Pick Only One: Rocky movie

So hey, I thought I must've seen at least one Rocky when I was a kid but I just blasted through 1-3 yesterday and I'm pretty sure that (aside from a smattering of iconic scenes that have seeped into the public consciousness) I've never actually watched any of them previously. They're great! There's obviously at least a whiff of fromage wafting from 3 but it's still damn entertaining (and like Weathers and Meredith and even Mr. T are all v compelling to watch). Maybe I've seen 4? I feel like I remember more about that one but I might be thinking of the Mad Magazine parody.

Also surprised to realize that Stallone actually directed most of them. He's not bad, that Sly! I wondered why he didn't branch out more and take advantage of the sequels' success to snag some more directorial gigs but then remembered, oh yeah, Stayin' Alive.

Never did make that stirring defence of iii but its legit a movie that stands up on its merits imo, the nutcase stuff with the hulkster os cut through p quickly with how badass mr t is and you just cant argue with weathers/stallone as a pairing from then on

The bros mac still use rockys ring banter from iii interalia whenever possible

so weird how the original rocky and the original rambo are both such small, character-based dramas, given what they both turned into

The more low-key character-based material in the first two helps lay the groundwork that lets 3 get away with being mostly fights and training montages and scenes of cutoff-clad Rocky and Apollo cavorting in the surf to the tune of 'Playing With the Boys'. Sometimes the meat is all you need.

I might have to give the Rambos a try after I make my way through this entire saga (have seen only my beloved First Blood a dozen or so times, expect to be thoroughly disappointed by the rest).

Yeah ive never seen a rambeau but have those and the new planet of the apes movies all lined up

nu-Apes are aces!

So Rocky IV is very entertaining but much less good. It's basically a Golan & Globus Rocky movie (it's surely no coincidence that the stars went on to Cannon's Over the Top and Masters of the Universe in subsequent years). I don't believe I have actually seen it before because I think I would remember batshit things like Paulie's robot and Rocky ending the Cold War with his boxing. I've been a geat fan of the 'montage anthem' soundtrack for some time but I had no idea that there was actually a montage for all eighteen montage anthems. Lotta filler in this thing. Lotta filler.

I swear to god, one of the sound effects used when Drago punches Rocky in the face was a frickin' bowling ball knocking down pins. If that isn't art then I'm gonna need someone to explain art to me.

Rocky V is the Force Awakens of the franchise (assuming a later entry doesn't wind up being even more Force Awakens-ish). After three installments of Stallone handling the reins himself (and rather adroitly, I must say), Avildsen comes back and spends the first half taking a 'hey, remember this?' tour as he recreates shots from the first film. And then the ending streetfight with Rocky's hayseed protege-cum-nemesis is just completely ludicrous. But it contained the seed of a better movie and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe. Still, it doesn't bode well when the best scene in the movie is Burgess Meredith's flashback cameo.

Oi

TFA is great

at least Force Awakens was full of action scenes. the high point of Rocky V is a ......street fight?

the end of Tommy Morrison's life was pretty weird and tragic. years of allegedly denying he was HIV positive, until he finally progressed to AIDS, and his own wife denied that he had it until he died.

If you want to see Rocky's ten-year-old son engage in roughly 3x more fights than Rocky himself does, then this is the Rocky for you!

and *that* actor (Sage Stallone, his real life son) is also dead, and died tragically a year before Morrison! movie is cursed!

I know Richard Gant (the Don King stand-in) mainly from Jason Goes to Hell so I spent the entire film expecting/hoping that he would eventually graphically feast on someone's heart.

I only learned about Tommy Morrison (and was reminded about Sage) after watching the movie. Was wondering why I never saw either of them in anything else.

i mean they didn't die five minutes after the movie

not literally

first 3 Rockys are v enjoyable, i love going back and rewatch

Rocky IV is what happens when a studio does not understand its franchise. Rocky V is ok but i feel like it’s not as good as I ~want~ it to be

i dont like Balboa

i heartily recommend Creed

Creed 2 is fine but it aint no Creed :/

I'm plowing through the whole shebang! Couldn't get my gf onboard for the straight-up Rocky installments (even though Karate Kid is like her favorite movie ever and I was all 'But Avildsen! And underdogs fulla heart fightin' their way to glory!') but I think she's gonna give the Creeds a shot.

Maybe Creed will be the thing that gets her to go back & give the Rockys another chance

Karate Kid 3 = Rocky IV but with like 50% ~less~ reason to watch. God it’s so terrible.

mr veg likes the rocky movies but cant get with the karate kid movies - but he does enjoy Cobra Kai

Rocky Balboa is the alternate universe Force Awakens of the franchise, featuring an aged Luke mooning around Tatooine and, because they couldn't manage to snag Carrie Fisher, they settled on bringing back...oh, let's see...Wuher the cantina-keep and Momaw Nadon Hammerhead? Which is to say its insistence upon referencing the past maybe outpaces its ability to reconstruct a past worth referencing. When it stops trying to shoehorn tertiary characters from the original film into the narrative and allows itself to be Rocky: The Retirement Years, it's fine if nothing to write home about. The fight at the end suffers a bit from being more obviously staged.

'That PS2 cutscene has got people curious!'

rocky 1 is s great film. the sequels cheapen it, but rocky iv is notable in itself as, like, definitive cold war kitsch

its insistence upon referencing the past maybe outpaces its ability to reconstruct a past worth referencing

Lyfe man

2true

All right, respect to Stallone, I read up and discovered that all the boxing was in fact real and not staged at all. I guess you have to stage a cinematic fight to make it look real.