Wow... Watching a socially awkward guy be awkward. This is a great movie...why? And he's such an ass. He has that thuggish, childish worldview your brother Jason has. And some of the same physical mannerisms. And they have the same speech impediment. I could watch Jason for free...but why would I do that? Jason's annoying. It's amazing how many characters I see that are twists on the Jason archetype."
Ah. There's the problem. People who use the word "archetype" in normal conversation probably aren't cut out to enjoy the Rocky movies.
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who sees pre-epiphany Earl from "My name is Earl" as Jason's closest fictional analogue, but I see the Rocky comparison, too.
Yeah, I said "analogue"
I don't like Rocky either.
3 comments:
Rocky won because it is the personification of the American Dream. It's a sentimental favorite that exposes a national mythology. It's really another take on the rags to riches myth that America has always perpetuated.
But the truth of the matter is that no matter how much we favor the underdog, we always go home with the winner.
This movie is a feel-good, morale boosting, American-dream bolstering film. Consider the frame of mind of the country that year. It was weary from Watergate and weary of government corruption. It was in the middle of a contentious election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. The country was still largely pissed off at Ford for pardoning Nixon.
Of the nominees that year, Network was ahead of its time and too depressing. A UU film if I've ever seen one. All The President's Men was probably too negative and too political, in a time period where everyone was desperate to avoid any thought of Watergate. Taxi Driver, again, ahead of its time and probably Martin Scorsese's best film.
Great cinema, Rocky is not. But then again, I remember being pissed off when Forrest Gump got the Best Picture nod over Pulp Fiction. IMHO, Pulp Fiction was the better of the two films, but boomer nostalgia is a powerful thing and it ended up winning.
I first saw Rocky when I was, like six years old, and loved it. I've seen all the sequels (except the last one), and enjoyed those, too. I identified with it as the story of an urban, working class family - and there just aren't a lot of movies a lot of these that don't involve people getting ganked at the end. Plus, there was the saga of Apollo Creed! And Mr. T was in there!
The success of Pulp Fiction already has shoved Tarantino so far up his own butt that I'm scared to think of what giving him Best Picture for it would have done.
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