The Canon Review's weekend of Jon Voight continues with the film that made Voight famous, the 1969 classic Midnight Cowboy. Starring Voight and Dustin Hoffman, and directed by John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy won three Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. In fact, Midnight Cowboy is the only X rated movie to win the Academy Award for best picture, although by today's standards the movie would be rated R. Midnight Cowboy is about a young man from Texas named Joe Buck (Voight) who goes to New York in the hopes of becoming a high-priced gigolo. While there, he meets a crippled con artist named Enrique "Ratso" Rizzo, who at first cons Buck out of twenty bucks, but eventually gives Buck a place to stay after learning that Buck had nowhere else to go. The two then try to scrape by in the big city, doing whatever it takes to survive and make money and improve their surroundings. A few thoughts about this film (SPOILERS AHEAD):
- The director, Schlesinger, used a lot of flashbacks and fantasy sequences in the film, to the point where there are a couple of times where you're wondering what is real and what is not. Despite that, Schlesinger uses the flashbacks and fantasies to great effect, telling of the background of Joe Buck from his confusing relationship to his grandmother to the relationship he had with a girl named Crazy Annie. The fantasy sequences also give a deeper impression of both Rizzo and Buck's ultimate dreams, Buck's to become a man making his money making love to rich women and Rizzo's desire to leave New York behind and start a new life in Florida, using Buck to accomplish that goal.
- One of the aspects that make this film such a work of art is the soundtrack. From the use of Harry Nilsson's "Everybody Talkin at Me" whenever Buck is featured in a scene either walking around or riding the bus, to the haunting tone of John Barry's score, including his Grammy Award winning "Midnight Cowboy Theme". The soundtrack adds a lot to the film and really helps tell the story being presented.
- Last night I laid into Voight's performance in Anaconda, although to be fair, it wasn't as if he had a whole lot to work with. Well today I have a completly different opinion on Voight's acting in a movie, as he just did a magnificent job playing the naive cowboy Joe Buck. Voight perfectly captures Buck's transformation from a hopeful man ready to make a living for himself in New York to a man willing to do just about anything, except going back to washing dishes, to get by and provide himself and Rizzo with a life outside of a condemned building they currently call home. The experiences that Joe has had in New York changes him greatly, and Voight is able to capture and show all of the little changes of Joe's personality effectively.Voight even gets the Texan accent down perfectly, not bad considering he's a native New Yorker.
- Meanwhile, Hoffman also turns in a strong performance as Ratso Rizzo, a crippled low-rate thief who will do anything, much like a rat, to survive his environment another day. Even though Rizzo is little more than a petty thug, Hoffman is able to humanize him, to make Rizzo a sympathetic and likable character to the audience. A tour de force performance from one of the greatest actors of his time.
- Ultimately, the heart of the story is the strange friendship that develops between Buck and Rizzo, mainly because they realize that one can not survive without the other. Buck is hopelessly naive about life as a hustler in New York City, which Rizzo at least knows a little about, while Rizzo comes to depend on Buck as not only a physical protector of sorts, but also as the one person that can help him escape from be a rat in New York and enjoy a new life in Florida. So, while the story is at first glance a tale of hustlers trying to scam a buck, it's actually a story of despair and loneliness and a friendship between two out-of-place people who have nothing to rely on but each other.
- Sylvia Miles received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in the film, even though she may have been in the movie for three minutes. She plays a rich lady who Buck tries to hustle for a few bucks in exchange for a good time, but Buck's attempt backfires to the extent that he consuls her for daring to ask money for his services and ends up giving her twenty bucks for cab fare. While the scene shows that's it is not going to be as easy as Buck thinks it will be to become a hustler, there's so much going on later in the movie that you somewhat forget about the scene, so it's a mystery why a person in what amounted to a secondary scene was nominated for an Academy Award.
- This was an X rated movie by 1969 standards, although if it came out today it would hardly be shocking to today's audience. Sure, there is nudity, graphic violence and strong language, but those things can be found in nearly every movie out these days. What made it particularly shocking to audiences of this time period was the subject matter being explored, from male prostitution to homosexuality to rape and other controversial subjects that have been in movies for many years since then, but by 1969 standards was highly shocking to see in a film.
