Speaker #0hello everyone and welcome to movie goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and today we crawl into the boxing ring we go back in time to 19 1976, 50 years ago, and review a film that has been described as the greatest sports movie of all times. Now, it's debatable. A lot of people have Hoosiers or Remember the Titans, and there are other films that fall into that category. But more often than not, depending on who you talk to. the vast majority would probably look at rocky and rocky is i don't know if it's the greatest sports movie of all time in my opinion but it is definitely one of the greatest inspirational movies of all time this this movie will hype you up to a degree that no other film could do and the whole franchise had a way of doing that even the bad ones they had a way of touching a part of your soul that you didn't think could be touched it's just a weird weird feeling when you watch a movie like rocky rocky is that rare film that can touch multiple generations race gender creed uh a religious background political background it don't matter rocky is that film that touches everybody man woman child don't it doesn't matter and i still after all these years don't understand why that movie affects so many people the exact same way you're i have yet i'm pretty sure there's somebody walking about, maybe a few people walking about. that don't like rocky i haven't met one i haven't met one person in my circle that did not like rocky or rocky two three four rocky balboa decreed films i don't know anybody that don't like those movies and if they do they'll point out a flaw here or there but overall they're like but i love that movie man that movie gets you to cheer that movie gets you to stand up and clap that movie gets you just hyped up to do whatever whether it's to go to work or to play a game or get ready for a game or whatever it may be it gets you hype and so in that regard yeah i guess it is probably one of the greatest sports films of all time but for me personally it touches something deeper and not only does the film do that but the story behind the making of this film and how it came to be is even more inspirational than the actual movie and they actually made a movie about that too yes today is a special one not only are we celebrating the 50th anniversary of rocky but we're going to review the film that that's based on a development and production of the film rocky i play rocky and i had the privilege of seeing this movie early i was lucky i ain't even know i was going to see this movie it was just one i just lucked up and saw it early and so we're going to discuss the behind the scenes of rocky when we review i play rocky but first let's review the original the 1976 classic i mean classic rocky the film is written and starring sylvester stallone this is the first installment of the rocky film series and it also stars tyler shire burt burt young call weathers and Burgess Meredith and in the film Rocky Balboa is a poor small-time club fighter and long short debt collector in philadelphia he gets uh unlikely once in a lifetime shot at the world heavyweight championship held by apollo creed this film is directed by john avidson and this is the same director who went on of what about 10 years after this or maybe eight years after this he directed the karate kid where ralph macchio and carried similar themes to rocky uh just in a teen setting and instead of boxing there was actual karate in it but uh he's a pretty pretty competent director i would say if you go back and look at his filmography but this film is definitely like i see it in the open. one of the most inspirational films you're ever going to watch it is so good so well written so well acted by so many people everybody involved i mean to the point where when these characters kept returning for sequel after sequel after sequel you know they became these characters they are these characters uh sylvester stallone up to this point had only been in like one other film or maybe two and one of the two was a porno or something but he he was amazing in this role and and rightfully so i would hope he would be being as though he wrote it i would think he would know his self and his limitations and his uh strengths and he really put it on the page and it just helped his character even more He wrote it around himself. And, you know, that's what good writing does. You know, when you're writing, you want to write what you know. And who knew Sylvester Stallone better than Sylvester Stallone? And that character, the character of Rocky Balboa, especially in this first film, is probably the most vulnerable we ever seen Sylvester Stallone. you know going by his uh filmography after all this this you know he blew up after this rambo and all these other uh films the expendables and uh devilish man and all those good movies you know just this certified action hero where he was just known for having huge muscles and carrying big guns and killing people but he actually can act he truly can act and you in this movie i've never seen him so vulnerable i've never seen him so giving you know as an actor and uh to share the screen with so many talented performers that he did you know with burt young and carl weathers and uh uh uh burgess meredith it is it is amazing you know they don't make movies like this no more it's really frustrating you know when i went back and watched this to prepare for this show i just got frustrated because i was like man why they don't make movies like this just just simple stories just story the story was so intriguing no it wasn't two hours of boxing matches and you know blood and punching people and all this here no it wasn't that it was character the development it was a love story that developed organically there was a turmoil that went on behind the training up to this fight then there was the training to get to the fight and then it was all earned at the end once we got to the fight you know it was an actual satisfying fight in a realistic fight you know it wasn't a fight where or a movie where