What have you been watching? (DVD or Films on TV)

[Peven]

As long as it has enough 'splosions and one-liners, people might actually see it.

the more I think about it the more I think the HBO "Westworld" treatment would be best

[TheBaxter]

Red Notice on Netflix was a lot of fun. good twisty-turny art heist action fun. The Rock plays off his hardass image in a fun way that has a great payoff. Ryan Reynolds does his usual wisecrack schtick but without the mask or burn makeup... mostly manages to avoid crossing over the line into annoying territory. Gal Gadot's acting has become more natural and this role lets her play more loosely than WW, though she's not around much for the first half... it felt more like a Rock/Reynolds buddy pic for the first hour or so.

[TheBaxter]

i have been watching the Rocky series this week. less to do with Philly being in the playoffs and more to do with the fact that the films were recently added to Netflix and my subscription runs out end of the month.

Rocky - this film is just pitch-perfect in every category: writing, directing, acting, music, everything. it created the formula that every other sports movie of the 80s would follow, but then broke the formula at the same time, by not having Rocky "win" at the end, and showing that for Rocky, winning wasn't even the point. Stallone actually does some fantastic acting work here (same for First Blood), and it really makes you wonder what could have been for him if he stuck to acting and writing and didn't get all caught up in the 80s blockbuster action hero hype.

Rocky II - this film just feels perfunctory. there's still some really good work here, but a lot of it just feels like it was made to appease the people who complained about Rocky not winning in the first film. unlike the first film, where every line and scene was perfect, this one's got some real clunkers. like the scene where Rocky is late to the fight, but stops outside a priest's apartment and yells at him to give him a blessing, it just makes you cringe. they even trot out the tired (almost-)dead wife trope to inject some drama. still, this film at least tries to be a real movie, portraying Rocky's struggle to adjust to life post-fame and accept himself for who and what he is, instead of the glossed over rah-rah crap of later sequels.

Rocky III - it's a fun popcorn flick, but nothing more. Apollo Creed was cartoonish in I and II, but he was a full-fledged character. Clubber Lang is just a cartoon (albeit a fun one, thanks to Mr. T's presence). just like Stallone's evolving physique, it's a very lean film. they basically cut all the "studly" (i.e. character development and personal drama) and just stuck to the boxing stuff. there are a few peeks here and there of the old Rocky films, like Adrian's speech to get Rocky to admit he's afraid - a good reminder that the true heart of the series isn't the boxing but the Rocky-Adrian relationship. but it really feels like this film comes from another universe entirely from the first two.

Rocky IV - wow. i forgot just how bad this movie really is. everything the original gets so right, this one gets absolutely wrong. the Rocky character is completely unrecognizable from that earliest version, it's like Stallone got mixed up and thought he was still playing Rambo here. the music is the worst 80s drivel you can imagine, and they even ditch the iconic Bill Conti theme. Creed's death feels like a retread of Mickey's death from III. the Russians are even more cliche and cartoonish than Clubber Lang. and worst of all, Rocky's motivation to fight here is incomprehensible. is he fighting to avenge Creed? is he driven by guilt for not stopping the fight before Creed died? or did he get infected with Creed's misguided patriotism to feel like he had to take on the Russians himself? or some combination of the above? the film never even tries to offer a cogent explanation of Rocky's motivations. they go straight from Creed's funeral to the announcement that Rocky will be fighting Drago next. no soul-searching or deliberating the decision to reveal why Rocky wants this fight. the closest we get is Adrian fighting with Rocky asking him why he needs to do this (which he has no discernible answer for), followed by a scowling Rocky driving his sports car at night cut together with flashbacks and cheesy 80s rock. but that montage features literally every major moment of the previous 3 films as well as Creed's death, so it doesn't shed a bit of light on his reasons to fight Drago. the only thing that montage accomplishes is to pad the running time and get the film over the 90-minute mark, which it barely achieves. the fight itself, of course, is completely ridiculous, from the Russians suddenly switching to cheering Rocky, to Rocky's incredibly silly post-fight speech.

and then there's the robot. the stupid fucking robot.

apparently there's a new Director's Cut of IV that was released last year, that expands on Rocky's motivation and relationship with Creed. haven't seen it, i don't know if it can fix everything that's wrong with this film, but it sure can't be any worse.

i may or may not finish with Rocky V tonight, i remember it also not being very good, but after the shitshow of Rocky IV, it would probably feel like a masterpiece.

[so sorry]

Cool idea!

I personally couldn't get thru anything after Rocky the Original at this point.