- Jon Voight actually wasn't the first choice to play Joe Buck, as other actors such as Lee Majors and Michael Sarrizan were offered the role first, but turned it down. An actor that wanted to play Joe Buck was none other than Elvis Presely, although if he had been in it the film would have to be completely changed and Joe would probably end up singing a few songs. Instead, Elvis did a film called Change of Habit, which bombed, and Midnight Cowboy ended up being an Oscar winning film. I guarantee that doesn't happen if Elvis plays Joe Buck, no disrespect to Elvis.
Overall, Midnight Cowboy is just a great movie. There are a couple of weak spots, the whole party scene and the idea that a cowboy like Buck would actually be invited to an Andy Warhol-style party is a little weak, and the scene just goes on forever before finally something of significance happens. Other than that and a few minor hiccups, I have no complaints about this film. The soundtrack is great, the director did a fantastic job, and Voight and Hoffman turned in performances that few actors and actresses will ever be able to match. I'll give the film an 8.75 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post or other previous posts, or ideas for future posts, than share them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label Oscar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oscar. Show all posts
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Canon Movie Review: On The Waterfront
This review comes from a suggestion from Canon Review reader Ben W. Mr. W had seen On the Waterfront recently, and recommended the movie for me to see. So I did. On the Waterfront is a 1954 movie which starred Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, and Rod Steiger. Directed by Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront won eight Oscars in 1955, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Supporting Actress (Saint). On The Waterfront is considered by many film critics as one of the best films in the history of American Cinema. After seeing the movie, I can definitely see why. A few thoughts about this movie (Warning: Spoilers ahead).
- Brando is considered on of the best actors of all time, and his performance in On The Waterfront showed why. As Terry Malloy, a shipyard worker who struggles to do the right thing after being a part of a murder, Brando is able to convey so many different emotions just with a simple look or with body language alone. Brando immerses himself so much into the part of Terry Malloy that he became Terry Malloy, and Malloy's feelings, his loyalty towards his brother Charlie, his feelings towards the murder victim's sister, are just conveyed so perfectly by Brando. Truly a tour de force performance which few other actors have ever been able to match, let alone exceed.
- Although Brando did get the part, Frank Sinatra was originally set to play Terry Malloy. Not to trash Sinatra's acting, but if he was Terry Malloy, let's just say this movie is not nearly as revered as it is today. In fact, I really can't think of any other actor that would have been better as Malloy than Brando, and the movie wouldn't have been half as good had any other actor played the lead role.
- Even though Brando was as good as it gets, this is not just a one-man show. Karl Malden does an excellent job as Father Berry, a priest that goes out on the docks and tries to convince the longshoremen to stand up and expose the corruption of their union and its leader, "Johnny Friendly". His speech after the death of KO Dugan, a longshoreman who had planned to testify against Friendly, is so powerful and so convincing that it made me want to turn in Friendly myself. Watch it yourself to see the greatness that is Karl Malden:
- Eva Marie Saint also delivers a top notch performance as Edie Doyle, whose brother Joey was murdered by Friendly and his gang. Edie sets out to try and discover the truth behind Joey's death, while at the same time she develops feelings for Terry. Saint does an excellent job in conveying all of Edie's different emotions in a convincing manner. Not bad for someone in their first feature film (although she had done some television work before, so she wasn't a complete neophyte).
- Johnny Friendly (played by Lee J. Cobb) is a real bad man. I wonder why they call him Johnny Friendly? The movie never explained where that name came from. Anyway, Friendly is the leader of the dockworkers union, and generally treats people like crap, doing such things such as forcing people to take loans just so they could work and constantly playing favorites as to who gets to work and what they do on a daily basis. He also has a bunch of crooked deals where he skims a little bit of money off the top of every shipment of merchandise that comes in. Just your typical crook who rose to power and will kill anyone who threatens his power.
- The movie is based on a series of articles written by Malcolm Johnson for the New York Sun, which dealt with corruption, extortion, and other criminal activities taking place on the docks of New York City. The characters of Terry Malloy, Johnny Friendly, and Father Berry were based largely off of actual people. According to Wikipedia, Anthony DiVincenzo, whom the character of Terry Malloy was largely based off of, actually sued and won a settlement due to the similarities between Malloy and DiVencenzo. I'm not 100% sure if that is true, I just found it interesting is all.