Yep. the hero we knew and spoilers to a 50 year old movie a hero that's just gonna win at the end and you know right off into the sunset with the heavyweight championship belt he lost at the end he lost to the champion and rightfully so because he wasn't there yet until we got to the sequels and it made sense you know it made sense and so i believe this movie if felt real it felt like a a biography of sorts and i think when sylvester stallone came up with this concept and wrote this screenplay it it was based on him he is rocky and i'll touch in and touch in on it a little bit more once we go over i play rocky because that's basically what the story is about uh uh him getting to this point to make this movie but i'll touch a little bit on it by saying that yes this is his story more of a semi all the bad autobiographical film about his journey to achieve his dream you know and as i said in the open how this this touches everybody i don't care if you're black white whatever it touches everybody because we all have dreams we all have goals in life we all have something that we are reaching for and You know, it's not easy. It's crazy how whatever we dream about, whatever we desire to do in life, is always the hardest thing to achieve. You ever notice that? And it gets tiresome. It gets hard. It gets to the point where you want to give up and just say, forget it. You know, I'm just going to live my life the way I'm living it, you know? Be content with... being content you know that you're not going to achieve it you give up you fold but there is something in a lot of people sadly not at all but in a few people that have that extra little willpower to push forward to to clear every hurdle and despite the fact that you got bad knees to climb a mountain even though you have a bad back you know you still have that extra power in you to keep pushing forward and no character in film i don't care you can go back a hundred years uh to whatever movie you want to choose yeah they have inspirational characters throughout movie history but no character in the history of film or television displays that more accurately than the character of rocky balboa especially in the first one the other films were what they were i loved them i love those movies you know uh even the ones that got super cheesy and you know me personally i know this is kind of off topic but it's still in in this franchise me personally my favorite is rocky 3 i love rocky 3 rocky 3 just checked boxes that i didn't have on my application to start off you know it just it just touched in on so much uh having it all losing it all and getting it all back uh uh going up against your greatest foe and all this other stuff it was just a lot piled in in rocky 3 that made it exciting and especially lead. with the addition of Mr. T who at the time was like the toughest SOB on on earth you know and this is who Rocky Balboa had to go up against and it was like man this is probably going to be his toughest his toughest battle to date and I still feel it was his toughest battle to date I know a lot of people gonna say Ivan Drago I get it yeah that was tough that was definitely tough but none like mr t none like clover lane clover lane physically beat rocky mentally beat rocky and spiritually beat rocky up it was the entire movie all three phases were whipped by clover lane in that movie that's why i loved it and when he overcame that. It was even more. of an achievement than the other films in my humble opinion that is just mine if you want to say the first rocky is the greatest one i'm not arguing that point because it is excellent it is close to a perfect film as you can get this i love the the kind of documentary style that they shot this on and there's a lot of reasons for that because it was so low budget this was like done on the cheap They kind of had to shoot this guerrilla style in order to get it made because the studio really wasn't, you know. uh putting a lot of money behind it because of sylvester stallone he wasn't a big star he wasn't a star at all and so studios want a big star a big name behind it in order to market it and you know get funding and stuff like that so when you get a lesser known person as the lead yeah they're not gonna put a lot of money behind it so this movie had next to nothing behind it and Honestly, that made the film better. I think it made it better, giving it that kind of guerrilla documentary-style feel to where it feels more authentic. And when a movie is authentic, it resonates better. Hence, why we're sitting here 50 years later, almost to the date that we're talking about this movie. We're still celebrating this movie. Multiple sequels have spawned off from this film, as well as spinoffs when you want to talk about Creed. You know, they're making a movie or made a movie about making this movie. That's how powerful of a film this is. As I said, there's not really much you can say about this movie other than the fact it is awesome. It is well acted, well directed. Beautifully written and rightfully described as one of the greatest films of all time. Rocky from 1976, 50 years ago, gets a letter grade of an A+. Absolutely excellent film that came out 50 years ago. And it was recognized back then. It's not like it's... just now getting this flowers it was nominated for 10 academy awards uh the year it came out and it won three of them one of those three was best picture uh this little film off of a budget of one million dollars and it barely got the million dollars as far as a budget it didn't have that much. A lot of moving and shaking had to be made during filming in order to continue to fund this movie just to get it to a million dollars to finish to put out a finished product i should say and it end up grossing 225 million dollars worldwide i will i would go on uh i'll put my head on a chopping block and say it was a success it was a certified hit Oh, I forgot to mention the music, the theme song, the score. Top notch, man. How can we forget the iconic score that came from Rocky? It is not only the score, but the film itself. It