21 posts categorized "Sports Drama"

November 03, 2015

ROCKY — CLASSIC FILM PICK

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

RockySylvester Stallone’s breakout sports drama did more than put the inspired screenwriter and earthy method actor on Hollywood’s A-list. It led to one of its most successful franchises with six well-received features released over a period of 20 years.

If Stallone’s meathead portrayal of a would-be boxing contender is reminiscent of Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire“ or “On the Waterfront,” the hat-tip is intentional. Stallone makes his homage to Brando clear. His version of Brando’s famous “Stella”-yell (from “Streetcar”) is an essential part of this film’s cathartic climax, and it is a doozy.

Rocky

Talia Shire’s Adrian is on the receiving end of her lover boy’s impatient call. Like Brando’s early career characters, Rocky is a sensitive hulk whose inarticulateness expresses more than a dictionary’s worth of quotations. This is a character you feel down to your toes.

Screen Shot 2022-04-10 at 2.33.11 PM

Stallone’s humble pugilist lives in Philadelphia’s impoverished mean streets that he traverses with a heavy sense of loneliness that matches his lumbering physicality. Rocky Balboa (aka “The Italian Stallion”) is a salt-of-the-earth literary creation who keeps his ambitions within reason, unlike the 21st century’s generations of self-obsessed cellphone users who imagine that every selfie they take will usher them into a world of wealth and fame.

Colesmithey.com

Rocky is committed to boxing’s rough demands of taking and delivering punches in smalltime bouts that pay peanuts. “Rock” makes his rent by working as a thumb-breaking collector for a smalltime mobster (played by the ubiquitous character actor Joe Spinell). Rocky’s gym trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) kicks him out of his gym as a result. Cigarettes and beer help Rocky weather his dark days. For his part, Burgess Meredith carries the cinematic weight of two actors when he takes over as Rocky’s trainer when the chips are down.

Rocky2
The romantic connection between Rocky and Adrian, a homely pet store clerk, is the film’s secret weapon. That Rocky has to negotiate with Adrian’s hot-tempered brother Paulie (Burt Young) in order to keep her close to him, personifies the purity of his intentions. Adrien brings out the best in Rocky, and vice versa. He can be funny around her, and she in-turn is liberated to show off her feminine side. Both characters blossom in the sweat-drenched atmosphere that Rocky provides. Bill Conti’s suggestive musical score punctuates the drama with light touches of musical embellishment.

Screen Shot 2022-04-10 at 2.30.54 PM

John G. Avildsen’s career was well established by the time he directed “Rocky.” His consciously unfussy approach fits with Stallone’s straight-ahead script. Everything looks imperfect, even ugly; as well it should for the demands of the rough and tumble story at hand.

Rocky3
“Rocky” struck a nerve with American audiences at the time because it spoke directly to a ‘70s era lower middle-class dream of success that has since been exploded into a billion pieces. Arriving the same year as “Taxi Driver,” this iconic movie casts an oddly equal angle on the country’s sense of social deprivation after the political assassinations of the ‘60s and the authorial wipeout that followed Nixon’s impeachment behind the Watergate hearings. Rocky gets a shot at the title as much from his heritage as an Italian boxing stud as from his roughhewn skills in the ring.

Screen Shot 2022-04-10 at 2.29.20 PM

Perhaps the American dream of the ‘50s is still attainable, or as least it might have been in 1976. The film's carefully choreographed boxing sequences play second fiddle to the renowned workout sequence in which Rocky runs up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art before turning to face the city with his arms raised in a victory stance. Preparation is everything.

Rated PG. 119 mins. 

4 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

February 01, 2013

TOUCHING THE VOID — CLASSIC FILM PICK

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

 

 

Touching the VoidThe docudrama genre has rarely been so well served as it is by director Kevin Macdonald’s groundbreaking rendering of the remarkable true story of two young British mountainclimbers’ near-death experience scaling a 21,000-foot peak in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.

Based on mountain-climber Joe Simpson’s book "Touching the Void: The Harrowing First-Person Account of One Man's Miraculous Survival," the film features in-depth interview accounts with the actual climbers (Joe Simpson and Simon Yates) in conjunction with breathtaking reenactments using stunt climbers and actors (Nicholas Aaron, Ollie Ryall, and Brendan Mackey) on the Siula Grande and on locations in the Alps.

One highlight is Joe Simpson's reenactment of a sequence from his terrifying experience on the mountain.

Colesmithey.com

Besides being based on one of the most captivating tales of survival one can imagine, the film gains credibility from sequences filmed in the exact locations where the events took place. Tearing a page from the Errol Morris (“The Thin Blue Line”) school of documentary filmmaking, Macdonald uses a similar interview system, allowing his subjects to open up directly to the camera as if looking the audience in the eye like a trusted confidant. Macdonald’s inclusion of Richard Hawking, the man entrusted to watch over base camp until the climbers’ return, proves an enormous benefit to the film, partly due to Hawking’s sincere yet lively demeanor.

Touching the void

Macdonald’s concentrated use of close-ups in the snowy reenactments conveys the bizarre mix of emotions on display despite the layers of protective clothing that cover the subjects. The filmmaker’s rigorous reenactments put the viewer inside the physical and mental weeklong nightmare that Joe Simpson and Simon Yates endured.

Simonyates

Fascinating, intense, and steeped in the riveting determination of one man’s will to live, “Touching The Void” is a startling film that rattles your nerves and sends a cold chill deep inside. Simon’s meticulous explanation of his conscious and subconscious thought processes during his ordeal illuminate his singularly straightforward personality. The fact that he never felt compelled to pray speaks to his uncompromising commitment to truth, and to surviving a situation that few people could or would walk away from if they found themselves in a similar predicament.

Touching-the-void

"Touching the Void" towers above the rest of that rarest of all film genres, the docudrama.

Rated R. 106 mins.

5 StarsBMOD COLE2

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

April 21, 2012

FIGHTVILLE

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

 

FightvilleThe bumpy road to success as a mixed martial arts fighter is ambiguously investigated in this amateurish documentary by the directing/editing team of Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein.

The story is set in small-town Louisiana where MMA circuit fight promoter/trainer Gill “the Thrill” Guillory provides for his family with a grassroots carnival-style knack for attracting family audiences to the notoriously bloody bouts. The story wants to gravitate around Dustin Poirier, a scrappy MMA fighter attempting to compensate for scars left behind by an abusive father.

Image result for FIGHTVILLE Movie 2012

Yet, the movie looses focus on Poirier as its most charismatic subject. Instead, it grinds into a forced ending that leaves the audience hanging.

Image result for FIGHTVILLE Movie 2012

Fans of MMA fighting might find interest in some of the minutiae of the violent sport, but there isn’t enough storyline to satisfy more demanding viewers.

Not Rated. 85 mins.

2 Stars

This website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

A small request: Help keep Cole Smithey writing reviews, creating video essays, and making podcasts. Click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon, and receive special rewards!

PATREON BUTTON

Featured Video

SMART NEW MEDIA® Custom Videos

COLE SMITHEY’S MOVIE WEEK

COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA

Throwback Thursday


Podcast Series