- One thing that struck me odd is after the murder of Joey Doyle, his father comes in to work on the docks the very next day, knowing that his union probably had something to do with the murder of his son (he had told Joey to keep quiet about the corruption taking place). I don't know about you, but I doubt I would come in and do back-breaking labor for the man that had a member of my family murdered the day before.
Overall, Ben W. was right. This is a great film that I would recommend to anyone who likes movies. I'll give it a 9 out of 10. Thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post or any ideas for future posts, than share your thoughts and ideas either by leaving me a comment or sending me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.
- Brando is considered on of the best actors of all time, and his performance in On The Waterfront showed why. As Terry Malloy, a shipyard worker who struggles to do the right thing after being a part of a murder, Brando is able to convey so many different emotions just with a simple look or with body language alone. Brando immerses himself so much into the part of Terry Malloy that he became Terry Malloy, and Malloy's feelings, his loyalty towards his brother Charlie, his feelings towards the murder victim's sister, are just conveyed so perfectly by Brando. Truly a tour de force performance which few other actors have ever been able to match, let alone exceed.
- Although Brando did get the part, Frank Sinatra was originally set to play Terry Malloy. Not to trash Sinatra's acting, but if he was Terry Malloy, let's just say this movie is not nearly as revered as it is today. In fact, I really can't think of any other actor that would have been better as Malloy than Brando, and the movie wouldn't have been half as good had any other actor played the lead role.
- Even though Brando was as good as it gets, this is not just a one-man show. Karl Malden does an excellent job as Father Berry, a priest that goes out on the docks and tries to convince the longshoremen to stand up and expose the corruption of their union and its leader, "Johnny Friendly". His speech after the death of KO Dugan, a longshoreman who had planned to testify against Friendly, is so powerful and so convincing that it made me want to turn in Friendly myself. Watch it yourself to see the greatness that is Karl Malden:
- Eva Marie Saint also delivers a top notch performance as Edie Doyle, whose brother Joey was murdered by Friendly and his gang. Edie sets out to try and discover the truth behind Joey's death, while at the same time she develops feelings for Terry. Saint does an excellent job in conveying all of Edie's different emotions in a convincing manner. Not bad for someone in their first feature film (although she had done some television work before, so she wasn't a complete neophyte).
- Johnny Friendly (played by Lee J. Cobb) is a real bad man. I wonder why they call him Johnny Friendly? The movie never explained where that name came from. Anyway, Friendly is the leader of the dockworkers union, and generally treats people like crap, doing such things such as forcing people to take loans just so they could work and constantly playing favorites as to who gets to work and what they do on a daily basis. He also has a bunch of crooked deals where he skims a little bit of money off the top of every shipment of merchandise that comes in. Just your typical crook who rose to power and will kill anyone who threatens his power.
- The movie is based on a series of articles written by Malcolm Johnson for the New York Sun, which dealt with corruption, extortion, and other criminal activities taking place on the docks of New York City. The characters of Terry Malloy, Johnny Friendly, and Father Berry were based largely off of actual people. According to Wikipedia, Anthony DiVincenzo, whom the character of Terry Malloy was largely based off of, actually sued and won a settlement due to the similarities between Malloy and DiVencenzo. I'm not 100% sure if that is true, I just found it interesting is all.
- One thing that struck me odd is after the murder of Joey Doyle, his father comes in to work on the docks the very next day, knowing that his union probably had something to do with the murder of his son (he had told Joey to keep quiet about the corruption taking place). I don't know about you, but I doubt I would come in and do back-breaking labor for the man that had a member of my family murdered the day before.
Overall, Ben W. was right. This is a great film that I would recommend to anyone who likes movies. I'll give it a 9 out of 10. Thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post or any ideas for future posts, than share your thoughts and ideas either by leaving me a comment or sending me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Canon Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire
In continuing with our celebration of 100 posts at The Canon Review, I decided that it would be interesting to look up the 100th ranked movie on the IMDB Top 250 list and watch that movie. As of today, the 100th ranked movie is Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Oscars in 2008, only the eighth film to win that many Oscars. The movie is directed by Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) and stars Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto, Madhur Mittal, and Anil Kapoor. Here are a few thoughts of mine about this film, and there are probably going to be spoilers, so you have been warned.
