Rocky Balboa Returns in Creed ll, a.k.a. Rocky Vlll - by Johnny DiLoretto

Maybe this is crazy, but Sylvester Stallone is a genius. Sure, he’s produced more crap than a flock of geese, but he invented Rambo (the onscreen version anyway) and the beloved Rocky Balboa, one of the all-time great characters in movie history. He puts that hat on, that leather jacket, and lays down some doe-eyed, slack-jawed philosophy, and suddenly the world and my place in it seems clearer. I think it’s that way for a lot of people.

All told, there are six true Rocky films: Rocky (still a masterwork of underdog pathos), Rocky II (a smart, heartfelt sequel), Rocky III (the next logical progression in the to-riches part of the saga), Rocky IV (a short and satisfying glasnost-era melodrama), Rocky V (the one we don’t like to mention) and the absolutely underrated Rocky Balboa, a brilliant low-budget comeback that reintroduced the character after a 16-year hiatus, and that takes us back, full circle, to the spirit and scrappy indie production values of the 1976 original.

In Rocky Balboa, the former champ is lured out of retirement for an exhibition match with the current champ to breathe some life into their dying sport and to quench the never-say-die fire in Rocky’s belly. It’s Stallone’s Unforgiven, an elegiac and sweetly made send-off to the character that made him a superstar and who still inspires millions of people to face down their demons and go the distance, often by running up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

But a funny thing happened after Rocky Balboa. We didn’t want to say goodbye to the Italian Stallion just yet. Frankly, it was just so nice to see him again. The character had still more life, more fight in him and more wisdom to impart to an audience for whom humility and quiet dignity have become fast fading concepts. And, so, Creed was born.

In much the same way that Casino Royale rebooted and reinvented James Bond, the Creed movies are a savvy, baton hand-off of the franchise to a younger star and directors, but (in an inspired creative move) Stallone doesn’t do the obvious and simply write a younger Rocky into the mix, he shifts the focus to the son of his former adversary and best friend, Apollo Creed.

Rising screen sensation Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed outwardly bears little to no resemblance to Rocky. First off, the obvious, he’s black; secondly, he’s got a streetwise confidence that belies his inner sweetness; and third, he’s riddled through with daddy issues. But under Adonis’ toughness is the essential element required for these films to work: his character’s fragility, a sad, broken heart and the deep-seated desire to fight to find his self-worth. Enter Rocky as the perfect supporting character.

The Creed films put Rocky in his protege’s corner as both trainer and life coach. It’s another completely sensible and satisfying story pivot: turn Rocky into Mickey, his own former trainer and mentor. But whereas Mickey was tiny, gruff and occasionally cruel; Rocky, though sometimes reluctant, is a lumbering sweetheart always there to lift Adonis up, coach him through his toughest battles and inspire him to rise up when he’s knocked down.

It’s a testament to the timelessness of Stallone’s formula, and the ways he keeps repackaging it with sincerity and love, that the image of an underdog fighter, bruised and bloodied, getting up from the canvas to the strains of that indelible theme music still has the power to stir the heart. It’s the kind of thing that can give you the strength to fight any number of personal crises. You can apply it to nearly every one of our emotional or psychological wounds.

And that’s the beauty of this enduring character: Rocky no longer needs to fight to inspire us. We’re no longer cheering him on - he’s now squarely on Adonis’s and our side, whispering in our ears, telling us how great we can all be if we’re just willing to bear down, do the hard work, and fight through the pain and disappointment life punishes all of us with. Like he tells his estranged son in Rocky Balboa, “It’s not how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” That’s clearly not about boxing at all...

Fortunately, with Creed 2, an absolute blast that ties Adonis’s evolving story to the fourth Rocky film (in which his father is killed in the ring by the Russian juggernaut, Ivan Drago), the Rocky saga just keeps moving forward with the same invaluable lessons for a new generation. In fact, counting the new Creed movie, there are now a total of eight Rocky films: and these new movies have earned inclusion in the franchise in their own right, but mostly because Rocky is still there informing the soul of the stories.

