Film Review: Creed III (dir by Michael B. Jordan)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Creed 3 opens with Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Michael B. Jordan) on top of the world.

He has just retired, as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, from boxing. Unlike other boxers (like Big George Foreman or Rocky Balboa or Creed’s father, Apollo), Donnie is not retiring because he’s been defeated or because his health is at risk. Donnie is retiring because he has apparently worked out his anger and his issues with with his father’s legacy and now, he wants to spend some quality time with his wife (Tessa Thompson) and his daughter (Mila Davis-Kent). Donnie, however, does remain in the world of boxing by managing the new world champion, Felix (Jose Benavidez, Jr.), and setting up a title fight between Felix and Donnie’s former rival, Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). However, when Viktor is attacked by a mysterious assailant and left too injured to fight, Donnie has to find a new opponent for Felix and he has to do it quickly!

Interestingly enough, Dame Anderson (Jonathan Majors) has just returned to town. Donnie and Dame were childhood friends. When they were kids, Dame was the aspiring boxer who dreamed of going to the Olympics, turning pro, and then eventually becoming the world champion. However, those plans changed when Dame went to prison. While Donnie was becoming world champion, Dame was serving hard time and writing letters to Donnie, all of which were hidden from Donnie by Donnie’s well-meaning mother (Phylicia Rashad). When Dame returns home, a guilt-stricken Donnie gives Dame a job as Felix’s sparring partner and even promises to help Dame out with his late-in-life boxing career. (As just about everyone points out, boxing is a young person’s sport and Dame is even older than Donnie.) When Dame asks Donnie to give him the title shot against Felix, Donnie ignores everyone else’s advice and gives it to him. Donnie justifies his decision by reminding everyone that Apollo gave Rocky a shot.

Directed by Michael B. Jordan, Creed III is an exciting and intelligent sports film that also works as a deconstruction of some of the genre’s most beloved clichés. Donnie himself points out that everyone loves an underdog story and that’s certainly true, from Rocky to this year’s Champions. Dame uses the world’s love for the underdog to his advantage, just to turn out to be a vicious and self-destructive fighter. This is the film that answers the question, “What if Rocky Balboa wasn’t such a nice guy?” Dame also uses Donnie’s guilt about the past to his advantage. If the previous two films were all about Donnie coming to peace with the legacy of Apollo Creed, this film is about Donnie (and, to an extent, Dame) coming to peace with the legacy of Adonis Creed.

And yet, Dame himself is not a one-dimensional villain. For much of the film, he’s actually more likable than Donnie and, even after he nearly kills Felix in the ring, he still seems to be incapable of understanding why everyone’s so upset. While the other characters treat boxing as a sport and ignore the violence at the center of it, Dame understands that boxing is just a fight with a bigger audience. After twelve years in prison, the system has dumped Dame on the streets and ordered him to make something of his life without bothering to help him develop any of the skills necessary to do so. Dame fights because that’s what he’s had to do his entire life. Since he went to jail for a fight that Donnie could have just as easily been arrest for, Dame is who Donnie easily could have become. While his performance has since been overshadowed by his own legal issues, Jonathan Majors is never less than compelling as Dame, perfectly capturing both Dame’s bitterness and his own need for approval.

This film is Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut. There are a few moments when Jordan falls victim to the first-time director’s trap of trying too hard to show off his artistic bona fides. A sequence, during the final match, when the audience vanishes and Donnie and Dame dance around the ring and roar at each other like animals is occasionally effective and occasionally silly. That said, Creed III is a hundred times more compelling and visually interesting than the more conventionally-directed Creed II. Jordan gets good performances from his entire cast and shows himself to be a strong story teller. I look forward to seeing what he does next as a director.

Finally, as everyone knows, Sylvester Stallone does not return as Rocky in this film, though the character is mentioned several times. Stallone’s absence isn’t really felt. That’s not a slight against Stallone, an actor who has gotten considerably more likable in his later years. It’s just that there’s really not a place for Rocky Balboa in this film. (Arguably, there really wasn’t much of a place for Rocky in the second film as well.) Rocky Balboa has earned his retirement and hopefully, is still visiting his grandson in Canada. This film belongs to Donnie and Dame.

