![\"Adrian](\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/RockyBalboa.jpg\" "\\"RockyBalboa\\"")
Adrian has passed on and the ice-skating rink just got a kiss from the wrecking ball, but you can't keep a good man down<\/p><\/div>\n
Somebody Down Here Loves Ya<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n[xrr rating=4.5\/5]<\/p>\n
Rocky Balboa.\u00a0<\/em>Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, A.J. Benza, James Francis Kelly III, and Talia Shire. Based on characters created by Sylvester Stallone. Music by Bill Conti. Director of Photography, J. Clark Mathis. Edited by Sean Albertson. Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone. (MGM\/Columbia Pictures, 2006, Color, 102 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG.)<\/strong><\/p>\nA confession: For years, as a guilty pleasure, I haunted my local multiplex to revel repeatedly in the serial cinematic exploits of Sylvester Stallone\u2019s most famous celluloid hero. Yes, I hereby confess that I actually enjoyed all those\u00a0Rocky<\/em>\u00a0movies with Roman numerals in their titles. I even sort-of liked\u00a0Rocky V<\/em>\u00a0(1990), the one that all the film critics mock.<\/p>\nBut that\u2019s because I\u2019m not a \u201cfilm critic,\u201d you see; I\u2019m a\u00a0movie<\/em>\u00a0enthusiast<\/em>. Although I\u2019m nominally Roman Catholic, my true religion is that uniquely American art form known as motion pictures. Every Friday night that devotion draws me to the services conducted at the local mission\u2014the Mission Drive-In Theater in San Antonio, that is\u2014where I take communion, comprised of hot-buttered popcorn and a Coca-Cola slushy. In the lobby, posing proudly amid my pantheon of movie gods\u2014right there with blown-up images of heroes portrayed by John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, and Gregory Peck\u2014stands Sylvester Stallone\u2019s enduring creation: the quintessential American underdog, Rocky Balboa.<\/p>\nFor more than thirty years, Stallone has never been given his proper due as a screenwriter. Recently, for the first time in over a decade, I watched a DVD of his original, low-budget sleeper,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>(1976). I was struck all over again by the masterpiece of understated, eloquent drama that Stallone and director John G. Avildsen had put up on the screen. The tale of the small-time pugilist and loan shark\u2019s enforcer with the soft spot in his heart, who gets his miracle shot at the heavyweight boxing championship on America\u2019s Bicentennial,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>became the unlikely winner of the 1976 Academy Award for Best Picture\u2014and an instant classic.<\/p>\nTo a great extent,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>worked so well because of its indelibly memorable supporting cast. There was Talia Shire as Adrian, the painfully shy pet shop cashier and the object of Rocky\u2019s affections. There was legendary character actor Burgess Meredith in the role of his lifetime as Mickey, Rocky\u2019s elderly, cantankerous trainer, whose fatherly devotion inspired the lowly club fighter to believe in himself. There was Burt Young as drunken leech Paulie, Adrian\u2019s bullying brother. Here were people taken from Stallone\u2019s own tough childhood in South Philly, made even more real through brutally honest dialogue and poignant situations. But no matter how lowly or bad, they and all the other characters in the film\u2014even the loan shark (played by Joe Spinell)\u2014got caught up in Rocky\u2019s quest and ultimately redeemed themselves. Their lines and gestures were so simply, beautifully, economically imparted that, at times, they seemed to rise to poetry.<\/p>\nIn one scene, Rocky visits the boxing gymnasium to ask Mickey why he\u2019s been running him down for so many years. Mickey snorts back at his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, \u201cYa don\u2019t wanna know!\u201d When Rocky presses him, the old man unleashes all the fury he can still muster:<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, I\u2019m gonna tell ya! You had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you become a leg-breaker to some cheap, second-rate loan shark!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a living,\u201d Rocky mumbles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a waste of life!\u201d Mickey roars back.<\/p>\n
Along with other memorable scenes, that one\u2014with the pain and anguish on Burgess Meredith\u2019s face revealing his heartbreak over the younger boxer\u2019s unfulfilled promise\u2014could easily have been scripted by such dramatic luminaries as Budd Shulberg, Paddy Chayefsky, or Rod Serling.<\/p>\n