has become a pop cultural phenomenon. You know, it is an important part of the 1970s pop culture and the filmmaking movement that took. place around that era i mean think about all the films that came out around 1976 you know with star wars and the godfather and so on and so jaws all these classic films came out around that era and still is a part of pop culture right now today but in 2006 the library of congress selected Rocky for preservation in the United States national. film registry for its cultural historical significance so with that being said now we can dive into kind of the behind the scenes of it all and normally when i do a retro review we touch in on a couple of behind the scenes things but they made a movie about it so i don't have to i don't have to talk about it during the uh review i can just review the film that talks in on the behind the scenes of it and it is of course the 2026 film starring anthony palito as sylvester stallone i play rocky uh anthony palito who i only seen in one other thing and that was the offer that that tv show on i think it was paramount about the making of the Godfather. which was a really really good show but on that show he plays a young al pacino And he nailed it. He really nailed the role of Al Pacino in that film or in that TV show. So when they announced he was cast as Sylvester Stallone, first thought was like, okay, so he's just going to play Italians, you know, historical Italians that we know. All right, that's fine. But then if you see him in the offer, you're like. No way he's going to be Sylvester Stallone. He's going to have to eat a lot of chicken, and he's going to have to drink a lot of raw eggs in order to bulk up to be a Sylvester Stallone, especially a Sylvester Stallone in 1976. And so the first trailer came out, and I'm like, whoa. Whoa, okay, he got the look. He got the look. I'm with that. but can he be sylvester stallone can he be sylvester stallone without it coming off as a parody as a joke you know he's just doing an impression that's that's what my concerns were at that point uh this film was directed by peter fairley who is no stranger to jokes and uh pair parodies being as though he is one of the directors uh along with his brother of such classic comedy films as Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary and Me, Myself, and Irene, which is hilarious. What was the bowling one with Woody Harrison and Randy Quaid? I can't remember the name of it. I'm blanking on it. But that was funny, too. But anyways, he kind of departed from that, you know, kind of split from his brother. I don't think it was any beef. I think they just went their own path. but he directed the green room not green room green book yeah two completely different uh green book that went on to win best picture at the academy awards and i must say that is the one fairly movie that i never watched and really have no desire to watch it and the reason i have it is because it's not accurate and i didn't watch it because of that i already knew it wasn't accurate And so I said, nah, it looked like it was going to be good. You know, Mahershala Ali, Viggo Morgensen, yeah, they are phenomenal actors. But I just didn't want to watch it because of the historical accuracy of it all. But hey, it won Best Picture. Of course, that's not saying much because we've seen a lot of movies win Best Picture that, you know, hindsight is 20-20. You're like, really? I'm looking at you, Moonlight. But anyways, he dove in as the director of this film, which follows the development and production of the film Rocky from 1976. Starring along Anthony Palito is Anna Sophia Robb, Toby Kebbell, P.J. Byrne, Jay DePlantis, 504 Boy representing Matt Dillon, Stephen James. and tracy letts this movie gave us all of the behind the scenes development of rocky and how it all came to be uh not gonna spoil anything which i'm pretty sure everybody knows the story on how it all came to be uh just the clip notes version sylvester stallone he wanted to uh he was a struggling actor put it that way he was struggling to get roles because of his you the way he spoke you know his father described it as uh his mouth like he got a uh a mouthful of rocks when he talked uh so he he it was difficult for him to find movie roles or roles period because of his accent i guess you could say because he was very thick and kind of slurred and you think he was kind of slow if you ever always thought and i meant this with all due respect i always thought sylvester stallone was a little slow you know the way he talked and that's why you should never ever ever drudge a book by its cover you know there's reasons for that people have lisp people have stutters people have uh any reasons you know uh you could probably dislocate your jaw one time and it doesn't line up right and you just have a way of talking that don't mean that you're slow you You know, it just means that your speech patterns are a little off than what you would. consider normal but there was nothing wrong there's nothing wrong with sylvester stallone sylvester stallone is a very highly intelligent individual you know so he was hard for him to find roles because of his speaking as i was saying so his girlfriend at the time who later became his wife encouraged him hey well if you can't find a movie role maybe you should write a movie role for yourself and he tried it he decided to do it and the way the movie depicts it and the way that i read about it years ago is completely different you know the way he did it uh rumored allegedly he wrote this in one weekend the real sylvester stallone uh he sat down and Rope. this in one weekend and i don't know if anybody out there has ever attempted to write a screenplay uh or have written a screenplay or read a screenplay but that is virtually impossible that is that is hard it is no way you could do that you know theoretically it's no way you could do that unless you have played it out in your head for a portion of time and came up with it you know and you just was able to spew it out on paper but he came up with the