Tag: Carl Weathers

Rocky (1976, John G. Avildsen)

By the time Rocky gets to the big fight, you forget there’s actually going to be a big fight. While the film does open with a boxing match, until somewhere decidedly in the late second act, Rocky isn’t a sports movie. It’s a character study of a boxer, sure, but he’s not in a sports movie. He doesn’t have another fight lined up anyway.

The film starts just before Thanksgiving and ends on New Year’s Day. Holidays aren’t important to Rocky (screenwriter, leading man, and fight choreographer Sylvester Stallone), who’s seemingly been alone for a decade. He’s thirty now, breaking legs for a two-bit loan shark (an oddly touching Joe Spinell), getting occasional fights, winning over half of them, and putting up with his gym owner (Burgess Meredith, mostly saving MAD Magazine time on the caricature) treating him like crap because he’s too old to be a contender.

After the first scene, Rocky’s done with boxing for the first act. There’s talk about it—folks being surprised Stallone won the fight—but the rest of the time is establishing the ground situation. Stallone’s got a crush on pet shop girl Talia Shire, who’s not necessarily not interested in the attention, and he’s best buddies with her drunken “lovable” asshole brother (Burt Young). Young wants a job as a leg-breaker, but Stallone doesn’t think he’s reliable enough. Into the second act, there’s a big implication Young’s trying to pawn Shire off on Stallone in exchange for a job hookup.

Young’s an asshole. They realize in the third act they can make him funny about it and give him some goofy reaction shots during the big fight, but it’s too late. It’s fine. He’s supposed to be an asshole, but he and Stallone’s arc is one of the film’s most rushed.

Just as Stallone and Shire kick off their tender but macho romance, he gets the chance of the lifetime. The world heavyweight champion of the world Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is looking for an unknown contender for a New Year’s Day fight. Weathers is celebrating the United States Bicentennial, wants to do something showy. Giving the underdog a shot. Now, we’ll find out later Weathers has not just never lost a fight, he’s never even been knocked down. Rocky has plenty of opportunities to exposition dump about Weathers’s record (the film does use TV news footage as a device, but Shire knows squat about boxing, and Stallone could tell her). Stallone’s a fan of Weathers, but it seems uninformed. In one of Rocky’s sincerest flexes, Stallone pushes back at his regular bartender Don Sherman’s regular racism about Black man Weathers. It’s also one of the most realistic—Stallone doesn’t say why he’s upset Sherman’s a racist and just bounces.

There’s a decent argument for Stallone not knowing how to verbalize it. He’s something of an uninformed philosopher king, lots of observations—he even writes jokes to tell Shire—and Rocky’s most shining moments are when Stallone ventures out into the world. He leaves the gym, the fight club, the bar, his “economically distressed” neighborhood, and participates in the world. Rocky will have several problems by the end, up to and including the last moments, but once it rings the bell in Stallone’s self-esteem character development arc, the movie’s basically won. It’s done the Stallone arc, it’s done the Stallone and Shire arc, it’s given Shire just the scantest amount of character moments on her own (it’s truly staggering how much the film puts on her; she’s charged with bringing it legitimacy). Like the rest of the film, the big fight’s got its problems (Stallone’s got a strategy, a foreshadowed strategy, but they make it coincidental), and its moments (despite uneven sound editing, Stallone and Weathers do have a real scene together amid the blows).

Technically, the film’s a sparsely mixed bag. Whenever director Avildsen actually has a good shot (he’s awful shooting in cramped spaces, which is about half of the movie), cinematographer James Crabe or one of his camera operators messes it up. There are some decent shots throughout the film, but they’re either outside, involve static camera placement, or in giant indoor spaces. Otherwise, it’s buyer beware. Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad’s editing is similarly hot and cold. It’s good for the sports movie, it’s atrocious on the dramatics. Young in particular will change head position and facial expression between his shots. Is it Young, is it Avildsen? Probably. But it’s also artless cutting.

Then the sports stuff is good.

Bill Conti’s score is one of the main stars, along with Stallone, Shire, and, to a lesser extent, Weathers. Weathers gives an unforgettable performance, but… he’s not, you know, particularly good. Stallone and Shire are good. Especially Shire. The supporting cast ranges. Meredith’s cartoonish and semi-pointless (it’s like no one told Stallone after he figured out the plot, he could improve it) until the movie remembers to tell us Meredith could’ve been a surrogate family to Stallone but didn’t because he’s an asshole too. One of the film’s other endearing subplots is Stallone’s good nature—his “friends” all want something from him, which he acknowledges and, once in the position to help, does so.