The film has left its enduring stamp on the culture. The steep flight of steps that rises up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art has become one of the most-visited attractions in the city. There, tourists re-create Rocky\u2019s ascent during his famous training scene, pumping their own fists in imitation upon reaching the summit. These rituals are a testament to an iconic character that millions worldwide regard as the embodiment of their highest aspirations and deepest dreams. Rocky Balboa reminds them that within them lives the power to make their own dreams real\u2014if they only put as much heart into pursuing their goals as he did when he stepped into the ring against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), giving everything he had and more.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>series is generally held in low critical esteem, largely because of subsequent inferior installments. Although\u00a0Rocky II\u00a0<\/em>(1979) was an excellent sequel (after losing a split decision in the first movie, Rocky finally won the title from Creed in the second), the following two films (1982 and 1985) pitted Rocky against flamboyant, cartoonishly indomitable opponents (played by the scowling Mr. T and the stone-silent Dolph Lundgren, respectively). Fun stuff, but nothing to rival the first two. The fifth film (1990) was a complete letdown, a tired, anticlimactic outing about Rocky Balboa in retirement, down on his luck and dealing with the challenges of fatherhood.<\/p>\nSixteen years after that fizzle, were you expecting yet another\u00a0Rocky?\u00a0<\/em>I certainly wasn\u2019t. But happily, Stallone has returned to first principles. Avoiding the predictable Roman numeral \u201cVI\u201d and simply using the lead character\u2019s name as its title,\u00a0Rocky Balboa\u00a0<\/em>focuses once again on the essence of its protagonist, regarding him as a\u00a0man\u00a0<\/em>first, and a boxer\u00a0second<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe movie takes its place with several other film series that recently have gone back to basics and started to take their heroes seriously:\u00a0Batman Begins\u00a0<\/em>(2005), last year\u2019s\u00a0Superman Returns<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>and the new film of Ian Fleming\u2019s first James Bond novel,\u00a0Casino Royale.\u00a0<\/em>Unlike those blockbusters, though, this picture doesn\u2019t try to recapture its early magic by casting a younger man in the hero\u2019s role: instead, it audaciously asks the viewer to take seriously the prospect of a man pushing sixty, yet becoming a contender for the heavyweight championship of the world.<\/p>\nIt opens with Rocky visiting the grave of his dead wife Adrian (Talia Shire once again, in flashbacks). She died of \u201cwoman cancer,\u201d as the Rock describes it. Every year on their anniversary, he takes a sentimental journey through the old neighborhood, visiting landmarks from their first meeting and dates, dragging the insufferable Paulie in tow. As he reminisces, you see that her absence has broken his heart. Yet Adrian remains omnipresent throughout the movie, as the spirit that moves him on.<\/p>\n
Visiting an old watering hole, he runs across a girl from the neighborhood, Marie (Geraldine Hughes), a single mom trying to raise a teenaged son and make ends meet by tending bar. A comely lass with the map of Ireland twinkling in her eyes, she and Rocky clumsily, tentatively, spark a relationship. Rocky meanwhile becomes a mentor to her son (James Francis Kelly III), keeping him on the straight-and-narrow.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the former champ leads a predictable, comfortable life running an Italian restaurant, greeting and regaling patrons with old stories of past bouts and glories. His whiny twentysomething son, Robert (Milo Ventimiglia), complains about living in Rocky\u2019s shadow while he tries to make it in the business world. Rocky gives him the kind of speech fathers stopped giving their boys a couple generations ago, but should resume giving:<\/p>\n
The world ain\u2019t all sunshine and rainbows! It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently\u00a0if you let it<\/em>. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain\u2019t how hard you hit; it\u2019s about how hard you can\u00a0get<\/em>\u00a0hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That\u2019s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you\u2019re worth, then go out and get what you\u2019re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain\u2019t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain\u2019t you. You\u2019re better than that!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHe schools his son to have some pride in himself. \u201cI stopped thinking about what other people thought a long time ago. . . . The only respect that matters in this world is self-respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
One night on ESPN, a panel of sportscasters debate who was the greater boxer\u2014current heavyweight champion Mason \u201cThe Line\u201d Dixon (played by real-life light-heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver, stepping up in class), or the former two-time champion, Rocky. In an on-air computerized video simulation, Rocky KOs Dixon. This wounds the champ\u2019s pride: he\u2019s gotten to the top by defeating a bunch of has-beens and fall guys, never facing a real challenger for his championship belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of boxing is hoping for a warrior who can thrill us with his passion,\u201d a ringside announcer carps as Dixon defeats another chump. Desperate for respect, his handlers pitch the idea of a pay-per-view exhibition fight in Las Vegas between their man and the legend who hasn\u2019t been in the fight game for twenty-one years.<\/p>\n
