FRIDAY'S DRUNKEN RANTS PRESENTS: ROCKY III vs. RAGING BULL
Tonight’s drunken rant is brought to you by tequila and Squirt. Just a frothy margarita to make me all sweet-a.
I was at a bar tonight and got into an argument with my friend over movies. Well, two movies. This fool had the ignorance to say that “Raging Bull” was the best boxing movie ever. Obviously, my friend had too much to drink and probably would regret all this in the morning. I quickly corrected him by yelling out those three polite words that let people know I would now like to enter the conversation-- “Why, you asshole!!!”
Why did I yell this at him? Because “Raging Bull” is an okay movie, but when it stands up against the greatest boxing movie ever (and one of the best movies, period) it ends up looking like a student film—a third grade student film. The greatest boxing movie ever is “Rocky III.” There is really no comparison. The tagline for “Rocky III” is “A fighter, a lover, a legend.” Damn straight.
“Raging Bull” was shot in that horrible black and white while “Rocky III” is shot in beautiful Technicolor. Why, its colors are so vibrant they almost jump right off the screen and onto your crotch. And look at both of the stars from the movie. Robert De Niro in certain parts of “Raging Bull” chunked himself up. That is just disgusting. In “Rocky III,” our star, Sylvester Stallone, looks as ripped as any guy I’ve ever seen changing in any locker room.
“Rocky III” just had it all going for it. While “Raging Bull” is so depressing, “Rocky III” is a get-out-of-your-seat-and-cheer kind of movie. Movies should only have happy endings. I mean, really, what could my soberly challenged friend have been thinking? He wasn’t! No sane human would even think like him, unless they were on crack.
And talk about the acting. De Niro comes off like he is reading off cue cards. He didn’t even seem like he prepared for this role while Stallone, I heard, dug deep into his Shakespearean background to deliver the performance of a lifetime. How Stallone did not get a nomination for Best Actor is a crime. How De Niro got one just smells like some dirty Italian tactics in the Oscar pool. It just goes to show you that if you give a few hand jobs at a Hollywood party, you’ll get an Oscar.
I mean, how can you deny the swirling soundtrack music from “Rocky III” and how it is still sweeping a nation? When someone tapped the legendary rock group Survivor to pen the tune “Eye of the Tiger,” they must have known greatness would soon be ringing in their ears. “Raging Bull” is no match when in the eye of the tiger. After the movie came out, “Eye of the Tiger” spent, I believe, a staggering 40 weeks at number one in Billboard’s Top 100 singles.
The characters in “Rocky III” were actors who were all trained on Broadway and were just venturing into the movie business while their plays were on hiatus. You had Hulk Hogan, fresh off of “Death of a Salesman,” starring as Thunderlips, the Norwegian/Chinese wrestler who dares attempt to battle our hero, Rocky. Then we have Mr. T., who had just finished playing Hamlet on Broadway for a record five years in a row, as the dreaded, yet always sexy, Clubber Lang.
Of course, we had Burgess Meredith, father of Meredith Baxter Byrney, who had portrayed one of the most well known villains ever, Topol, in “Fiddler on the Roof.” To hear him sing that classic song from there, “If I Were a Jewish Man” was always a treat. I just will never understand why Adam West was picked to play his viciously hairy wife. Once again, hand jobs, probably.
You also have Talia Shire as Rocky’s hourglass-shaped wife. I mean, her jiggly nature in those tight tops was just the right combination of taste and filth to please an overwhelmingly female audience. Carl Weathers, Rocky’s new squishy companion, plays Apollo Creed. Mr. Weathers was coming immediately off the German stage where he was portraying Colonel Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music.” I’m sure the hills were alive in Germany when Carl took the stage. And portraying her brother, Paulie, was… some fat guy. I think he was the caterer who got lucky with the job. But nothing is worse than a caterer giving hand jobs to get a part when he is supposed to be handling the food.
And as our star, Rocky Balboa, the one, the only, Sly. He is your classic hero from literature in the likes of Holden Caulfield, Hamlet, and Schneider from “One Day at a Time.” Sly was fresh off the British stage where he had just been portraying Macbeth. I heard for his last performance the audience was so thrilled they were throwing change on the stage as hard as they could. That’s what you call love and admiration.
Sly had to overcome fantastic, and I do mean fantastic, odds to triumph at the end. (I’m sorry if I’m spoiling the movie for anyone who has not seen it. I just didn’t think there was a person alive who hadn’t already enjoyed this feature.) I mean, he starts off as the world heavyweight champ, and then loses the title to Clubber Lang. But then help arrives in the manly shape of Apollo Creed. And together they train and train until Rocky is ready for the ultimate point of no return—the rematch against Clubber Lang. The best part of the training sequences is when Rocky finally out-sprints Apollo on the beach. Both men are so excited they immediately run in the water, wearing the shortest shorts ever worn by grown men on the silver screen, and start laughing and hugging each other. This scene reminded me of the scene at the end of “Casablanca” where Bogart says to Bacall, “We’ll always have Paris.” Fucking beautiful.
Well, Rocky eventually wins back his title and all is right again in his world. By having Rocky win this rematch the audience is provided with much needed closure in an upbeat kind of way. The message you get from seeing this movie is one of positive morality. This is just good Christian fun, with a message for the children: The white man always wins in the end while getting the black man to train him. And that is why “Raging Bull” will always be an okay movie, but never one of this caliber.