Except Shire, of course, which just makes them all the cuter. Though Stallone’s pushy advances age poorly (maybe if Avildsen directed them better), but Shire’s into it, so it’s fine… see what you made me say, movie? Do you see?

Anyway.

The film’s greatest unsung performance is Tony Burton. He’s Weathers’s trainer, who realizes Stallone might be good enough to get lucky, and Weathers better take the big fight more seriously. Weathers, spoiler, does not. Hence drama.

Thayer David plays Weathers’s Mr. Big manager. He and Meredith unfortunately don’t get a chance to do a caricature-off.

A shame we’ll never get to see it—the movie reminds everyone at least four times there won’t be a rematch.

Rocky IV (1985, Sylvester Stallone), the director’s cut

Sylvester Stallone’s director’s cut of Rocky IV arrives four sequels and thirty-five years after the film’s original release. Stallone says it’s for the thirty-fifth anniversary; Robert Doornick (who voiced Burt Young’s robot in the original cut and owns the copyright on the robot) says it’s because Stallone didn’t want to renew with him and had to cut out all the robot scenes.

So, if “Rocky vs. Drago” replaces the original cut in streaming services… we’ll find out.

There are some other changes to the movie besides the goofy robot being gone, like a trimmed-down version of Rocky III tacked onto the beginning. It’s weird because it goes on way too long and isn’t a good encapsulation of the film–it also emphasizes Stallone’s relationship with Carl Weathers to enlarge their relationship in the Rocky IV footage. Only there’s no actual echoing between the two. Because Stallone doesn’t change Rocky IV’s story or its beats, he just excises a few of them. He doesn’t do anything to fix the problems, which are obviously insurmountable because it’s fairly terrible.

Stallone’s writing, direction, John W. Wheeler, and Don Zimmerman’s editing are all quite bad. There’s no new editor credited with the Rocky vs. Drago cuts, but whoever did Final Cut Proing or Adobe Premiering doesn’t have much in the way of timing. Though, since this version comes after Creed II, which is a sequel to this film, bringing back Dolph Lundgren decades later, you could almost read something into how Lundgren’s cut to see if it implies character development. Only it doesn’t. And Rocky vs. Drago isn’t like cut to tie into Creed II. Stallone’s just cobbling something together here—does anyone believe he didn’t have the full director’s cut of the original in 1985, with that craptacular “We Can All Change” speech to the Soviet people, who embrace Rocky over Gorby? So why not tie into Rocky V. Nothing would be better than seeing all the stupid patriotism end with Stallone brain-damaged. It’d explain his final speech.

The movie also misses out on soundtrack revising, which… I mean, why not. Something to juice it up.

Also, that last fight is poorly done, especially after seeing Stallone learn how to direct action in the intervening decades since he shot this film. It’s not exactly any more embarrassing than the original Rocky IV, but it’s definitely pointless.

Especially since it’s all about Stallone, Weathers, and Lundgren all basically just being toxically masculine narcissists. It might be a little different for Stallone and Lundgren—because Weather’s hubris literally gets him killed, which doesn’t not have a racial component to it. Like, Weather is openly Black here. Bad dad. Stallone’s a bad dad too. Stallone made movies about these guys being bad dads. It’s such a weak revisit.

Maybe I’m just embarrassed I thought it might be any different, like Stallone might’ve actually tried. Because even with the miserable mise-en-scène of Rocky IV, there are obvious places you could just cut it better if you had access to the footage.

Finally, because I can’t any more with the rest of it, does Talia Shire come off as miserable in the original version? Like she’s raising a son and then tending a douchebag husband? Not to mention Young.

Oh, okay, this bit is the last—Young. Stallone stops playing him for laughs but keeps the pratfalls, which just makes him seem like a despondent drunk the whole time.

So fingers crossed Doornick’s for real, and they pull the original, robotic Rocky IV and only Rocky vs. Drago remains. It’s a futile gesture of egomania from Stallone, which, coincidentally, describes the film in either cut.

Rocky IV’s awful.

The Mandalorian (2019) s01e08 – Redemption

It’s a good thing series creator and episode writer Jon Favreau has seen Terminator 2, otherwise this episode wouldn’t have an ending.