You know, if you went through each one of these movies and edited together all the scenes where Rocky has something to say, you’d have a nice little blueprint for how to be a good man and a decent human being. Stallone can make 20 more of these movies for all I care. It’ll be a sad day when the 72-year old’s not around anymore to guide the spirit of his creation. But, like the Stallion says, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Thankfully, Creed 2 is a wildly entertaining reminder that it could do all of us a little good to go another round or two with this guy in our corner.

Johnny DiLoretto is a longtime broadcaster, media personality and performer; co-host of the long running, Cinema Classics, host of the currently on hiatus, Not So Late Show; and the director of community relations at Central Ohio’s original NPR station, WCBE 90.5 FM.



IN THEATERS NOVEMBER 21. Life has become a balancing act for Adonis Creed. Between personal obligations and training for his next big fight, he is up against the challenge of his life. Facing an opponent with ties to his family's past only intensifies his impending battle in the ring.

Gene Wilder - by Johnny DiLoretto

OK, first of all, I hope to write something that will be distinguishable from every other Gene Wilder remembrance you’ll read online or hear in the news. And, secondly, I hope to figure out why I should write something that I know probably won’t be distinguishable and therefore won’t do the man the justice he deserves. In any event, I’ll try to keep it short and refrain from as much hyperbole and proselytizing as I possibly can ... Good luck to me.

As so often happens in a media-saturated culture, a decade or two passes, and, before you know it, the finest work of our greatest performers fades from our collective memories; so distracted are we with the antics of the Kardashians and other reality television morons, some of whom eventually wind up running for president. So, I just hope that you’ll read this and you’ll want to pay Gene Wilder a visit or two.

Singular. He was singular. Gene Wilder did not look like many movie stars. There was no one like him before or since – in looks or behavior on screen. I keep hearing this phrase “great comic actor” when people talk about him. That's true, but what made him a great comic actor was that, above all, he was simply a great actor. Certainly, he starred mostly in comedies because that’s where he excelled, but why he excelled was because his performances were all so rich, so deft and full of nuance and real feeling. Few comedic actors so deeply commit to their neuroses like Gene Wilder did. He doesn't act funny - it's simply that his behavior is funny. 

We think of the movie comedy greats and we think Groucho Marx, Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, and even Will Ferrell. But these people were comedians first and if you ever got something lasting out of them, something that hit you as really humane, it was likely an accident or the result of really great directing. Now, I’m a big Jim Carrey fan, so just to head dissenters off at the pass: yes, he is a fine actor, but if you’re being honest you have to admit - especially in dramas - there’s always something a little labored about a Jim Carrey performance.

Gene Wilder never labored - even though he sometimes gave big, manic, over-the-top turns. But even his most outsized work was always rooted in human behavior.  He made humanity funny. Sometimes he made it hysterical. But he always made it human and, in making it human, he made it hilarious. Watch this scene from Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask in which he denies being in love with a sheep. Oh, he's definitely in love with it and has been having sex with it, but watch these two reactions. The first is when his wife casually comments that he smells of lamb chops and the second is when he is actually busted in a hotel room with the animal. Skip ahead to the 2:29 mark and then stick through to 3:30 for the payoff.

Wilder started his film career in the '60s with a dramatic part in Bonnie and Clyde and then rocketed to comedic stardom in Mel Brooks' The Producers. You all know those movies he made with Brooks – The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. So many great films. And don't forget that great run of fun collaborations with Richard Pryor after those. But, let’s do this thing ... His performance as Willy Wonka In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of the greatest gifts any artist gave to the world in the 20th century.  There, I said it. So much for refraining from hyperbole.

I loved that film as a kid, and I watched it a million times more with my oldest son when he was younger. I was worried that we would watch it too much, that we would watch the life out of it and I would risk ruining it for us, mostly myself really. But that's not what happened. In fact, every time we watched it, Gene Wilder bewildered me again and again. He lifted me. He charmed and challenged me. Mystified and delighted me. He gave me something new. Every damn time. And it was a lot of times, believe me. 

