Aug 25 2008

Yo!

Published by Fence under Ramblings, Shiny, TV

Okay, can some one kindly tell me where this last year has gone? Cause look, it is time for this year’s RIP Challenge. Decisions decisions. But I think I’ll go with the first peril, reading any four books from any subgenre of scary-ness. I just got to go find them now. I think that The Host by Stephenie Meyer qualifies, so that’ll be one. And I’ll have to take a gander through the tbr pile to see if any of those fit. And then probably a trip to Chapters and book buying. But its all good, I haven’t been there in at least 2 months, I’ve been very good about not buying books. I think it is time for a splurge.

I haven’t quite managed to keep up with the two proper blogs a week that I mentioned a while back. But you know, intentions are worth just as much as deeds, right?

Yeah, okay, so thats a lie. But you just gotta deal.

Spent most of Sat. watching the telly. Well, I say telly, I mean dvds. And I know that I’ve mentioned this before, but I just love Rocky Balboa. It is just brilliant. Full of cliché and sentimental shots, but it just works. Rocky just works. Still have to watch the commentary, that’ll be fun.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of rewatching stuff lately. Over the past few weeks I’ve been rewatching Firefly. Its been a while. Don’t think I’ve seen any of those episodes since the film[1] came out. And that was years ago[2] It is so great. Every time we’re about to watch a new episode I say “oh this is a great one” or “I love this one”. We just got up to Out of Gas last week. Awww. Watching them all get together and seeing Mal fall in love with the ship.

Oh, and while I’m moaning about time flying, when did it get to be the end of August? For those of you not in Ireland, well, maybe you lot got a summer. Us, we got rain. Followed by more rain. Followed by some more.

So where was our summer? huh? Life is so unfair sometimes…

Linknotes:
  1. in 2005 people. 2005! ↩
  2. which is scary. I mean, years! Where does the time go. ↩
Tags: awww, brilliant, Firefly, rewatching, RIP Challenge, Rocky, Rocky Balboa, Serenity, Stephenie Meyer, telly, The Host

Related posts

6 responses so far

Jan 27 2007

Rocky Balboa

Published by Fence under Moving Pictures, Sport

Writ & Dir: Sylvester Stallone

  • Sylvester Stallone - Rocky Balboa
  • Burt Young - Paulie
  • Milo Ventimiglia - Rocky Jr.
  • Geraldine Hughes - Marie
  • James Francis Kelly III - Steps
  • Antonio Tarver - Mason ‘The Line’ Dixon

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usIt isn’t often that you describe a boxing film as sweet. It isn’t often I describe a film as sweet and mean that in a positive light, but if I was asked for a one word review of Rocky Balboa, then sweet would be it. And that is sweet in an “awwww” sense of the word, not the Col. O’Neil from SG type sweet.

Honestly, I think this is my favourite film of the year so far.

I know, it is only January, and the films I’ve seen so far haven’t been great, but I really, really enjoyed this film. I’m not saying it a great piece of art or anything, it is what it is, a Rocky film.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who greeted the news that Stallone was making a new Rocky film with a snort of laughter. I enjoyed the first film, and have seen a few of the others, RTE had a Rocky season at some stage, but I never loved any of them. And I fully expected this to be a piece of drivel. But then I saw some of the trailers, and began to want to see it. And, lo, it was great.

You know the basic plot, Rocky, in his fifties starts to think about making a comeback in a small way. Fighting in local, small bouts, because a fighter is all he has ever been. But the current undisputed world heavyweight champ isn’t too popular. He wins all the time, and his opponents don’t offer much, so the public begins to turn away. His promoters are worried about the lack of revenue, so when a tv show uses a computer simulation to find out who would win, Mason “The Line” Dixon or Rocky “The Italian Stallion” Balboa in his prime, and Rocky wins, they get very interested.

Can I say again I really enjoyed this film. From the little flashbacks and echoes to the earlier films, that music, everything was just right.
Is it clichéd and full of cheese? Yes, but in a good way. In a way Rocky has pretty much the same message as The Pursuit of Happyness, but it lacks the selfishness that I think was at the heart of my problem with that film. Instead of trying to succeed at anything in particular Rocky is about being true to yourself. Taking all the knocks life has to offer and still moving on.

This’ll be one I add to the dvd collection, I may even buy the earlier films, even the ones I know are trash. No pain no gain afterall.

IMDb | First Showing | Cinematical | Flimsy.com | Word of Mouth (scroll down for Rocky)

Image source

Tags: 10 Stars, Antonio Tarver, awwww, boxing, Burt Young, clichéd, fictional characters I love, fictional heroes, flashbacks, Geraldine Hughes, James Francis Kelly III, Milo Ventimglia, Rocky, Rocky Balboa, sports film, sweet, Sylvester Stallone

Related posts

7 responses so far

Jan 26 2007

Celebrate!

Published by Fence under Ramblings

Went to see Rocky Balboa this evening and I totally loved it. It may just be nostalgia, or the way the audience reacted, but Rocky really is one of the greatest fictional characters in movie-land. Anyone catch that dragon film, what was it called, you know where dragons came back and decimated the world and the poster seemed to promise us fighter planes v dragons, but the film didn’t bother to deliver. Reign of Fire! That was it. Okay, if you’ve seen it, remember where they re-enact classic scenes from Star Wars as entertainment for the children? Well I bet they did Rocky too :)

Okay, so I missed Robbie Burns day, and St. Dwynwen’s Day but better late than never. And while I’m here, happy Australia Day, and Republic Day in India

Tags: fictional characters I love, fictional heroes, nostalgia, Rocky Balboa

Related posts

5 responses so far