It’s not clear who decided they ought to straight rip off the flashback sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Favreau or episode director Taika Waititi (who’s better than the worst directors on the series but nowhere near the best ones), but suffice to say… Waititi’s not Sergio Leone and composer Ludwig Göransson is definitely not Ennis Morricone. Unlike George Lucas, who synthesized Ford and Kurosawa with movie serials and special effects… “The Mandalorian”’s Western homages are forced, desperate. And, based on the flashback sequence here, a waste of time.

But… hey… maybe that one’s Boba Fett?

Speaking of movie serials, “The Mandalorian: Season One” does successfully mimic movie serial plotting. You can lop off two or three of the episodes from the middle and run the rest together for a complete narrative. This episode, which spends its first five or six minutes (after ripping off Troops to the point Kevin Rubio ought to try to sue, I mean, it’s Disney, why not) dialing back all of last episode’s cliffhanger’s impact, not just involving the danger to Baby Yoda but also for the heroes. Going to be a returning villain in Season Two new villain Giancarlo Esposito is supposed to be maniacally murderous but he’s more than willing to go for a coffee break to pad out the run time and give our besieged heroes a chance to come up with an escape plan.

It’s a dreadfully predictable episode, especially since Favreau gives the characters lots and lots of dialogue about their situation. They have to argue and plead with one another over and over so their course of action is never a surprise. There aren’t any surprises in the episode.

Unless you count the special Kenner mail-away R2 unit with legs and maybe how no one in the main cast has ever heard of the Jedi (despite Luke Skywalker saving the universe with it and, really, at least Carl Weathers being old enough to be alive when there were Jedi around—the Star Wars timeline is kind of weird how an entire galaxy managed to forget space wizards in, what, eighteen years). Oh, and the “May the Force Be With You” saying.

Emily Swallow’s back as the Mandalorian armorer. She ought to be a series regular. She’s at least fun. She also has zero problem with droids and, no spoiler, the lesson of “The Mandalorian: Season One” is droids are all right. And Baby Yoda is cute.

Is Baby Yoda cute this episode? Definitely. Favreau and Waititi try hard to make lead Pedro Pascal seem protagonist-y enough to shoulder the series burden but… a) there’s not much to shoulder (the show ends up aiming about as high as the unable to hit anything stormtroopers, which is a really weird trope to bring up considering the heroes are supposed to be in so much danger) and b) Baby Yoda. There’s no reason to watch this show except for Baby Yoda. And Baby Yoda delivers.

Also… Favreau’s got some obvious eighties action TV mentalities someone ought to edit out of the scripts (like he’s got an editor)—no explosion means survival, duh. It’s Disney Star Wars, it’s not going to be challenging but… come on. It’s got to be smarter than “Knight Rider.” Or it’s got to have a lot more Baby Yoda per episode.

The Mandalorian (2019) s01e07 – The Reckoning

This episode feels like old home week—even though “The Mandalorian” is only on episode seven, it’s been in the weeds for three episodes so even the promise of Carl Weathers (who’s no better than before, though also no worse) at least reminds of when the show didn’t disappoint.

Better, though kind of pointlessly, Gina Carano is back. Weathers shows up at the beginning in a hologram message to tell Pedro Pascal if he comes back they’ll kill Werner Herzog together and Pascal can stop worrying about bounty hunters going after Baby Yoda. It’s peculiar how trusting Pascal is about Weathers—even though Pascal tells Carano he doesn’t trust Weathers, there’s no indication Pascal behaves any differently (other than bringing along Nick Nolte’s also returning ugnaught for “backup”) than he would otherwise.

Jon Favreau’s not the… smartest writer. It’s actually kind of amazing how far he’s gotten with the show given he’s never really on the ball, characterization-wise. It’s like he’s intentionally leveraging “Star Wars shallow,” which is fine as it compensates for Favreau’s lack of ability.

Really this episode gets away with it all—Carano and Nolte being shoe-horned back in, Weathers being awful, Pascal being strangely naive given his almost weekly betrayals up to this point—because, well, Baby Yoda, but also director Deborah Chow. The show hasn’t just been in the weeds narrative-wise the last three, the direction stunk. Chow’s direction is good.

The droid bounty hunter also comes back, pointlessly but presumably setup for next episode—the episode ends on a very, very, very hard cliffhanger—so hopefully Chow’s back directing next week too.

There’s some super Baby Yoda powers going on in the episode—I’m not up enough on my current Star Wars lore to know if the power showed up in the prequels or post-quels but it seems to be the first time this Force power has gotten any use.

Outside Favreau’s Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game campaigns.