Film Review: Creed II (dir by Steve Caple, Jr.)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, in anticipation of finally watching Creed III, I decided that I should first rewatch 2018’s Creed II. I actually did see Creed II when it was originally released in theaters and I seem to remember that I enjoyed it but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn’t remember much more about it.

In Creed II, Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Michael B. Jordan) finally becomes heavyweight champion of the world and immediately finds himself being taunted by Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). To be honest, Donnie really does have more to think about then some other boxer demanding that Donnie give him a fight. Donnie has finally married his girlfriend, Bianca Taylor (Tessa Thompson), and she’s pregnant. However, Donnie cannot get Viktor out of his mind because Viktor is the son of the man who killed Donnie’s father in the ring. Ivan Drago has not only raised his son to be a fearsome fighter but he’s also Viktor’s trainer.

Have you ever wondered if Ivan Drago ever felt guilty about causing the death of Apollo Creed? This film suggests that he does not and that he instead blames Apollo’s friend, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), for not stopping the fight. In Creed II, Ivan and Viktor fly to Philadelphia to try to get their fight with Donnie. Ivan goes to Rocky’s restaurant by himself and he explains that, after losing to Rocky in Russia, he lost everything. Rocky went home a hero while Ivan went home with nothing. By turning his son into a fearsome boxer, Ivan is vicariously getting the career that he feels he deserved. Ivan wants Donnie to fight Viktor and Donnie wants to fight Viktor. However, Rocky wants nothing to do with it and, when you consider how big Viktor is compared to Donnie, it’s easy to understand why.

Donnie recruits Little Duke (Wood Harris, who co-starred with Jordan on The Wire) to serve as his new manager and trainer. The fight between Donnie and Viktor is a disaster, with Donnie letting his emotions get the better of him. Donnie is nearly killed in the ring but Viktor proves to be such an aggressive fighter that he loses by disqualification. Will Donnie survive the inevitable rematch with Viktor and will that rematch be fought in Moscow? Will Rocky finally agree to train Donnie and also find the courage to travel up to Canada to see his son and meet his grandson? Will Ivan realize that he’s pushing his son too hard? Even if you haven’t seen the film, you can probably guess the answers to all of those questions.

As opposed to the first film, there aren’t many surprises to be found in Creed II. It’s a well-made but thoroughly conventional boxing movie and it lacks both the grit and the attention to detail that Ryan Coogler brought to the first Creed. Running over two hours, Creed II has a few too many slow spots and even the big training montage drags a bit. That said, Creed II works wonderfully well as an epilogue to Rocky IV. The most ridiculed of the Rocky sequels actually provides a poignant backdrop to this film as both Donnie and Viktor struggle to both live up to and make peace with the complicated legacies of their fathers. Donnie finally feels worthy of his family name while Viktor shows the same type of raw courage that Rocky Balboa showed in his earlier films. Perhaps most surprisingly, Ivan Drago finally reveals his humanity. The scene where Ivan finally realizes that he’s turning his son into a machine who will not stop fighting until he is thoroughly broken is surprisingly powerful and Dolph Lundgren truly seems to be happy to have the chance to finally show that Ivan Drago is a human being after all.

Interestingly enough, Rocky Balboa spends much of the film sidelined and, even more so than in the first film, the emphasis is on Donnie’s emotional growth. It’s always good to see Stallone and he’s as likable as always as Rocky but, re-watching this film, it was easy to understand how a sequel could be made without the character’s presence. In the end, the best thing about the Creed films is that Donnie himself is a strong enough character that he can be compelling both with or without Rocky Balboa’s help.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: The Toxic Avenger (dir by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1984, The Toxic Avenger takes place in Tromaville, New Jersey, which is perhaps the ugliest city in …. well, honestly, it’s probably the ugliest city in the world. The streets are strewn with trash. The walls are covered in graffiti. The majority of the citizens are either bullies or idiots. The mayor is corrupt and totally willing to sell out his city to anyone willing to cut him a big enough check. Is it a surprise that Tromaville is also the “toxic waste capitol of the world?”

