Gonna Fly Now

I saw Rocky Balboa last week on the first day in a crowded theater in New York City, but because of Christmas and laziness I haven't had posted any thoughts on it yet. My short review is that it's really melodramatic (there's about a half hours worth of "I miss Adrian" scenes) and unrealistic (if a 60 year old boxer with 20+ losses on his record fought the current heavyweight champion of the world in real life, his head would've exploded after one punch) and Stallone basically recycled all the good parts of the first two Rocky movies.

And I loved it. I loved how they brought back Spider Rico and Little Marie. I loved that Adrian was dead and couldn't scream "YOU CAN'T WIN!!!" when Rocky decided to fight. I loved that Rocky still has his turtles. I loved that they filmed the fight like it was an actual HBO broadcast, complete with Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman, and a drunk off his ass Larry Merchant. And I loved that it was the first Rocky movie since the first where you didn't know who was going to win at the end. And I loved that after the fight Rocky left before Buffer announced the winner because it didn't matter to him who won. It was the right way to end the series and one of the great characters in film history.

I bring this up now because while I was bored at work, I got to thinking that James Brown died on Christmas Day, which to me is eerie because the Godfather of Soul was sang during Apollo Creed's last entrance before being brutally killed in the ring by Ivan Drago. And, of course, that led to Rocky facing Drago on Christmas Day in Russia and fighting so couragously that the Cold War ended that very night, and everyone lived happily ever after and there were never any problems for anyone ever again.

I've always wondered what James Brown's reaction to Apollo's death was. Stallone dropped the ball on that one. A short scene of James snorting a mountain of coke and saying "The nigga's dead?! Damn....Oh well! Hit me!" would've been tremendous. I like to think to myself that a little part of James Brown died that night that Apollo fell to Drago, and that the two of them are now in heaven, dressed in American flag outfits, dancing to "Living in America". Then I remember that Rocky is just a movie and that makes me sad.

NEVER FORGET