Herzog’s also back and eye-rolling bad. Giancarlo Esposito finally shows up and he’s all right but just as much of a stunt cast as Herzog. Ludwig Göransson’s music hits the godawful time and again.

The episode does feel a little like it could’ve been at least the fifth episode, maybe fourth, depending on how important you want to pretend Carano’s been to the show’s development.

Oh, but wait—what’s the deal with the creature makeup on Weather’s three sidekicks? It’s so cheap. Two of them are obviously in big helmets to keep the makeup budget down. “The Mandalorian” isn’t supposed to run out of money. It’s a tacit Disney+ promise.

The Mandalorian (2019) s01e03 – The Sin

All of Star Wars, all the movies, all the cartoons, books, comics, games, toys, socks, The Holiday Special, underwear, blankets—all of it—has been building to this episode of “The Mandalorian,” where they’re finally able to make Boba Fett adorable. Yes, Baby Yoda is adorable but of course he’s very adorable—and I was wrong, the scientist guy identifies Baby Yoda’s gender as male, which is a bummer, but also it’s probably not worth the headache. But Boba Fett and Baby Yoda being adorable together… who knew it was possible. Jon Favreau, Kathleen Kennedy, other folks but definitely Favreau and Kennedy. They knew they could make Star Wars heartwarming.

And damn if they don’t get away with it too. Because Baby Yoda is preternaturally adorable.

It’d be nice if there was something more to the show, of course. If Werner Herzog weren’t just useless stunt-casting and what if Carl Weathers were actually any good instead of being shockingly bad, actually. This episode also has a bunch of other Mandalorians coming into play and there’s a big serious action set piece with it, with some cool jetpack stuff. The episode’s got a lot more visual payoff than the last one. But not as much as the first episode. All of these visual realizings of the Star Wars Universe—like Jawas do have space ships to get from planet to planet and wouldn’t they be amazing—so it’s cool to watch. The production design is impressive.

Some of Deborah Chow’s direction is annoying, some of it isn’t. She gets away with the heartwarming but she also has this thing where they do focus blurs. I’m assuming they’re digital effects because it’s 2019 and why wouldn’t they be; given we’re already having to put up with the patented Star Wars transition wipes, the focus stuff just feels like a little much. They’re also weird because they’re the only things off in Chow’s direction. Otherwise it’s got the best direction in the show so far. And not just for the Rocketeer homage, which is way too much but still awesome.

And Pedro Pascal. Sure, he’s fine. But he’s better talking about Baby Yoda than talking about anything else. He’s always got this pause where it seems like he’s thinking of what to say and then it’s never anything impressive. He seems dumb, actually. Like too dumb to be out on his own. Favreau’s not the best writer. You don’t have to be when you’ve got Baby Yoda.

Oh, and the midichlorians might be back. Wokka wokka.

The Mandalorian (2019) s01e01

“The Mandalorian” is either like reading seventeen year-old Jon Favreau fall 1983 post-Return of the Jedi fan fic or it’s like playing his intricate, verbose Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game campaign–oh, wait, SWTRPG didn’t come out until 1987. So, no, it’s more like watching Jon Favreau play with his Jedi toys. A lot. But the toys play into how the story unfolds—Favreau, who wrote the episode in addition to creating the show, reaches into the toy bin, pulls out a figure, somehow makes it fit into the story. There’s a way too articulate ugnaught, a figure from Empire, pointlessly voiced by Nick Nolte. Most of the figures and vehicles are from Jedi. I think one of the guns is from Empire. You could sit with an old Hasbro catalog and check off items in the episode.

Visually, it looks like a bunch of Ralph McQuarrie paintings. Dave Filoni does an okay job with the direction. He tries hard to make it look like Star Wars: The Original Trilogy as far as his composition—outside when you’re pretty sure it’s a direct lift off a McQuarrie concept painting—but there are shot homages to Jedi the most, maybe Star Wars. Watching “The Mandalorian,” Disney has fully put on its big boy pants and figured out how to market to males age four through forty-four. I’m not sure Werner Herzog is going to attract the fifty-four year-olds. But if you grew up with Star Wars, “The Mandalorian” is for you. It’s how you could keep playing with your Boba Fett toys even after he died in Empire.

Oh, all the mythology on the Mandalorian culture? Metallurgy, female Mandalorians—“Mandalorian” is aimed at the OG Empire Boba Fett fanboys. I wonder if they’re going to release special toys.

