Scott's Movie Reviews

It's funny to see all the debate that surrounds the Rocky series. I looked on IMDB the other day at a forum about Rocky III and saw so many different opinions on whether the third movie was good or not and people ranking the Rocky movies from best to worst. I will hopefully be able to rank them when I finish going through them. For now, Rocky III:
Rocky III is clearly inferior to the first two movies in just about every aspect. That said, I don't think it's a particularly poor movie. It has its moments. I don't think that it really went into the depth that the first two movies did in terms of Rocky and how his life has changed and the life of those around him. I felt that the opening part with Rocky fighting Hulk Hogan was pretty stupid and didn't need to be in the movie. Mr. T's character (Clubber Lang) was certainly a character that you love to hate. I thought he did a very good job of portraying the most "evil" character that we've seen in the Rocky series thus far.
I thought the training scenes were not very well done at all. Stallone seemed obsessed with putting almost everything he did in super slow motion, and having Rocky and Apollo Creed splash through the water and hug at the end of the sequence was really cheesy. Speaking of Apollo, I'm not sure I like the fact that he all of a sudden took to Rocky's liking and wanted to train him. I can understand him wanting Rocky to beat Clubber Lang but the fact still remains that Apollo was a detestable character in the first two movies who was completely self-absorbed and hated Rocky's guts. I don't think it's very plausible that he would all of a sudden throw that aside and be the nice guy.
Some people in the forum complained that the final fight with Mr. T only lasted 3 rounds. I didn't have a problem with that at all; in fact, it would have been too repetitive to have the fight go right down to the wire in the 15th round and it was nice to see Rocky beat up on someone and decisively win the fight for once. I liked the fighting scenes, and of course, I loved the theme song, "Eye of the Tiger."
Overall, Rocky III was a definite notch down from the first two movies but still a decent movie.

Scott's Rating:
Rocky III: 2.5 stars

My series of Rocky reviews continues with the first sequel, Rocky II. I must admit, I liked this movie better than the original. Maybe it's just because I knew the story to the original so well that it was getting old but I thought that this movie was more interesting in many aspects and overall a better movie. This movie is pretty much just like the first one in plot: it starts out by just repeating the last 5 minutes or so of the first movie, and then has Rocky and Apollo heading to the hospital to treat their wounds. Rocky retires from fighting and tries to get a job and make an honest living. He really struggles and can't find work. I thought these scenes with him trying to lead an ordinary life were the most compelling in the movie. They displayed Stallone's acting talents more than any other part of the film franchise. Anyway, Apollo challenges Rocky to a rematch, and after a scare with Adrian and the birth of their baby Rocky starts training hard and eventually beats the champ in a thrilling 15 round fight.
I found the plot to be more complex and more engaging in this movie than the first one, and I thought that Stallone's performance was more multi-faceted in this one as well. I also thought that the actual fight was much more compelling and thrilling in this one than the first one. I'm not sure when I'm going to start to get sick of watching Rocky movies, but so far it hasn't happened yet.

Scott's Rating:
Rocky II: 3.5 stars

Many adjectives come to mind when I think of the movie Anchorman, which I saw last night: goofy, bizarre, stupid, genius, awkward, unusual, and others, but one supercedes the others: hilarious. For all that is bad about Anchorman, the movie is just uproriously funny. I found myself laughing throughout almost the whole picture. Will Ferrell stars as '70s anchorman Ron Burgundy, who lives in an area where the men deliver the news and just plain have a good time doing it. His news team includes a womanizing reporter, cowboyish sports anchor, and a dim-witted weatherman. Their lives are threatened when the station's manager hires a woman (Christina Applegate) to work as a reporter at the station. Many parts of the movie are incredibly stupid, especially near the end, making me wish that a movie could stick to straight comedy without having to resort to extreme fantasy and stupidity. It would be easy for this to make me label it a bad movie but I just can't overlook the fact that the movie is so funny. I've found that characters lacking in intelligence make some of the funniest characters and movies and this is no exception. The weatherman, Brick Tamland (The Daily Show's Steve Carell), is so dumb that everything he says had me doubled over laughing. This is one of the funniest new movies I have seen in a long time. Oh and look out for cameos by Luke Wilson, Tim Robbins, and Ben Stiller.