There are a few actors who, when you see them on screen, you instantly like them. Gene Wilder was that kind of actor, but he was something more than that. When we see Gene Wilder on the screen, not only are we instantly drawn to him, but we want him to like us. I don’t know if there’s anybody else in cinema like that. All I know is it’s a singular achievement. He was a singular achievement.

Now to be honest, I didn’t do a whole lot of research for this. But I did tool around the Internet a little bit and what I came across were some interviews with him. Of course, you should go back and see some of these films and you should certainly revisit Willy Wonka if only to hear him deliver the line, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”; or to watch his entire segment in Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex. But, if you want to see what I mean about him being so absolutely, stark raving unique is to simply watch him in a few interviews talking to other human beings. I promise, you won't be able to take your eyes off him and all the while you'll be wishing you had known him. And that he had liked you.

Johnny DiLoretto writes and stars in the Not-So-Late Show at Shadowbox. The next performance is Thursday September 29th. Click here for ticket info and details.

Your Dog Isn't Your Kid by Johnny DiLoretto

Your dog is not your kid. Don’t say you love your dog like it’s your kid. People who  say that sound… well, like an emotionally stunted idiot.

Let me tell you why. Firstly, you don’t have sex with a dog in order to get pregnant with a dog. Two, forget screwing a dog, you don’t actually ever lug around a dog fetus inside of you, letting it stew in there for a good 9 months.  And, this one goes without saying, but you never actually bear down and squeeze a cute little sopping wet puppy out of your cha-cha parts.

Furthermore, one doesn't birth just one dog. One births a litter, and even if you did birth a litter of pups you’d be forced to let them duke it out over your two tits. Don’t forget you only have two tits. To truly love a dog like your own child you’d need at least 8 to 10 tits.

So, the very idea that you love your dog like it’s your own child is flawed reasoning from the start…

But, for argument’s sake, let’s say you just acquire a dog the normal way and now you love it like it’s your kid.

Here’s the number one reason why that’s a monumentally stupid thing to say:

Because having a child is a constant reminder that you’re going to die one day and that the only thing left of you is going to be tied up in this little person who holds in their delicate grasp all your hopes, dreams, and fears. Your child is the as-yet unscrewed up miniature version of you that will carry your legacy into the future.  

You will pour everything you have – emotionally, spiritually, financially – into this person. You will watch them learn to walk, you will help them acquire the gift of speech, you will, hopefully, even teach them how to urinate and defecate into a toilet. 

Having a child is to walk through the world with the constant fear that harm might befall him, a perpetual nagging doubt that you haven’t equipped her well enough with the emotional and psychological tools to contend with other human beings; that he or she won’t measure up, that they won’t succeed, that they’ll have their hearts broken or their spirits crushed. These are fears that plague you deep in your soul. It just doesn’t hit you quite that deep when your dog gets nipped at for sniffing the wrong ass.

I know  --- I know --- people are disappointing and it’s easier to love a dog. It’s easier to love an animal that loses its shit when you get home. That’s mainly because you can’t leave a kid in a kennel all day while you’re working.

And, I know, I know --- dogs help people get through some terrible times. Dogs are wondrous creatures that have evolved alongside of humans over the last 10,000 years to provide people with protection and companionship. These animals, it’s hard to believe were once all wolves. But you’d think after 10,000 years they might be able to say something, a word at least - a “hello” or “thank you” even. Let’s face it, these are limited creatures that have been given every opportunity to grow and learn and tail wagging and leg humping are still their primary modes of expression.

But, let's move on. Don’t say you love your dog like it’s your own child because it only points up your emotional inadequacy. Grow the F up. People are hard. People will fucking let you down. Some of them want to use you, some of them want to abuse you, some of them, god only knows, want to be used by you. (Thank you Annie Lennox.) But dogs are not children. They are companions. And you should love them as such. 