Is it a good show? It’s not a bad show. It’s technically flawless except the Ludwig Göransson music, which isn’t bad just a bad idea for the show. Quirky Western. Eh. But it looks great. The acting’s… eh. Herzog’s in a scene, he’s quirky. Carl Weathers is in a scene. He’s not quirky. Lead Pedro Pascal is fine but the more he talks the more you realize you’re watching a cartoon turned live action through CGI.

Will I watch more of it? Sure. It’s never going to be challenging, but will always be mildly engaging and look great; besides, I like pointing out the toys I had as a kid too.

Predator (1987, John McTiernan)

Predator has a lot going for it. Acting, directing, editing. But not usually all at once. The film opens with a quick introduction–Arnold Schwarzenegger and company are on a special mission in the jungle (after establishing an alien space ship in the first shot). It feels very macho and very forced, but the editing is so incredibly good, it doesn’t matter. Even when Mark Helfrich and John F. Link are cutting together Arnold and Carl Weathers’s male bonding moments, the film works great. It just moves.

Then, as the film brings in the rest of the supporting cast (Weathers or Shane Black give the worst performance and both of them are totally fine), director McTiernan establishes the film’s visual style. Predator doesn’t have much of an action style when the alien finally does show; McTiernan handles it matter-of-fact (cinematographer Donald McAlpine doesn’t appear to have the ability to do much else), so McTiernan instead stylizes the dialogue sequences with particular close-ups and, even more, how he shoots the actors in relation to each other and the jungle they’re in. Predator never looks flashy, but it’s always thoughtfully visualized.

There is one great sequence with Arnold and company running through the jungle before he goes mano-a-mano with the monster. That sequence has McAlpine’s best photography and McTiernan’s best action directing. It’s fast-paced, hectic, but comprehendible and rather sympathetic. The concept–these big muscle men terrified of the unknown monster–works. It makes a lot of Predator work. But only because of the actors.

In the supporting cast, Bill Duke and Richard Chaves are best. Duke’s got the most character arc while Chaves has near the least, but is just really good with it. Then there’s quiet, stoic Sonny Landham and he sells it too. McTiernan’s direction is really important for these performances. Jesse Ventura and Elpidia Carrillo are both good. And, like I said, Weathers and Black aren’t bad. They just aren’t doing anything special; however, given the silliness of Weathers’s character (super-buff CIA stooge), it’s impressive how much Weathers resists caricature.

Nice, memorable music from Alan Silvestri.

The movie falls apart a bit in the finale, which is a little rushed. But McTiernan and his editors turn it around satisfactorily. McAlpine’s photography, which is too flat–both for action and the locations–does contribute to the film’s success. Predator plays way too thoughtful. McTiernan takes it way too seriously. The story is never consequential enough, but McTiernan and the actors ably pretend otherwise.

Rocky IV (1985, Sylvester Stallone)

I rarely worry about how I’m going to get 250 words about a film. Rocky IV probably features 251 words of dialogue. Well, closer to 251 than not, anyway.

Really, what is there to say about this one? Stallone directs it poorly? Stallone substitutes montages and music videos for actual narrative content? It’s a ludicrous proposition from the opening credits, which directly involve the film’s eventual content of the U.S. versus the U.S.S.R. in the boxing ring–except it’s a narrative development, not something the film opens with. So, even though it looks cool (did they use hot air balloons for the boxing gloves) for a while, it’s nonsensical. It’s a reference to something the film’s characters don’t even know about yet, but the viewer would from the theatrical trailer… so it’s titles just for the viewer, which is rather goofy… but Stallone knows (or knew) his audience. They didn’t think.

It’s strange also because of the disjointedness. The beginning is this whole picture about Rocky’s boring eighties lifestyle with cars and robots and Carl Weathers thinking he’s getting old, then it turns into the east versus west thing. The montages don’t start until after Weathers dies.

However, none of that paragraph is to say the opening is good–well acted, directed or written–it’s just a solid narrative. Unlike the rest of the picture, which is a forty-five minute music video with some digressions.

Lots of people enjoy watching Rocky IV, regardless of its quality.

I do not.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone; director of photography, Bill Butler; edited by John W. Wheeler and Don Zimmerman; music by Vince DiCola; production designer, Bill Kenney; produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa), Talia Shire (Adrian), Burt Young (Paulie), Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed), Brigitte Nielsen (Ludmilla Vobet Drago), Tony Burton (Duke), Michael Pataki (Nicoli Koloff), Dolph Lundgren (Captain Ivan Drago) and James Brown as the Godfather of Soul.

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