(“Forget it, Lisa. It’s New Jersey.” Hey, I hear you, Paulie.)

Tromaville is also the home of Melvin Ferd Junko III (Mark Torgl), who is so nerdy that even I was immediately annoyed by him. Melvin has a job working as a janitor at the local health club. Melvin doesn’t want to bother anyone but four members of the gym still decide to trick him into wearing a pink tutu and nearly having sex with a sheep. In typical Troma fashion, this leads to Melvin falling out of a second story window and into a vat of toxic waste. Melvin bursts into flames and jumps into a bathtub to douse the fire. However, when he emerges from the bathtub, he is no longer Melvin. Now, he is a grotesque and muscular mutant (and he’s now played by Mitch Cohen).

It’s time to get some justice!

Of course, since this is a Troma film, Melvin’s idea of justice may not be everyone’s idea of justice. Yes, Melvin does stop a lot of muggings and he does break up a drug ring. Of course, he does that by killing those criminals and allowing their guts to graphically splatter all over the street. (Cheap as this film is, it’s obvious that some care was put into creating the gore.) However, Melvin also stalks the bullies who were responsible for transforming him into the Toxic Avenger and he murders them with a sadism that is equal to their own. And again, it’s not like the bullies don’t deserve to suffer. I mean, one of the bullies is actually named Slug and he lives up to the name! (That said, you’re kind of dooming your child to a certain fate when you give him a name like Slug.) But still, it’s hard not to notice that The Toxic Avenger is a super hero who is as destructive as the villains he’s taking down. It’s a good thing that Tromaville seems to be exclusively populated by scumbags.

Actually, there are two good people in Tromaville. One is Marisa Tomei, who appears for a split second in one of her earliest roles. I simply can’t imagine that Marisa Tomei would have supported bullying Melvin. The other good person is Sara (Andree Maranda), who is blind. After the Toxic Avenger saves her from a rapist, she falls in love with him. Eventually, Sara even touches his deformed face and declares him to be beautiful. The city may be worshipping their new hero and the corrupt mayor (played by Pat Ryan Jr.) may be desperately trying to take the Avenger down but ultimately, The Toxic Avenger just wants to escape the city and be with Sara. Indeed, the saving grace of The Toxic Avenger is that Sara and the former Melvin really are a sweet couple and you really do hope things work out for them.

The Toxic Avenger, with its mix of comedy, horror, and gore, was one Troma’s first big hits and it remains one of their most popular films. (Macon Blair has directed a remake, which should be opening soon.) Personally, for me, the film is a bit too repetitive and the humor is pretty much hit-and-miss. There’s a lot of scenes, especially in the health club, that were obviously only included to pad out the film’s running time and, as such, the film takes a while to really get going. It may better than the average Troma film but that’s not exactly a hard bar to clear. That said, I did like the relationship between Sara and The Toxic Avenger. For all the crudeness and gore, the movie works best when its sentimental.

Documentary Review: Back to the Drive-In (dir by April Wright)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When I was 11 years old, I spent about a month and a half living in a motel with my mom and my sisters.

We were between homes and, since my mom didn’t really have the money to pay for our rooms, she and my two oldest sisters would work as maids during the day while my sister Erin and I stayed in our own room and watched stuff on the television that we probably shouldn’t have been watching. (“What are you watching!?” mom would say as either Erin or I grabbed the remote and tried to get the TV off of HBO as quickly as possible.) In retrospect, I know that all probably sound very dramatic and traumatic but I have to admit that, at the time, it just felt like an adventure. I was jealous of my mom and my sisters getting to wear uniforms every day and basically go anywhere they wanted to go in the motel. I would ask my mom and sisters about what they found in the rooms that they had to clean and I would beg for a chance to go with them because I figured it had to be fun to see how other people lived. They always refused and years later, my sister Megan would tell me that they usually just found discarded underwear, used condoms, and half-eaten fast food. Sometimes, I would sit in the front lobby, bothering whoever was working behind the desk and trying to overhear conversations. I would love watching the various people who checked in and out of the motel and I would imagine amazing identities and life stories for them. At night, I would listen for sounds coming from other rooms. One time, the police were called because the people below us were fighting and I remember watching the reflection of the red lights flashing across the walls of my room.