After a few awkward moments mid-movie, there\u2019s The Rest . . . and, well, you can pretty much guess the rest. Our Rocky begins training hard, old-school style. Once again he pounds his fists against bloody slabs of meat in the cooler; he lifts barbells; he does one-arm pushups; he plows through the Philly\u2019s snowbound streets and sprints to his rightful place atop those famous Steps.\u00a0\u201cGonna fly now!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe film culminates with the inevitable fight between Rocky and Dixon. Since Rocky is too old and stiff to bob and weave, his corner man, Duke (Tony Burton), counsels: \u201cSo, every time you hit him, you got to make a dent. . . . So what we\u2019ll be calling on is good old-fashioned blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy duty, cast-iron, pile-driving punches that will have to hurt so much it\u2019ll rattle his ancestors. Every time you hit him with a shot, it\u2019s got to feel like he tried kissing the express train.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cinematographer J. Clark Mathis\u2019s camera frames the fight scenes tight, and they come fast and furious, like watching Goya\u2019s\u00a0Segundo de Mayo<\/em>\u00a0spring to life. Rocky may be old and weathered, but he\u2019s still solid as the hull of a battleship. Composer Bill Conti\u2019s martial score, built around his famous trumpet fanfare from the original, got my pulse pounding once more, and before I knew it, it was 1976 all over again, and I was rooting for the Italian Stallion. There was Rocky Balboa standing toe-to-toe with the heavyweight champion of the world and giving him a run for his money.<\/p>\nSixteen years after the debacle of\u00a0Rocky V<\/em>, we\u2019ve got a\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>movie that believes in itself once again. Though it may not match the first in originality and drama, in heart and soul\u00a0Rocky Balboa<\/em>\u00a0lives up to its tagline: \u201cIt ain\u2019t over \u2019til it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\nSadly, the Rocky franchise\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>over, at last, but the old warrior is going out on his own terms.<\/p>\nThank you, Sly Stallone, for not throwing in the towel.<\/p>\n
Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Somebody Down Here Loves Ya [xrr rating=4.5\/5] Rocky Balboa.\u00a0Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, A.J. Benza, James Francis Kelly III, and Talia Shire. Based on characters created by Sylvester Stallone. Music by Bill Conti. Director of Photography, J. Clark Mathis. Edited by Sean Albertson. Written and directed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,59,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-mreview","category-sequels","category-sports-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
A confession: For years, as a guilty pleasure, I haunted my local multiplex to revel repeatedly in the serial cinematic exploits of Sylvester Stallone\u2019s most famous celluloid hero. Yes, I hereby confess that I actually enjoyed all those\u00a0Rocky<\/em>\u00a0movies with Roman numerals in their titles. I even sort-of liked\u00a0Rocky V<\/em>\u00a0(1990), the one that all the film critics mock.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s because I\u2019m not a \u201cfilm critic,\u201d you see; I\u2019m a\u00a0movie<\/em>\u00a0enthusiast<\/em>. Although I\u2019m nominally Roman Catholic, my true religion is that uniquely American art form known as motion pictures. Every Friday night that devotion draws me to the services conducted at the local mission\u2014the Mission Drive-In Theater in San Antonio, that is\u2014where I take communion, comprised of hot-buttered popcorn and a Coca-Cola slushy. In the lobby, posing proudly amid my pantheon of movie gods\u2014right there with blown-up images of heroes portrayed by John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, and Gregory Peck\u2014stands Sylvester Stallone\u2019s enduring creation: the quintessential American underdog, Rocky Balboa.<\/p>\n For more than thirty years, Stallone has never been given his proper due as a screenwriter. Recently, for the first time in over a decade, I watched a DVD of his original, low-budget sleeper,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>(1976). I was struck all over again by the masterpiece of understated, eloquent drama that Stallone and director John G. Avildsen had put up on the screen. The tale of the small-time pugilist and loan shark\u2019s enforcer with the soft spot in his heart, who gets his miracle shot at the heavyweight boxing championship on America\u2019s Bicentennial,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>became the unlikely winner of the 1976 Academy Award for Best Picture\u2014and an instant classic.