The bottom line here is that we live in a world now where people just say crazy, over-the-top shit and everyone is supposed to validate everyone else’s feelings no matter how juvenile or asinine the crazy shit they say is.

It’s like having to pretend the fibromyalgia is really anything but the result of eating too many trans fats and sitting around on your ass all day.

Now, it’s okay, if you have kids, to say that you’re dog is part of the family. That’s acceptable. But it’s as freakishly annoying to treat you’re dog as your child as it would be for someone to treat their child as a dog.

Which reminds me, I gotta get home to let my kid out so he can shit in the yard.

Johnny DiLoretto is a father, husband, movie guy, comedy guy, writer, radio / television personality and  a huge Dean Martin fan. He writes stuff for Pencilstorm too.

Shark Attack Obsession! by Johnny DiLoretto

I spend a lot of time thinking about sharks.

Let me rephrase. For a guy who lives in the middle of Ohio, doesn’t travel much, and never goes into the ocean, I spend a lot of time thinking about sharks.

Yes, it’s all because of Jaws, but, more than fear, Jaws inspired in me a lifelong fascination with sharks. Can’t get enough of ‘em. Love to learn about claspers and the ampullae of Lorenzini and all that.  Look those up and thank me later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clasper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini

Photos like this are hypnotizing. You know, you could be in there...

I should also clarify that in addition to thinking about sharks, I think a lot about being eaten by a shark. Now, the Washington Post just published an article about this and here are the latest numbers: “Last year, 80 unprovoked shark strikes took place worldwide: Seven resulted in deaths, including one in California. Fifty-three strikes took place in U.S. waters, nearly half of them off Florida.”

That’s more than enough to justify my anti-frolicking-in-the-surf stance. By the way, this is also a guy who loves to fish from the shore when we vacation in the Outer Banks. And while I’m safely fishing from the beach, I intently follow all the swimmers just waiting for one of them to do that horrible jerking thing right before they’re tugged under in a gush of froth and blood.  

I know I have a better chance of being felled by a wheat penny dropped from the Empire State Building than I do of being attacked by a shark, but I’m not interested in the numbers really. Shark attacks are inevitable. They are inevitable because people go into the ocean, and there are sharks in the ocean. If sharks were found in Crate and Barrel, people would be attacked while they were shopping for sofas and flatware.

So, a couple times a year I will see the inevitable news story about someone being bitten and/or killed by a shark. I then eagerly post the story on Facebook and Twitter with an added, and I’m paraphrasing, “I told you so.” Whenever I post these shark-attack stories, beach-lovers and saltwater-swimming enthusiasts everywhere comment to the effect that I’m an idiot; that these attacks are so rare I have nothing to worry about; that more people die in car accidents every year than they do by shark attacks, and so on and so forth.

But this is the reasoning of people who, if they were fictional, would end up dead first in a horror movie.

Yes, it's Photoshopped, but you get the idea. It could happen to you..

First of all, their argument doesn’t hold up. Let me see if I have this right: More people are killed by cars than sharks, so why aren’t I afraid of cars? That's their reasoning? Well, for one, a car won't fucking eat you. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. OK, it’s unlikely, I get it, but why play that particular lottery? We play the good lottery, the big cash payout, change-your-life lottery, because despite the astronomical odds we just might win millions of dollars. But why play the bad, possibly decapitated, lose-your-life lottery? The odds are equally astronomical but if you win this one --- you get eaten by a shark. Congrats. You're a torso. 

That’s ridiculous. If you absolutely insist, by some misguided logic, on playing some variation of lethal lottery,  why not play the golf-club-in-a-thunderstorm lottery. At least you're in one piece when that one's over. 

This is the shark equivalent of having a rain cloud over you.