[TheBaxter]

well, i did it. i watched Rocky V.
it wasn't as bad as i remember it... mainly because i DON'T remember it. i'm pretty sure i saw this movie at some point, but seriously, most of the movie felt like something i'd never seen before. except maybe some of the bits at the end where he fights Tommy. but most of what i THOUGHT i remembered about the movie was actually stuff from Rocky VI. so maybe i hadn't seen it before after all? or maybe i just got punched in the head and developed memory problems just like Rocky.
anyway, i appreciated the attempt to bring it back into the world of the first 2 films, to get away from the rah-rah crowd-pleasing crap the previous that III and IV had descended to, but it just didn't work. mostly boring stuff about Rocky dealing with losing all his money, his son getting bullied, and then trying to relive his glory through training a younger boxer. eventually all this stuff would be accomplished much more successfully in Creed, here it's just lame.

[TheBaxter]

just watched The Banshees of Inisherin for St. Patty's Day.
this movie is a lot like going out drinking with your Irish uncle... starts off funny as hell, but gets pretty damn dark by the end.
also, i'm pretty sure the moral of the story is - keep your fingers out of another man's ass.

[Ribbons]

just watched The Banshees of Inisherin for St. Patty's Day.
this movie is a lot like going out drinking with your Irish uncle... starts off funny as hell, but gets pretty damn dark by the end.
also, i'm pretty sure the moral of the story is - keep your fingers out of another man's ass.

I have complicated feelings about Banshees of Inisherin. I really appreciated its dark humor and there are several fantastic performances, but Colin Farrell's ex-friend chopping off all of his fingers was so preposterous to me that I had a hard time engaging with the story. I watched it twice just to see if I appreciated it more the second time around and the answer is no, not really.

[Ribbons]

just watched The Banshees of Inisherin for St. Patty's Day.
this movie is a lot like going out drinking with your Irish uncle... starts off funny as hell, but gets pretty damn dark by the end.
also, i'm pretty sure the moral of the story is - keep your fingers out of another man's ass.

I have complicated feelings about Banshees of Inisherin. I really appreciated its dark humor and there are several fantastic performances, but Colin Farrell's ex-friend chopping off all of his fingers was so preposterous to me that I had a hard time engaging with the story. I watched it twice just to see if I enjoyed it more the second time around and the answer is no, not really.

[TheBaxter]

just watched The Banshees of Inisherin for St. Patty's Day.
this movie is a lot like going out drinking with your Irish uncle... starts off funny as hell, but gets pretty damn dark by the end.
also, i'm pretty sure the moral of the story is - keep your fingers out of another man's ass.

I have complicated feelings about Banshees of Inisherin. I really appreciated its dark humor and there are several fantastic performances, but Colin Farrell's ex-friend chopping off all of his fingers was so preposterous to me that I had a hard time engaging with the story. I watched it twice just to see if I enjoyed it more the second time around and the answer is no, not really.

i was waiting for some kind of explanation of why that guy was so extreme about not wanting to talk to Padraic anymore, figuring there was some kind of mental illness aspect to it as well. other than a couple of mentions of "despair" with the priest, which you could take as the 1920s Irish version of a mental illness diagnosis, it's never explained in a satisfying way. ultimately i think it was a) the aforementioned mental illness or trauma of some kind that never gets fully explained, b) maybe some reference to Van Gogh or the like (though Van Gogh didn't need his ear to paint, that guy did kinda need his fingers to play the fiddle), and c) some metaphorical thing to do with the Irish Civil War and the cost to oneself of anger and hatred.

anyway, the sticking point for me wasn't what he did to his fingers but what happened after those fingers ended up inside that man's ass. that was hard to watch.

[so sorry]

Watched Animal House last night for the first time in many years. Forgot how edgy it was. Fantastic comedy, that couldn't be made today.

[TheBaxter]

Rocky IV - wow. i forgot just how bad this movie really is. everything the original gets so right, this one gets absolutely wrong. the Rocky character is completely unrecognizable from that earliest version, it's like Stallone got mixed up and thought he was still playing Rambo here. the music is the worst 80s drivel you can imagine, and they even ditch the iconic Bill Conti theme. Creed's death feels like a retread of Mickey's death from III. the Russians are even more cliche and cartoonish than Clubber Lang. and worst of all, Rocky's motivation to fight here is incomprehensible. is he fighting to avenge Creed? is he driven by guilt for not stopping the fight before Creed died? or did he get infected with Creed's misguided patriotism to feel like he had to take on the Russians himself? or some combination of the above? the film never even tries to offer a cogent explanation of Rocky's motivations. they go straight from Creed's funeral to the announcement that Rocky will be fighting Drago next. no soul-searching or deliberating the decision to reveal why Rocky wants this fight. the closest we get is Adrian fighting with Rocky asking him why he needs to do this (which he has no discernible answer for), followed by a scowling Rocky driving his sports car at night cut together with flashbacks and cheesy 80s rock. but that montage features literally every major moment of the previous 3 films as well as Creed's death, so it doesn't shed a bit of light on his reasons to fight Drago. the only thing that montage accomplishes is to pad the running time and get the film over the 90-minute mark, which it barely achieves. the fight itself, of course, is completely ridiculous, from the Russians suddenly switching to cheering Rocky, to Rocky's incredibly silly post-fight speech.