<\/p>\n To a great extent,\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>worked so well because of its indelibly memorable supporting cast. There was Talia Shire as Adrian, the painfully shy pet shop cashier and the object of Rocky\u2019s affections. There was legendary character actor Burgess Meredith in the role of his lifetime as Mickey, Rocky\u2019s elderly, cantankerous trainer, whose fatherly devotion inspired the lowly club fighter to believe in himself. There was Burt Young as drunken leech Paulie, Adrian\u2019s bullying brother. Here were people taken from Stallone\u2019s own tough childhood in South Philly, made even more real through brutally honest dialogue and poignant situations. But no matter how lowly or bad, they and all the other characters in the film\u2014even the loan shark (played by Joe Spinell)\u2014got caught up in Rocky\u2019s quest and ultimately redeemed themselves. Their lines and gestures were so simply, beautifully, economically imparted that, at times, they seemed to rise to poetry.<\/p>\n In one scene, Rocky visits the boxing gymnasium to ask Mickey why he\u2019s been running him down for so many years. Mickey snorts back at his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, \u201cYa don\u2019t wanna know!\u201d When Rocky presses him, the old man unleashes all the fury he can still muster:<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, I\u2019m gonna tell ya! You had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you become a leg-breaker to some cheap, second-rate loan shark!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a living,\u201d Rocky mumbles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a waste of life!\u201d Mickey roars back.<\/p>\n Along with other memorable scenes, that one\u2014with the pain and anguish on Burgess Meredith\u2019s face revealing his heartbreak over the younger boxer\u2019s unfulfilled promise\u2014could easily have been scripted by such dramatic luminaries as Budd Shulberg, Paddy Chayefsky, or Rod Serling.<\/p>\n The film has left its enduring stamp on the culture. The steep flight of steps that rises up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art has become one of the most-visited attractions in the city. There, tourists re-create Rocky\u2019s ascent during his famous training scene, pumping their own fists in imitation upon reaching the summit. These rituals are a testament to an iconic character that millions worldwide regard as the embodiment of their highest aspirations and deepest dreams. Rocky Balboa reminds them that within them lives the power to make their own dreams real\u2014if they only put as much heart into pursuing their goals as he did when he stepped into the ring against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), giving everything he had and more.<\/p>\n Sadly, the\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>series is generally held in low critical esteem, largely because of subsequent inferior installments. Although\u00a0Rocky II\u00a0<\/em>(1979) was an excellent sequel (after losing a split decision in the first movie, Rocky finally won the title from Creed in the second), the following two films (1982 and 1985) pitted Rocky against flamboyant, cartoonishly indomitable opponents (played by the scowling Mr. T and the stone-silent Dolph Lundgren, respectively). Fun stuff, but nothing to rival the first two. The fifth film (1990) was a complete letdown, a tired, anticlimactic outing about Rocky Balboa in retirement, down on his luck and dealing with the challenges of fatherhood.<\/p>\n Sixteen years after that fizzle, were you expecting yet another\u00a0Rocky?\u00a0<\/em>I certainly wasn\u2019t. But happily, Stallone has returned to first principles. Avoiding the predictable Roman numeral \u201cVI\u201d and simply using the lead character\u2019s name as its title,\u00a0Rocky Balboa\u00a0<\/em>focuses once again on the essence of its protagonist, regarding him as a\u00a0man\u00a0<\/em>first, and a boxer\u00a0second<\/em>.<\/p>\n The movie takes its place with several other film series that recently have gone back to basics and started to take their heroes seriously:\u00a0Batman Begins\u00a0<\/em>(2005), last year\u2019s\u00a0Superman Returns<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>and the new film of Ian Fleming\u2019s first James Bond novel,\u00a0Casino Royale.\u00a0<\/em>Unlike those blockbusters, though, this picture doesn\u2019t try to recapture its early magic by casting a younger man in the hero\u2019s role: instead, it audaciously asks the viewer to take seriously the prospect of a man pushing sixty, yet becoming a contender for the heavyweight championship of the world.<\/p>\n It opens with Rocky visiting the grave of his dead wife Adrian (Talia Shire once again, in flashbacks). She died of \u201cwoman cancer,\u201d as the Rock describes it. Every year on their anniversary, he takes a sentimental journey through the old neighborhood, visiting landmarks from their first meeting and dates, dragging the insufferable Paulie in tow. As he reminisces, you see that her absence has broken his heart. Yet Adrian remains omnipresent throughout the movie, as the spirit that moves him on.<\/p>\n Visiting an old watering hole, he runs across a girl from the neighborhood, Marie (Geraldine Hughes), a single mom trying to raise a teenaged son and make ends meet by tending bar. A comely lass with the map of Ireland twinkling in her eyes, she and Rocky clumsily, tentatively, spark a relationship. Rocky meanwhile becomes a mentor to her son (James Francis Kelly III), keeping him on the straight-and-narrow.