But, just for kicks, let’s examine this car-shark argument a bit closer. First of all, as I've mentioned, a car won’t eat you. It’s not like you’re walking down the street and suddenly a car swerves off the road, grabs you in its grill and starts thrashing back and forth, tearing off a huge piece of you before casually pulling back onto the road and driving away.

Furthermore, for this shark-car analogy to actually make any sense, we’d have to be driving sharks. And, well, now that’s just Crazy Talk.

This is not Photoshopped. This is really a man being eaten by a car. 

The bottom line is that because automobiles are manmade and because they're one of the most common things we see on a daily basis, they just don't inspire terror. We spend a lot more time in the presence of cars than sharks, so of course we're more likely to be killed by a car. In any event, I would rather die in a car accident than by shark attack. In other words, I’d rather die by blunt force trauma than by being crushed and torn apart in the gaping maw of a ruthless carnivore.

Here’s another, different way of looking at the problem. Why risk it because we may just have it coming... Humans kill more than 100 million sharks a year for no good reason, so maybe shark attacks, which are on the rise globally, are just the animals’ way of trying to even the score. I may be scared shitless of them, but I’m definitely on the sharks' side. I'm with them. Absolutely, I would attack someone if I was a shark too. With pleasure. I’d be like – “look at this guy - dicking around in my territory, swimming, splashing, flailing around like an idiot with his dopey limbs and tacky board shorts. What balls on this guy – killing 100 million of us every year for soup and he comes into my ocean? Screw this guy.” Then wham, I’d clamp down on his ribs.

Just a little food for thought. And, now, for your reading pleasure - a brief history of shark attacks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/6984067/Worlds-10-worst-shark-attacks.html

Johnny DiLoretto thinks a lot about sharks. You can read his top notch story about the  the movie JAWS by clicking here. Also check out our contributors page to learn more by  clicking here.

Why JAWS Keeps Getting Better With Age by Johnny DiLoretto

Everytime I see Jaws it gets better.

I don’t swim in the ocean because of Steven Spielberg’s movie. Yes, I’m missing out on the sheer joy of frolicking in the surf. And, yet, I take comfort in the fact I’ll never have my torso severed in two by a fish.

I love this movie. Most people consider it a horror movie, but really, it’s an adventure movie; albeit, one punctuated by a few excruciating moments of horror. Jaws is a miracle of editing, narrative pacing, and some of the finest character acting of the 70s. Roy Scheider as Chief Brody is absolutely perfect. His performance is deftly, profoundly complemented by Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper, the marine biologist, and Robert Shaw as the salt-weathered Quint, the hard-drinkin' shark fisherman. And those are just the three leads. This movie is alive with the lived-in faces of the extras and smaller roles. Amity feels like a real place, like you could step through the screen and into the street. 

Then, of course, there's the shark. In an era, when CGI effects are so egregiously overwrought, the actual physical animatronic shark, though clunky, has real physical heft and presence. It may not be a real shark, it may even look fake, but a dude is eaten by it and he’s not just thrashing around in front of a green screen. 

So, recently a friend told me that he’d read Peter Benchley’s novel and he boldly asserted that the book was better than the movie. Thinking he might be a jackass, I bought the book and read it. Turns out my friend is a jackass. The book is fun but what should have been a taut 200-page thrill ride, is a belabored, enough-already, 300-plus page diversion with aspirations to seriousness. Spielberg adapted it into an unrivaled masterpiece. 

Here are some of the changes, tweaks, and massages Spielberg made to make his movie sing:

For starters, in the book, Brody is from Amity. He grew up on the island, so there’s nothing unfamiliar about it. This is stupid. Spielberg makes Brody a NYC transplant who’s terrified of the water but trying to adapt to small town coastal life when the shark turns up on his beaches. That is brilliant. Brody is off balance, trying to find his footing from the start.

One thing movies can do that books can’t is show, and allow the audience to hear, the real-life way human beings talk over one another. You can't write words over top of words. But you can hear actors literally speak their lines over the lines of other actors. Benchley drones on for pages about the town. Spielberg in the couple of tight scenes wherein the town council members and chamber officials chatter and jockey for position, brings Amity to vibrant life. 