Scott's Rating:
Anchorman: 3 stars

My next little movie venture is watching the entire franchise of Rocky pictures, five in all. I taped them all on July 4th off of AMC and am starting to go through them. I will review each one separately. I just finished watching the first one, Rocky, which is the only one of the five that I had seen before. It is a good, not spectacular, movie with good performances and a compelling storyline. Rocky Balboa (Sly Stallone) is a washed up fighter that works for a loan shark who doesn't have much going for him. The tides start to turn when heavyweight champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) decides to take on a local unknown for the world heavyweight title (he picks Rocky). Rocky trains for the fight and ultimately falls in love with the timid Adrian (Talia Shire), and has the fight of his life against Creed. Stallone and Shire are pretty good in this movie, and they really have to be because the movie is all about the characters. The filmmakers go to great lengths to try to portray Rocky as more than a one-dimensional character with feelings and emotions and all that, and it comes across well. In terms of a sports movie, I am not a big fan of boxing at all so it's hard for me to like a boxing picture as much as a baseball or football picture but it is probably my favorite of the boxing movies. I'm interested to see how the rest of Rocky series stacks up.

Scott's Rating:
Rocky: 3.5 stars

After much cajoling and urging from friends, I finally saw The Princess Bride. And I must say, I wasn't very impressed. The Princess Bride is a story within a story: A sick boy (Fred Savage) gets a visit from his grandfather (Peter Falk), who reads him a fantasy tale concerning the farm boy Wesley (Cary Elwes) and his true love with the girl Buttercup (the beautiful Robin Wright). I found the movie to be just goofy as opposed to uproriously funny. In fact, I only laughed a couple times during the movie; I just didn't find a lot of the gags and one-liners very funny. The story was rather cheesy and at some points dragged and I didn't like the ending very well. I thought that the movie was ok but overrated.

Scott's Rating:
The Princess Bride: 2.5 stars

This is a very special post, as I have several things to address. First and foremost, I have just completed my LOOOONG quest to see all of the movies on AFI's Top 100 movies list! The last film that I had to see, which I kept dragging my feet on, before finally renting, was D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", from 1915. This is a very tough movie to try and review because of when it was made and the standards that I, as a modern movie viewer, hold about what a movie should look like. The movie is a silent movie, and the quality of the film is very poor. The movie is also over 2.5 hours long, which makes it one of the most difficult movies to watch that I've ever had to sit through. My sole motivation for watching the movie is that finishing it would finish my list. The movie itself is on the AFI list because it was revolutionary for its time. It was the first movie to employ cross-cutting as a film technique, and I can at least recognize that it must have been rather advanced for its time because it had a rather complex subject line.
The movie traces the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. What makes this movie one of the most controversial in history is Griffith's slant on the facts, which comes across as being extremely racist. He was definitely a Southern sympathizer who basically had the philosophy in this movie that the Ku Klux Klan saved the South from the evil blacks. I didn't mind most of the movie, and thought the scenes of the Civil War and especially the night of the Lincoln assassination were the most exciting, but having the climax at the end of the movie be a huge battle between renegade Black armies and the KKK is just absolutely ridiculous and not based in fact. Regardless, it's a movie that you can't ignore in history.


Now that I've gone completely through the AFI's Top 100 movies list, I will come up with a few lists of my own.

First off, a list of the movies from the list that I strongly disliked and advise you to stay away from, with the number of the movie on the list in parentheses:

2001: A Space Odyssey (#22)
Shane (#69)
Giant (#82)


Well, that wasn't very long. I guess that is a good thing. Next, a list of the movies on the list that I own, which means that I REALLY liked these movies:

Casablanca (#2)
Lawrence of Arabia (#5)
The Wizard of Oz (#6)
Singin' in the Rain (#10)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (#13)
Star Wars (#15)
E.T. (#25)
To Kill a Mockingbird (#34)
North By Northwest (#40)
West Side Story (#41)
Rear Window (#42)
The Sound of Music (#55)
An American in Paris (#68)
The French Connection (#70)
My Fair Lady (#91)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (#100)


Lastly, I would like to call to attention the passing today of Marlon Brando, the great screen actor who is my second favorite actor of all time. I read Brando's autobiography a few years ago and learned a lot about the man who was certainly unique in Hollywood cinema. He died at the age of 80. I have seen several of his movies and certainly recommend that you see at least one if you have not to get a taste for great acting ability. My top three Brando movies:

1. The Godfather
2. On the Waterfront
3. A Streetcar Named Desire