<\/p>\n Otherwise, the former champ leads a predictable, comfortable life running an Italian restaurant, greeting and regaling patrons with old stories of past bouts and glories. His whiny twentysomething son, Robert (Milo Ventimiglia), complains about living in Rocky\u2019s shadow while he tries to make it in the business world. Rocky gives him the kind of speech fathers stopped giving their boys a couple generations ago, but should resume giving:<\/p>\n The world ain\u2019t all sunshine and rainbows! It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently\u00a0if you let it<\/em>. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain\u2019t how hard you hit; it\u2019s about how hard you can\u00a0get<\/em>\u00a0hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That\u2019s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you\u2019re worth, then go out and get what you\u2019re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain\u2019t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain\u2019t you. You\u2019re better than that!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He schools his son to have some pride in himself. \u201cI stopped thinking about what other people thought a long time ago. . . . The only respect that matters in this world is self-respect.\u201d<\/p>\n One night on ESPN, a panel of sportscasters debate who was the greater boxer\u2014current heavyweight champion Mason \u201cThe Line\u201d Dixon (played by real-life light-heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver, stepping up in class), or the former two-time champion, Rocky. In an on-air computerized video simulation, Rocky KOs Dixon. This wounds the champ\u2019s pride: he\u2019s gotten to the top by defeating a bunch of has-beens and fall guys, never facing a real challenger for his championship belt.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of boxing is hoping for a warrior who can thrill us with his passion,\u201d a ringside announcer carps as Dixon defeats another chump. Desperate for respect, his handlers pitch the idea of a pay-per-view exhibition fight in Las Vegas between their man and the legend who hasn\u2019t been in the fight game for twenty-one years.<\/p>\n After a few awkward moments mid-movie, there\u2019s The Rest . . . and, well, you can pretty much guess the rest. Our Rocky begins training hard, old-school style. Once again he pounds his fists against bloody slabs of meat in the cooler; he lifts barbells; he does one-arm pushups; he plows through the Philly\u2019s snowbound streets and sprints to his rightful place atop those famous Steps.\u00a0\u201cGonna fly now!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The film culminates with the inevitable fight between Rocky and Dixon. Since Rocky is too old and stiff to bob and weave, his corner man, Duke (Tony Burton), counsels: \u201cSo, every time you hit him, you got to make a dent. . . . So what we\u2019ll be calling on is good old-fashioned blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy duty, cast-iron, pile-driving punches that will have to hurt so much it\u2019ll rattle his ancestors. Every time you hit him with a shot, it\u2019s got to feel like he tried kissing the express train.\u201d<\/p>\n Cinematographer J. Clark Mathis\u2019s camera frames the fight scenes tight, and they come fast and furious, like watching Goya\u2019s\u00a0Segundo de Mayo<\/em>\u00a0spring to life. Rocky may be old and weathered, but he\u2019s still solid as the hull of a battleship. Composer Bill Conti\u2019s martial score, built around his famous trumpet fanfare from the original, got my pulse pounding once more, and before I knew it, it was 1976 all over again, and I was rooting for the Italian Stallion. There was Rocky Balboa standing toe-to-toe with the heavyweight champion of the world and giving him a run for his money.<\/p>\n Sixteen years after the debacle of\u00a0Rocky V<\/em>, we\u2019ve got a\u00a0Rocky\u00a0<\/em>movie that believes in itself once again. Though it may not match the first in originality and drama, in heart and soul\u00a0Rocky Balboa<\/em>\u00a0lives up to its tagline: \u201cIt ain\u2019t over \u2019til it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly, the Rocky franchise\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>over, at last, but the old warrior is going out on his own terms.<\/p>\n Thank you, Sly Stallone, for not throwing in the towel.<\/p>\n Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Somebody Down Here Loves Ya [xrr rating=4.5\/5] Rocky Balboa.\u00a0Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, A.J. Benza, James Francis Kelly III, and Talia Shire. Based on characters created by Sylvester Stallone. Music by Bill Conti. Director of Photography, J. Clark Mathis. Edited by Sean Albertson. Written and directed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,59,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-mreview","category-sequels","category-sports-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}