In the novel, Brody’s wife Ellen is a thinly drawn, vaguely dissatisfied woman who sleeps with Hooper. This is just silly filler designed to make the book seem “deeper.” It doesn’t help that the Hooper character is also flatly uninspired. Spielberg makes her a faithful wife and a concerned mother, and he gives her that great moment when Brody, after reading up on shark attacks, frantically demands his kid get out of the docked sailboat he’s sitting in. Ellen thinks he’s overreacting, until she glances at a page in one of the books and sees an illustration of a shark eating through the hull of a boat. “Michael,” she screams, “you heard your father – get out of that boat right now!”

This is the kind of smartly observed family dynamic Benchely can’t touch.

Back to the marine biologist Hooper. He’s a yawn in Benchley’s version. In the movie, we get a smart, tenacious Richard Dreyfuss who bonds with the harried police chief despite their class differences.  The two become friends, bonding over the challenge of cutting through Amity’s small town culture to solve their shark problem. From the minute Hooper surveys the damage of the first victim, and chides the selectmen that “this was no boating accident!” Brody’s on his side and so are we.

That scene doesn’t even exist in the book, by the way.

It’s no accident that Brody and Hooper swim off together at the end like Rick and Renault walking off into the night at the end of Casablanca. That classic friendship is deliberately echoed here.

Spielberg makes a number of other brilliant changes to Benchley’s book too. Most notably with Quint. Benchely’s Quint is Ahab redux. All seafarin’ growl and piratey bluster. He introduces us to the character in a 5-page phone conversation. Spielberg gives us the nails-on-a-chalkboard entrance and the line “for that, I’ll give you the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.” Spielberg all the way on that one.

The director also gives us the inestimably great Robert Shaw, who’s not the one-dimensional shark-hating psychopath of the book. By giving his Quint the monologue about surviving the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the blue shark feeding frenzy that consumed hundreds of men, Spielberg humanizes Quint, gives him a context for his shark obsession, and tragically foreshadows his spectacular demise.

In the book, Quint drowns like Melville’s Ahab. Dumb. In the film, he’s devoured in gut-wrenching high style.

I could go on. But let me end with this: in the book, Brody’s family is relegated to a few tossed off lines just to let us know he has one, I suppose. In the movie, he’s a father, his children swim and boat in these waters, and you can feel him weighing his every decision – how his every move might reverberate through the town or put his family in peril.

One of my favorite scenes in, not just Jaws, but in all of American cinema is the one following Brody’s comeuppance after a young boy is killed by the shark. (The child’s mother learns Brody knew about the first victim and that he failed to close the beaches. She publicly humiliates him with a smack to the face and the accusation that he was responsible for her son’s death.)

After this Spielberg cuts to the Brody family dinner table. Everyone has eaten; their places have been cleared. Ellen is washing dishes while a dejected Brody broods in his chair. We know the death of the boy wasn’t his fault, but, being a decent human being, he can’t help but consider his culpability.

He sighs and buries his face in his hands. When he peeks out from behind his fingers, he notices his youngest son, unaware of the true heft of his father’s burden, playfully imitating his every move. Brody plays along for a moment before he leans toward the boy and says “Give us a kiss.” “Why?” the kid asks. “Because I need it,” Brody replies, with the genuinely deflated air of a man beaten by a bad day at work and of a father seeking the affirmation of his child's love -- the child he is blessed to still have sitting across from him beautifully alive. 

I admit I cry every time I see this scene; and not because it’s some big, emotional moment. It’s just a small, sincerely realized moment of humanity. It’s the smallness of it that gets me – to see this truth played out: that sometimes, yes, indeed, a kiss from your child can cure many ills.

But it’s also the mark of a director in supreme command of his craft, taking some thrilling, pulpy material and transforming it into something human and unforgettable.

Johnny DiLoretto is a man of many talents. You can learn more about him and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here.