- The movie is about a kid from the slums of Mumbai, India, Jamal Malik (Patel) who appears on the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and does quite well at it. Because of his social status, he is suspected of cheating and arrested. The police try to draw a confession out of him through torture, but Jamal eventually gets to explain how he knew each answer. As it happened, each question seemed to relate to a very important event in Jamal's life, a story which the police chief describes as "bizarrely plausible" before letting Jamal go. Now, I wonder what exactly are the odds of those questions asked synching up so compatibly with Jamal's life story, but since this is ultimately a story of destiny, I'm not going to spend too much time questioning it.
- The portrayal of life in the slums of Mumbai is just brutal. Without revealing too much of the plot, I'll just say that Jamal, as well as his brother Salim (Mittal) and their friend Latika (Pinto), do not have an easy time of things. They find themselves having the scratch and claw for whatever they can find and are constantly at the mercy of people that, shall we say, are evil. Particularly evil is Maman, a man who tricks kids into joining his begging syndicate. Maman's most despicable act in the movie is taking kids that show a talent for singing, and then blinding them with acid so that they could earn more money. That scene was quite troubling, I must say.
- The movie's story focuses on the relationship between Jamal and Latika, and how the two are somehow destined to be together, no matter the circumstances. That's fine, but one slight problem that I had with the film is that we really don't know a whole lot about Latika. I guess it's because the story's told from Jamal's point of view, but Latika just seemed to come and go whenever it was convenient in the storyline, and the result is that she ends up being an underdeveloped character. That's just my opinion.
- After Jamal keeps getting question after question right, even the one where the host gave him a fraudulent answer, the host (Kapoor) turns him in for cheating. Two things here: First, I wonder if cheating on a game show is such a crime that they had to put a bag over Jamal and whisk him away in a helicopter, and second, after Jamal is released and allowed to come back on the show for the final question, I would think things would be really awkward between Jamal and the host.
- Speaking of the host of Millionaire, Kapoor does an excellent job of playing him. He plays the host with the right amount of personality and flash, while at the same time he brings a subtlety in his performance that lets you know even from the beginning that he's not exactly fond of Jamal and looks down upon him due solely to his status. Also, the kids playing young Jamal, Samil, and Latika do an excellent job as well, playing their characters with both seriousness and childlike wonder whenever the script called for them to do.
- The credits had Jamal and Latika along with a whole bunch of others doing a dance number to the song "Jai Ho", which won the Oscar for best original song in a film. It's not awful or anything, but to me it seemed kind of odd because it didn't really fit in with the rest of the movie. It's not as if Jamal was dancing and singing the whole movie. Eh, maybe I'm just reading too much into it.
Overall, this movie has some minor flaws, as the story is kind of slow to develop, and it seems impossible that all of the questions asked to Jamal would not only directly relate to his life, but do so in chronological order. However, the movie in whole is just great, I think. The story may not be exactly realistic, but it is compelling and powerful, the directing by Boyle was top notch, and there wasn't a bad performance by any of the actors. The movie really draws you in and makes you root for Jamal, Latika, and Salim. Overall, I'll give the movie an 8.5 out of 10. I don't know if it deserved to win 8 Oscars, but it was one heck of a film.
Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future posts, than let me know about them either by e-mailing me atKtheC2001@gmail.com, or by leaving it in the comments section.
- The movie is about a kid from the slums of Mumbai, India, Jamal Malik (Patel) who appears on the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and does quite well at it. Because of his social status, he is suspected of cheating and arrested. The police try to draw a confession out of him through torture, but Jamal eventually gets to explain how he knew each answer. As it happened, each question seemed to relate to a very important event in Jamal's life, a story which the police chief describes as "bizarrely plausible" before letting Jamal go. Now, I wonder what exactly are the odds of those questions asked synching up so compatibly with Jamal's life story, but since this is ultimately a story of destiny, I'm not going to spend too much time questioning it.
- The portrayal of life in the slums of Mumbai is just brutal. Without revealing too much of the plot, I'll just say that Jamal, as well as his brother Salim (Mittal) and their friend Latika (Pinto), do not have an easy time of things. They find themselves having the scratch and claw for whatever they can find and are constantly at the mercy of people that, shall we say, are evil. Particularly evil is Maman, a man who tricks kids into joining his begging syndicate. Maman's most despicable act in the movie is taking kids that show a talent for singing, and then blinding them with acid so that they could earn more money. That scene was quite troubling, I must say.
