely from their fathers’ actions.

4) Rocky wouldn’t even put up pictures of his fight with Ivan, which makes sense since there wasn’t anything uplifting about that match. Sure, he ended the Cold War (lol) but it doesn’t change the fact that the fight was about vengeance.

5) Ivan was so traumatized by his defeat that he felt like he deserved his exiling. Exiled…for losing a damn boxing match. It took nearly losing his son in the ring for him to realize that reclaiming his lost glory was not worth it.

The end fight is, in my opinion, the most interesting showdown in the franchise. Instead of feeling like a battle between a hero and a villain, it felt more…therapeutic? It’s like Donnie and Viktor knew that they couldn’t move forward with their lives until they got this fight over with, so that’s what they do. You can tell there’s a feeling of relief on both ends once the fight finishes since Donnie got the win over Viktor (thus ending the media’s obsession over a Creed-Drago revenge match) and Ivan affirmed to Viktor that he’ll always have his father’s love.

I should note that there’s a deleted scene (it shouldn’t have been!) where Donnie, Viktor, and Ivan all make peace with each other. I feel like that was the point of making this sequel. It’s not a revenge story like what most people thought, it’s a story of healing, past trauma, generational conflict, and moving on from the past. That’s also why Creed III is a brilliant follow-up since, for the first time in the Creed series, it’s a movie that’s about Donnie’s legacy, not Apollo or Rocky’s.

Basically, Creed II treated the fight between the sons of Apollo and Ivan as an obligation that needed to be fulfilled. It’s funny since that actually works as meta commentary on the audience since that was what a lot of people wanted to see when the first Creed movie was announced. Once that obligation was finished, Donnie and Viktor were able to move on with their lives and establish their own legacies, as seen in Creed III.

And that’s kinda beautiful.

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

[engravedlives]

more red graphics stamps blinkies

[greensparty]

Remembering Bill Butler and Vivian Timble

Here is my combined remembrance to two entertainers we lost this week:

Remembering Bill Butler 1921-2023

Cinematographer Bill Butler has died at 101 (not a typo). He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which was shared with Haskell Wexler. He was Director of Photography and in the camera dept. on numerous films, but the highlights include Jaws (my favorite of his films), Grease, Rocky II - IV, Stripes, Biloxi Blues, Child's Play (easily the best Chucky movie), and Hot Shots!. 

one of the many iconic shots in Jaws Butler photographed

The link above is the obit from Variety.

Remembering Vivian Trimble 1963-2023

Musician Vivian Trimble has died at 59. She was the keyboardist for Luscious Jackson from 1991 to 1998. 

The NYC group was a big part of the Alternative Nation in the mid 90s. I first became aware of them with their song “Citysong”, which was on MTV and they performed on SNL. In June 1995, I saw Luscious Jackson open for R.E.M. at Great Woods (Mansfield, MA) and they had some good songs, but I got the sense they would play better in a club. In the following years they had some appearances on movies soundtracks including Clueless and Good Will Hunting. They also had some hits like “Naked Eye”, one of my favorites of 1997. In addition to Luscious Jackson, Trimble and bandmate Jill Cunniff had their side project Kostars. After Trimble left Luscious Jackson, she formed the short-lived Dusty Trails with Josephine Wiggs of The Breeders. 

Trimble (left) and Luscious Jackson in 1995

The link above is the obit from Rolling Stone with music videos embedded.

[odetokeons]

i don't know what this movie genre is called, but it's my favourite movie genre