The fight choreography is particularly bad in this film, almost laughable (I think Clubber Lang takes about 20 right hand jabs to the face in a row at one point). But I still love it.
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I wonder how much of that filmās structure and pacing is down to the limitations of Mr T. There was a great skit in the Spitting Image book about how Mr T was not typecast. After all, heād played a black aggressive heavy man in Rocky II and a heavy aggressive black man in The A Team.
His range of expression makes the late Roger Moore look like a Jim Carrey rubber man. Those fight scenes, especially the second fight, remind me a lot of his driving in the A-Team. Left right, left right, continuously. Was doing the same with his footwork in the ring.
Iāve always had problems with the Rocky films for realism. Sure, people have fought to tire people out before, Ali vs Foreman being the big one, but Ali didnāt get several fucking unguarded roundhouses to the chin, as Rocky does in Round 2.
The overall problem I have with the Rocky films is the white male fantasy thing. Rocky spends most of his time fighting black dudes. The best white dude he ever faced killed the best black dude he ever faced. Iām well aware that most successful heavyweight boxers are black, and that I may be being retrospectively over-sensitive.
To be fair to the films, the portrayal of Apollo and his people was always top notch, providing some of the best scenes in them. Whoāll ever forget āheās all wrong for us, babyā?
Iām onto IV now, the film that ended the Cold War 
Just watch Raging Bull and bin this shite.
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IV has the best montage by a fucking mile.
The montage in raging bull is terrible.
Yes, I remember it well. Rocky outruns his Russkie handlers and pegs it up a mountain. I am presently watching the wardrobe scenes before the fight. I am struck by how many chances Apollo has to live, retrospectively, of course.
Rocky tries to talk him out of it several times. Apollo is a dick. Hoping to see his nipper do one better in Creed 2. Iām out after this. There will be no Rocky V rewatch.
So am on the Russia portion of Rocky IV. They didnāt actually go to Russia. They went here.
Loads of film crews did.
Rocky IV will never be the same.
Next youāll be telling me Return of the Jedi was filmed in Epping forest not on Endor.
Nah, that actually was on Endor. Never mind south of the river, the taxi drivers made a killing on surcharges during filming.
sharp intake of breath Ooh, thatās a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, mate.
etc.
I think next for you conniseurs is this
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What was the scene in Airplane 4 advertising Rocky 38 or some such number .
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Seem to remember something like that. Anyway, I got out to see Creed 2 tonight. Itās a solid sequel, and for a film with so many roots in the rather ridiculous Rocky IV, it actually plays it kind of straight.
Creed begins the movie on the up. Heās had seven successful straight wins, and has risen through the ranks to become #1 contender. Over in Ukraine, an exiled and estranged Ivan Drago is training his son to be a boxer. The elder Drago lost everything following his loss to Balboa.
Doesnāt take long for beef to develop, and the drama that unfolds puts Adonis Creed in some very similar situations to those his father and his trainer.
Michael B Jordan is excellent, playing Adonis as someone that despite the success, is very much not the finished article. Stallone also shines again as the sage old veteran, although he has less to do here. Wood Green provides much of Creedās training in his role of Little Duke.
If youāve seen Creed, youāll not be disappointed. This is definitely a better sequel to that film than Rocky II was to the original.
Kid Goat and I watched āA Quiet Placeā last night. Pretty good if you like a scare/alien invasion.
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Donāt care that itās capeshit. I saw it in the cinema, dammit.
Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse. First of all, as a long term comics fan, I find it very weird that I can go into a cinema in 2018 and watch an animated Spider-Man film that features the rather dubious talents of āSpider-Hamā, a.k.a. Peter Porker, whose extra powers include being able to float on the wafts of tasty pies.
Itās a deep delve into the multiple Spider-Man universes that were created in the early 1980s and riffed upon whenever Marvel got a bit bored or wanted to milk the fans for cash. The main protagonist of the movie is Miles Morales, a new Spider-Man learning the ropes, dealing with not only the death of Spider-Man from his own universe, but multiple threats from elsewhere.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gets silly at times, but it never loses its heart, and great to see Miles Morales rightfully take his place in the Spider-Verse.
Venom. Didnāt get a good showing from the critics, but plenty of my extended nerd crew said that they enjoyed it. I thought it pretty decent, despite the meddling with the origin story. In the comics, and in the third Raimi film, Venom grew out of Peter Parker before transferring to Eddie Brock, a reporting rival that hates Parker. Thereās little of that here. Brock did lose a job in New York, but has transferred to San Francisco.
Itās all a little ridiculous, and the central villain just isnāt credible, but I am not sure what people were expecting. This is Venom, itās supposed to be over the top. I enjoyed it and suspect most fans would too.
And did Tom Hardy shine?
Sat down to watch this last night avec la famille C_S and Lil Sis and Broā in law after a belly buster Pre-Xmas turkey & trimmings dinner. Couldnāt believe they hadnāt seen it.
A lovely film to revisit
Revelation of the day is Young Adult#2 (formerly known as Teenage Mutant) is a bit of a film buff and kept pointing out who the actors were and others stuff heād seen them in - even some of the less well known ones. Now we know why his test results at college probably could be betterā¦
Iāve been obsessing over Queen since I watched this, never really realised how much they influenced me growing up, especially having 2 older brothers that would play their music to me, and how much I loved Flash Gordon as much as Star Wars (2 perfect scores for 2 perfect films). I think Queen will provide most of the soundtrack for my new years eve drinking 
Fun fact, the guy who plays John Deacon in the film was the kid from Jurassic Park.
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I think it was Ted who was banging on about āBaby Driverā a while back, and I like Edgar Wright so I finally got round to watching it. I thought it was shit and the main feature of the soundtrack driving the narrative and timing felt forced and distracting/jarring. I didnāt like any of the main characters and it gave me a headache. 1/10.
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So I suppose Bandersnatch goes in here? Just watched it. Think I have a headache.
Charlie Brooker eh? Heās just too good.