- The movie's story focuses on the relationship between Jamal and Latika, and how the two are somehow destined to be together, no matter the circumstances. That's fine, but one slight problem that I had with the film is that we really don't know a whole lot about Latika. I guess it's because the story's told from Jamal's point of view, but Latika just seemed to come and go whenever it was convenient in the storyline, and the result is that she ends up being an underdeveloped character. That's just my opinion.
- After Jamal keeps getting question after question right, even the one where the host gave him a fraudulent answer, the host (Kapoor) turns him in for cheating. Two things here: First, I wonder if cheating on a game show is such a crime that they had to put a bag over Jamal and whisk him away in a helicopter, and second, after Jamal is released and allowed to come back on the show for the final question, I would think things would be really awkward between Jamal and the host.
- Speaking of the host of Millionaire, Kapoor does an excellent job of playing him. He plays the host with the right amount of personality and flash, while at the same time he brings a subtlety in his performance that lets you know even from the beginning that he's not exactly fond of Jamal and looks down upon him due solely to his status. Also, the kids playing young Jamal, Samil, and Latika do an excellent job as well, playing their characters with both seriousness and childlike wonder whenever the script called for them to do.
- The credits had Jamal and Latika along with a whole bunch of others doing a dance number to the song "Jai Ho", which won the Oscar for best original song in a film. It's not awful or anything, but to me it seemed kind of odd because it didn't really fit in with the rest of the movie. It's not as if Jamal was dancing and singing the whole movie. Eh, maybe I'm just reading too much into it.
Overall, this movie has some minor flaws, as the story is kind of slow to develop, and it seems impossible that all of the questions asked to Jamal would not only directly relate to his life, but do so in chronological order. However, the movie in whole is just great, I think. The story may not be exactly realistic, but it is compelling and powerful, the directing by Boyle was top notch, and there wasn't a bad performance by any of the actors. The movie really draws you in and makes you root for Jamal, Latika, and Salim. Overall, I'll give the movie an 8.5 out of 10. I don't know if it deserved to win 8 Oscars, but it was one heck of a film.
Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future posts, than let me know about them either by e-mailing me atKtheC2001@gmail.com, or by leaving it in the comments section.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Canon Movie Review: Rocky
Hey, the Oscars were on three hours ago. I didn't watch them, but I'm sure they were great. The Hurt Locker won best picture, I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it was at least a good movie. Since the Oscars were today, I decided to pick at random a previous Oscar winner for Best Picture. To my surprise, the choice was Rocky, which won the Oscar in 1976. Even though I've seen it twice already, I had no problem seeing it a third time. A few thoughts about this movie:
- To me, it's quite an upset that this movie won the Best Picture Oscar. Just look at the other nominations, there's Network, Taxi Driver, All the President's Men, and Bound For Glory. That's a tough crowd there. I've never seen Bound for Glory, but the rest are very, very good movies. Not only that, but Rocky was a less polished film than any of these movies, and didn't have a big name actor like Robert Redford or a big time director like Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese. That the Oscar went to a movie written by and starring a struggling actor (Stallone was not regarded as leading man material at all, and the studio wanted a bigger name actor in the movie instead of some bit actor), is kind of a shock.
- Stallone did such a great acting job in this film. In a review for the film when it was released, Roger Ebert compared him to a young Marlon Brando, that's how good Stallone was in Rocky. Today, he's kind of considered a joke, or at the very least a bad actor. But he really nailed this role, and he wrote the screenplay to boot, although the final product is a bit different from his original script.
- Paulie was a real jerk in this film. He kept bugging Rocky to ask his loan shark boss Gallo for a job, he treats his sister like crap, constantly berating her for no good reason. When Rocky has the nerve to question his motives to Adrian (Paulie's sister). Paulie goes all berserk, smashing his house up with a bat until finally Adrian tells him off for all of his crap. There was more than one occasion where I hoped Rocky would have knocked him on his ass.
- Come to think of it, Mickey (Rocky's eventual manager) was a jerk too, kicking Rocky out of his locker and generally ragging on Rocky. It's only when Rocky lands the fight with Apollo Creed that Mickey offers any sort of help to him at all. But I guess that's just human nature.
