1976's Spoil

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2016)

File this one under the "I finally get what everyone is talking about" section of movies I have waited too long to see. Now I understand why people scream "yo, Adrian", or why my friends burst into a run up the stairs at the Lincoln Memorial on our class trip to D.C. It took Oscar month for me to see the 1976 Best Picture Winner, starring Sylvester Stallone, directed by John G. Avildsen. I had some preconceived biases about this film. I am a huge fan of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, a film also nominated for the Academy's top prize in 1976. I am also a fan of another film that was up for the top prize that year, Network. Since I enjoy these other films so much, I have shunned Rocky throughout the years believing my favorite (Taxi Driver) to have been brutally snubbed. Regardless of my feelings, it was time to see Rocky, and I'm glad I did.
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a simpleton, working for a loan shark and boxing part-time with a local gym. He is enamored with Adrian (Talia Shire), the equally simple-minded sister of Paulie (Burt Young), a friend of Rocky's from his neighborhood. As much as he wants to be, Rocky is not proving himself as a fighter. He is losing matches and performing so poorly that he has gotten the locker he has occupied for 6 years taken away by gym owner, Mickey (Burgess Meredith). With a brilliant stroke of luck, heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) visits Rocky's home state of Philadelphia. While he is there, his manager's set up an exhibition match between Creed and a struggling boxer, promoting the event as a way for "a nobody to become a somebody". They choose the most desperate opponent for Creed when they select Rocky. Dejected and seeing this fight as his one big chance to finally achieve his dream as a prize fighter, Rocky gets a manager in Mickey and starts intensive training in hopes of achieving a huge upset over Creed.
Rocky told a great story and was filmed in such a perfectly gritty way that related well to the titular character's plight. I wish there could have been a little more character development of the boxer, but based on the ending of this film, it seemed as though the director/producers already knew there was to be a sequel in the works. Perhaps Rocky II sheds a little more light on the intricacies of the boxer; I'll have to check that out. Chemistry was exactly what it should have been. Rocky kept an emotional distance from everyone, therefore, everyone maintained emotional distance from Rocky. The acting was true to character and believable. I can't say enough good things about the cinematography of this film. I truly miss the days where every movie was shot on film; I'm definitely not a fan of digital.
I am happy to have seen Rocky. It is a cultural phenomenon, with another movie in the series being released just last year. Rocky also proved to be a very well-done film, regardless of my reservations over Sylvester Stallone's acting. As good as Rocky was, I have not wavered from my personal assessment that Taxi Driver should have bagged Scorsese his first statuette. Taxi Driver was a better, more developed film, but for a different audience. But hey, now I can say "yo Adrian" along with the masses now.