That said, I think my main memory of living at that motel was that there was a creek right next to the hotel (though I always envision it as being a raging river whenever I think back to those days) and, on the other side of that creek, there was a drive-in movie theater. Every night, I would go out on the balcony and look into the distance, at the silent images flickering across the giant screens. The fact that I couldn’t actually hear what Stallone and Schwarzenegger were saying only made the experience more enjoyable. I could make up my own stories to go along with the images. Watching those movies became a bit of a ritual for me. I had to watch every night and at the same time and if anyone tried to keep me from doing so, I would throw a fit. Though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, for me, that drive-in came to represent stability.

I found myself thinking about that drive-in as I watched the documentary Back To The Drive-In. Shot in 2021 and 2022, Back To The Drive-In cut backs and forth to tell the stories of drive-ins around the country and how they dealt with the pandemic. Every owner has their own reason for owning and loving their drive-in. Some of them are friendly eccentrics. Some of them are full of nostalgia and recreating the past. Some of them are hard-nosed businessmen who make sure to enforce the rules. My favorite was the guy who decided to that his backyard was the perfect location for a drive-in. (He calls it The Field of Dreams.) However, they all have the same basic story. Business was suddenly good during the Pandemic because their competition was closed down. However, in the post-Pandemic world, they’re facing an uncertain future.

The documentary, of course, was made before box office successes of Top Gun: Maverick, Oppenheimer, and Barbie proved that people are willing to return to theaters but the fate of America’s drive-ins are still up in the air. And that’s a shame because, as this funny and wonderfully humanistic documentary shows, the drive-in is more than just a theater. It’s an experience and once they go away, our culture is going to be just a little bit more dull. As I watched the documentary, I made note of which drive-ins are within driving distance of my home. I’ll do my part to support these temples of Americana and I hope everyone else will as well.

Save the Drive-In!

Film Review: Big George Foreman (dir by George Tillman, Jr.)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big George Foreman is a biopic about …. well, it’s right there in the title, isn’t it?

The film follows George Foreman (Khris Davis), from his poverty-stricken childhood in Houston’s infamous Fifth Ward to his current life as a beloved member of the American pop cultural pantheon. The film portrays Foreman as someone who learned how to fight early, punching out the children at his school who taunted him by calling him “George Poorman.” As a teenager, he drops out of high school and attempts to make a living as a mugger. Spending the night in a sewer and hiding from the police inspires George to try to change his life by joining the Job Corps. It’s while in Job Corps that he meets Doc Broadus (Forest Whitaker), a former professional boxer who takes George under his wing and teaches him how to work out his anger in the ring. Foreman marries, gets rich, cheats on his first wife, becomes the world champion, and is then humiliated when he loses his title to Muhammad Ali (played, in a not particularly convincing performance, by Sullivan Jones). Mired in depression and self-loathing, Foreman has a combination of a heart attack and a religious experience. He leaves behind boxing to become a preacher but, years later, an alcoholic accountant loses all of Foreman’s money and Big George is tempted to return to the ring at an age when most boxers have long since retired.

Some people know him as a fearsome boxer while others know him as the friendly face who sells grills but, regardless of what he may represent to the viewer, George Foreman’s real-life story is a compelling one and it’s pretty much impossible not to like him, even when he’s being played by an actor who is clearly not George Forman. (Personally, I’ll always remember George Foreman for his cameo on King of the Hill. “Novelty grill!? The fight’s on!”) Foreman is credited as being an executive producer on Big George Foreman and the film is evenly divided between the life of the young, decadent George who threw money around and cheated on his wife and the older, religious George who is committed to his family, his church, and his community center.