- Carl Weathers was perfect in his role as Apollo Creed, the overconfident champion who decides to give Rocky a title shot after his original opponent breaks his hand five weeks before the fight. He even managed to pull off that ridiculous ring entrance (where Creed dresses like George Washington in a boat tossing coins into the crowd) without making it seem too unbelievable.
- In my opinion, the song in the workout montage "Gonna Fly Now" is one of the greatest background songs in the history of cinema. If there was ever a song that fit the movie, that was it. Much better than "Eye of the Tiger" (from Rocky 3), which is kind of cheesy. If I ever have to fight and come out to entrance music (which will never happen) "Gonna Fly Now" will be the song I come out to. If that song doesn't get you pumped up, than nothing will.
- Overall, this movie is great, just great. This movie is a classic. Even though it had some fierce competition, it was a worthy choice for Best Picture (personally, I think Network is just a little better, but I digress). This was Stallone's best work, as he was able to convincingly portray Rocky Balboa and make the audience care and root for him in the movie. The direction was great, the supporting actors played their parts well, and the movie never drags. I would give this a 9.13596460 out of 10.
Well, thanks for reading, if you have any ideas for future reviews, or any feedback, or if you want to review something yourself for The Canon Review, then e-mail me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Well, I'm gonna fly now.
- To me, it's quite an upset that this movie won the Best Picture Oscar. Just look at the other nominations, there's Network, Taxi Driver, All the President's Men, and Bound For Glory. That's a tough crowd there. I've never seen Bound for Glory, but the rest are very, very good movies. Not only that, but Rocky was a less polished film than any of these movies, and didn't have a big name actor like Robert Redford or a big time director like Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese. That the Oscar went to a movie written by and starring a struggling actor (Stallone was not regarded as leading man material at all, and the studio wanted a bigger name actor in the movie instead of some bit actor), is kind of a shock.
- Stallone did such a great acting job in this film. In a review for the film when it was released, Roger Ebert compared him to a young Marlon Brando, that's how good Stallone was in Rocky. Today, he's kind of considered a joke, or at the very least a bad actor. But he really nailed this role, and he wrote the screenplay to boot, although the final product is a bit different from his original script.
- Paulie was a real jerk in this film. He kept bugging Rocky to ask his loan shark boss Gallo for a job, he treats his sister like crap, constantly berating her for no good reason. When Rocky has the nerve to question his motives to Adrian (Paulie's sister). Paulie goes all berserk, smashing his house up with a bat until finally Adrian tells him off for all of his crap. There was more than one occasion where I hoped Rocky would have knocked him on his ass.
- Come to think of it, Mickey (Rocky's eventual manager) was a jerk too, kicking Rocky out of his locker and generally ragging on Rocky. It's only when Rocky lands the fight with Apollo Creed that Mickey offers any sort of help to him at all. But I guess that's just human nature.
- Carl Weathers was perfect in his role as Apollo Creed, the overconfident champion who decides to give Rocky a title shot after his original opponent breaks his hand five weeks before the fight. He even managed to pull off that ridiculous ring entrance (where Creed dresses like George Washington in a boat tossing coins into the crowd) without making it seem too unbelievable.
- In my opinion, the song in the workout montage "Gonna Fly Now" is one of the greatest background songs in the history of cinema. If there was ever a song that fit the movie, that was it. Much better than "Eye of the Tiger" (from Rocky 3), which is kind of cheesy. If I ever have to fight and come out to entrance music (which will never happen) "Gonna Fly Now" will be the song I come out to. If that song doesn't get you pumped up, than nothing will.
- Overall, this movie is great, just great. This movie is a classic. Even though it had some fierce competition, it was a worthy choice for Best Picture (personally, I think Network is just a little better, but I digress). This was Stallone's best work, as he was able to convincingly portray Rocky Balboa and make the audience care and root for him in the movie. The direction was great, the supporting actors played their parts well, and the movie never drags. I would give this a 9.13596460 out of 10.
Well, thanks for reading, if you have any ideas for future reviews, or any feedback, or if you want to review something yourself for The Canon Review, then e-mail me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Well, I'm gonna fly now.
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