I was at a bar tonight and got into an argument with my friend over movies. Well, two movies. This fool had the ignorance to say that “Raging Bull” was the best boxing movie ever. Obviously, my friend had too much to drink and probably would regret all this in the morning. I quickly corrected him by yelling out those three polite words that let people know I would now like to enter the conversation-- “Why, you asshole!!!”
Why did I yell this at him? Because “Raging Bull” is an okay movie, but when it stands up against the greatest boxing movie ever (and one of the best movies, period) it ends up looking like a student film—a third grade student film. The greatest boxing movie ever is “Rocky III.” There is really no comparison. The tagline for “Rocky III” is “A fighter, a lover, a legend.” Damn straight.
“Raging Bull” was shot in that horrible black and white while “Rocky III” is shot in beautiful Technicolor. Why, its colors are so vibrant they almost jump right off the screen and onto your crotch. And look at both of the stars from the movie. Robert De Niro in certain parts of “Raging Bull” chunked himself up. That is just disgusting. In “Rocky III,” our star, Sylvester Stallone, looks as ripped as any guy I’ve ever seen changing in any locker room.
“Rocky III” just had it all going for it. While “Raging Bull” is so depressing, “Rocky III” is a get-out-of-your-seat-and-cheer kind of movie. Movies should only have happy endings. I mean, really, what could my soberly challenged friend have been thinking? He wasn’t! No sane human would even think like him, unless they were on crack.
And talk about the acting. De Niro comes off like he is reading off cue cards. He didn’t even seem like he prepared for this role while Stallone, I heard, dug deep into his Shakespearean background to deliver the performance of a lifetime. How Stallone did not get a nomination for Best Actor is a crime. How De Niro got one just smells like some dirty Italian tactics in the Oscar pool. It just goes to show you that if you give a few hand jobs at a Hollywood party, you’ll get an Oscar.
I mean, how can you deny the swirling soundtrack music from “Rocky III” and how it is still sweeping a nation? When someone tapped the legendary rock group Survivor to pen the tune “Eye of the Tiger,” they must have known greatness would soon be ringing in their ears. “Raging Bull” is no match when in the eye of the tiger. After the movie came out, “Eye of the Tiger” spent, I believe, a staggering 40 weeks at number one in Billboard’s Top 100 singles.
The characters in “Rocky III” were actors who were all trained on Broadway and were just venturing into the movie business while their plays were on hiatus. You had Hulk Hogan, fresh off of “Death of a Salesman,” starring as Thunderlips, the Norwegian/Chinese wrestler who dares attempt to battle our hero, Rocky. Then we have Mr. T., who had just finished playing Hamlet on Broadway for a record five years in a row, as the dreaded, yet always sexy, Clubber Lang.
Of course, we had Burgess Meredith, father of Meredith Baxter Byrney, who had portrayed one of the most well known villains ever, Topol, in “Fiddler on the Roof.” To hear him sing that classic song from there, “If I Were a Jewish Man” was always a treat. I just will never understand why Adam West was picked to play his viciously hairy wife. Once again, hand jobs, probably.
You also have Talia Shire as Rocky’s hourglass-shaped wife. I mean, her jiggly nature in those tight tops was just the right combination of taste and filth to please an overwhelmingly female audience. Carl Weathers, Rocky’s new squishy companion, plays Apollo Creed. Mr. Weathers was coming immediately off the German stage where he was portraying Colonel Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music.” I’m sure the hills were alive in Germany when Carl took the stage. And portraying her brother, Paulie, was… some fat guy. I think he was the caterer who got lucky with the job. But nothing is worse than a caterer giving hand jobs to get a part when he is supposed to be handling the food.
And as our star, Rocky Balboa, the one, the only, Sly. He is your classic hero from literature in the likes of Holden Caulfield, Hamlet, and Schneider from “One Day at a Time.” Sly was fresh off the British stage where he had just been portraying Macbeth. I heard for his last performance the audience was so thrilled they were throwing change on the stage as hard as they could. That’s what you call love and admiration.
Sly had to overcome fantastic, and I do mean fantastic, odds to triumph at the end. (I’m sorry if I’m spoiling the movie for anyone who has not seen it. I just didn’t think there was a person alive who hadn’t already enjoyed this feature.) I mean, he starts off as the world heavyweight champ, and then loses the title to Clubber Lang. But then help arrives in the manly shape of Apollo Creed. And together they train and train until Rocky is ready for the ultimate point of no return—the rematch against Clubber Lang. The best part of the training sequences is when Rocky finally out-sprints Apollo on the beach. Both men are so excited they immediately run in the water, wearing the shortest shorts ever worn by grown men on the silver screen, and start laughing and hugging each other. This scene reminded me of the scene at the end of “Casablanca” where Bogart says to Bacall, “We’ll always have Paris.” Fucking beautiful.
Well, Rocky eventually wins back his title and all is right again in his world. By having Rocky win this rematch the audience is provided with much needed closure in an upbeat kind of way. The message you get from seeing this movie is one of positive morality. This is just good Christian fun, with a message for the children: The white man always wins in the end while getting the black man to train him. And that is why “Raging Bull” will always be an okay movie, but never one of this caliber.
posted by Cruzbomb at 11:28 PM
1 Comments:
comparing Raging Bull and Rocky III is like comparing apples and oranges. Both are great films in their own right. You do know that Raging Bull was based on the real life story of Jake Lamotta, which was sadly derpressing because it was true? Rocky III does have the best fight choreography of any boxing movie, ever, hands down but Raging Bull is less about boxing and more about a fall from grace not a rise to it. Anyway, could could deny that the most quotable lines from any movie ever made are from Raging Bull...Ya hear me Larry!!
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