and then there's the robot. the stupid fucking robot.

apparently there's a new Director's Cut of IV that was released last year, that expands on Rocky's motivation and relationship with Creed. haven't seen it, i don't know if it can fix everything that's wrong with this film, but it sure can't be any worse.

it's been a few months since i watched these, and i finally got around to watching the Director's Cut of Rocky IV last night, aka Rocky IV: Rocky vs Drago.

as i said back then, i didn't know if it could fix everything that's wrong with the film, but it couldn't be any worse. and that about sums it up. it is a better movie, though still not really a good movie. from what i read, about 40% of the movie consists of scenes cut from the original, or alternate takes, yet the overall running time is still about the same at 90 minutes. so that means a lot of stuff was removed as well. thankfully, that includes ALL the robot stuff. that alone makes the film about 100% better.

it doesn't feel like the movie is that different, but it is surprising how much the overall tone of the film is changed. it doesn't feel like the jingoistic rah-rah America-First crap of the original version, instead it feels much more somber. Creed's death is felt a lot more throughout the remainder of the film, even to Rocky's post-fight speech. Some characters (especially Adrian and Creed) are given a lot more scenes and context, and their characters are improved for it. Creed doesn't feel like a knee-jerk anti-Russian bigot anymore, instead his motivations are more complex. yeah, the anti-Russian prejudice is there, but it's more justified (at least we get some discussion of WHY he is so against the Russians coming into boxing), but his deeper motivations are explored more fully, instead of just barely hinted at in the original. He needs to feel relevant, he needs to regain that feeling of public adoration he has been missing since retirement, and the Russian boxer is just the excuse he was waiting for to try to get back in the ring. Adrian is given a lot more to do here, and there are a few more scenes of her talking to Rocky that provide some of the context that was missing from the original film due to those scenes being cut.

unfortunately, Rocky's character doesn't gain nearly as much from the additional material. if anything, Rocky is even more morose in this version of the film. granted, his best friend died, and his struggle to deal with that feels more fleshed out here. but even with the additional scenes of Rocky with Adrian, or talking to his son, or a new scene with the boxing commission denying his request to fight Drago, we still don't get a solid understanding of why he feels the need to fight Drago so strongly. the questions of whether he's doing it for Creed, for the country, or for himself, is still never really resolved. the only slight improvement here is that, Rocky himself seems to not fully understand why he needs to do this either: he just feels like he must, and it's strong enough that he doesn't question it.

finally, if anyone gets the short end of the stick here, it's the Russians. they were cartoon villains in the original, and this version does nothing to change it. the one character to actually get LESS dialogue and screen time is Drago's wife. there are a couple moments in the original that show her actually having some concern for her husband: those are cut out here. i don't even think she has a single line of dialogue after Creed's death. Drago himself is given a little more context (and since this came out shortly before Creed II, which brought Drago back, it was probably to help set up that film a bit more), but it mostly amounts to just showing that Drago was always more interested in promoting himself, not the USSR. the other Russians, like his trainer or his gov't promoter, are just as one-dimensional and cartoonish as before. and even in the end, when Rocky gives his post-fight speech, in the original the Gorbachev-lookalike ends up clapping for Rocky's speech along with the crowd. As corny as that is, here it is replaced with Gorbachev angrily storming out after the fight, and i'm not sure that's any better. they also change Rocky's speech a little, he mentions Creed and his death, but they also take out the line where Rocky mentions not liking the Russians before, so when he talks about how he changed, it doesn't mean the same thing now.

but overall, most of the changes are for the better, and while there was no saving this film ultimately, it's at least more tolerable and feels less like the pointless cash grab of the 80s version. the fact that pretty much all these scenes were cut back in the 80s (not reshot later, though there are a couple voiceovers that i suspect Stallone added while putting this cut together), shows at least that they were attempting to make a real movie out of this, and it would be interesting to hear exactly why so much of the character-building stuff was cut out and who was responsible.

[so sorry]

stuff was removed as well. thankfully, that includes ALL the robot stuff. that alone makes the film about 100% better.

so who wished Paulie a happy birthday?!?!?!