From a cinematic point of view, Younger, self-centered George is more fun to watch than Older, likable George. That’s because Younger George throws big parties, lives in a big mansion, and owns a fleet of luxury cars. Everyone around Younger George wears the height of 70s fashion and the soundtrack is full of 70s music. Younger George does stuff like put an exhibition match where he tries to knock out five fighters in one night night. Older George may be the better person and it’s good to see that he got his life together but it’s hard not to miss the decadence of the film’s first half once it skips forward in time and focuses on George Foreman as a surprisingly conventional suburban Dad.

Again, Foreman’s real-life story is a compelling one and George Foreman is an inspiring human being but the film itself is a rather conventional biopic, one that hits all of the expected moments without digging too much underneath the surface. Watching the film, one can respect the biopic’s obvious love for its subject and appreciate Khris Davis’s lead performance while also feeling that an interview with the real George Foreman would have been more compelling.

Celebrate Labor Day With The Pulps!

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

by William George Fix

Happy Labor Day!

Let’s celebrate being employed in America with the pulps with these work-filled covers!

by Fred Charles Rodewald

by Harry Schaare

by Joe DeVito

by Ken Barr

by Manuel Rey Isip

by Paul Stahr

by Robert Bonfils

by Robert Stanley

by Stanley Borack

by Eric Stanton

A Blast From The Past: Hired!

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today is Labor Day, I figured this would be a good time to share a short film about management….

Wait, that doesn’t sound right.

Well, no matter. The boss in Hired! may not be eligible to join a union but, as we can see in this 1941 film, he’s still willing to work hard. Or, at least, he’s willing to work hard after his father drunkenly calls him out for not being a very good boss. On the surface, this short film might look like it’s about Jimmy and his struggle to convince people to buy a new car. But, actually, it’s about a boss who needed to be reminded of the importance of working with his employees and helping them out. Of course, it could also be possible that Jimmy is struggling because he’s incredibly awkward for a salesman. And the boss could be struggling because he’s a middle-aged man who apparently still lives at home with his parents and takes orders from his cantankerous father. One gets the feeling that there’s enough underlying resentment in this film to fuel a season’s worth of Arthur Miller plays.

Hired! was made for Chevrolet and it was meant to teach managers how to inspire their salesmen. Of course, given that the film was made in 1941, it’s probable the Jimmy enlisted in the armed services after Pearl Harbor and eventually came back home as such a big war hero that he really didn’t need a job selling cars anymore. Instead, Jimmy ran for Congress and eventually chaired the House Oversight Committee. That’s what I hope happened.

Enjoy Hired!

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Double Nickels and At Close Range!

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie ! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1977’s Double Nickels, a film featuring many cars and many crashes!

Then, on twitter, #MondayMuggers will be showing 1986’s At Close Range, starring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken! The film is on Prime and it starts at 10 pm et!

It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Double Nickels on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then switch over to twitter, pull At Close Range up on Prime, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag!

Enjoy!

Scene That I Love: Greenwald Confronts Keefer in The Caine Mutiny

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene that I love comes from 1954’s The Caine Mutiny.

In this scene, directed by Edward Dmytryk, the Caine mutineers celebrate their acquittal when they’re confronted by their own defense attorney. Having previously exposed Captain Queeg’s paranoia on the stand, Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer) has dealt with his guilty conscience by having a bit too much to drink. He interrupts the celebration and calls out the man who he claims is the real “author of the Caine Mutiny,” the arrogant Keefer (Fred MacMurray).

This scene features Ferrer at his most vitriolic and MacMurray at his sleaziest. Fred MacMurray was typically cast as a nice, All-American guy so it’s always interesting to see him cast as a bad guy in films like this one, The Apartment, and Double Indemnity. MacMurray always tended to underplay his villains, playing them as self-centered cads who hid their true motives behind a façade of bland affability. The Caine Mutiny features one of MacMurray’s best performances.

From The Caine Mutiny:

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Edward Dmytryk Edition

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

115 years ago, on this date in Columbia, Canada, director Edward Dmytryk was born. Today, we honor this underrated filmmaker with….

4 Shots From 4 Edward Dmytryk Films