concept wrote it down and had it all uh typed up because hey no computers back then had it all typed up and presented to producers one weekend and so uh the film doesn't really show it like that now i don't know which is true well let me start off by saying this do i believe every little thing that happened in i play rocky is historically accurate no no do i think it's uh deviation deviating from the historical effects as bad as the green book no but i just i just know they took liberties yeah i know there are some changes that they made but the movie doesn't really display the time lapse between when he started and when he finished writing it i think they did mention it one of the producers mentioned oh you wrote this in such and such days i'm fuzzy on when they said it but yeah it wasn't 100 accurate with that but you get the gist of it all either way if it took him 20 years to write it he did it and it was a brilliant script that the producers had immediately read it and said this is great we need to make this and got behind it and championed for this movie to be made and initially the studios were like nah well i mean we'll make the movie you know we'll we'll pay him for writing the movie but he can't star in it and the whole stipulation for sylvester stallone was i'm playing rocky I play Rocky, hence the title. I play Rocky. I'm not bended. And so they shot off an offer. He turned it down. They shot off a second offer. They kept upping the money. They upped it up to, I think it was close to a million dollars. It was close to a million dollars. And you got to understand, he was poor. He was struggling. He had a wife, a baby on the way, but he... bet on himself he bet on himself he was not going to accept it he wanted to play rocky and he wasn't bending until he got the okay to play rocky and after back and forth negotiating back and forth back and forth back and forth finally the studio bent but there was a stipulation okay he can play rocky but we're not putting the money behind it And hence why you got the $1 million budget. And I think the initial offer for the budget was $750,000 or something like that. $750,000 to produce it. Which is about as low budget as you can get. There are independent films made for more money than that. And so they had to accept it. They had to run with it. That's how the director got hired because he's known for shooting fast, only doing one takes, you know, getting in and out of sets and all this other stuff. So it was a display of the push to get this movie made. And the way this movie was made was inspirational in itself. And the way that... Anthony, uh, Polito plays this character of Rocky. No, it's not rock, not just Rocky, but Sylvester Stallone was amazing. He did a fabulous job as Sylvester Stallone because my fears of him being a parody, you know, or an impression of Sylvester Stallone were immediately, immediately. thrown out the window once he hit the screen because i felt like i was watching a young sylvester stallone i didn't feel like i was watching an actor trying to be sylvester stallone and that takes skill that takes some real skill and man hats off to anthony for his performance here one one of the best performances i've seen all year uh i hope that he gets talked about when we get to award consideration time because he really really really did an excellent job as this character uh i keep saying character but it's it's it's sylvester stallone uh the rest of the cast was fairly well the chemistry between anthony and uh anna sophia robb was pitch perfect as his first wife as sasha uh his driving force, his voice of reason, his motivation, his muse even. And I loved her performance here. This is probably the best performance I've seen from her. And I remember her all the way back to when she was a little tight, you know, on the screen. And to see her grown up and given performances like this really, really made me want to stick my chest out. I felt proud of her. I mean, not to say that I... thought she was bad but it she took it to another level here um good on her uh another great performance i think the standout performance to me was uh pj burn who you probably saw from multiple films he's a uh really good character actor uh most comedic roles and he comedic in here but he plays one of the producers i can't remember which one but he plays one of the producers that's uh fighting for sylvester stallone in this film i just loved his performance it's nothing special it was just really really good him and toby kebbell uh who played both producers of this movie uh toby kebbell i remember years ago hollywood was trying to make him a guy you know make him the guy and none of his projects took off you know he had that failed attempt as portraying uh dr doom in that horrible fantastic four film you know with uh miles teller and michael b jordan and all that that that was just a dumpster fire that whole movie was bad so you can't blame not one individual i don't blame none of the actors especially toby kevill he didn't know he didn't know but he was in multiple films and it just never got there but i always felt he was a good actor he just never got got latched on to the right project you know here he's really good uh as one of the producers of the film um a possible supporting actor best supporting actor nod may be going to matt dylan in this film he's not in it long he's only in a couple of scenes in this film but the two scenes that he was in were really important and he brought it out you know he he i mean they throw away scenes to be honest with you especially the last scene we see him in it's such a throwaway scene but it's something there it's just it's something in that performance that was so great you wish you would have saw more of him and as a fan of matt dylan who Wish he was bigger than what he currently is it was a joy to see him in such a prominent role here as uh sylvester stallone's dad oh bro i just loved his performance i loved it i was mad because it wasn't any more of him in the movie but the little that we did get was was was great um my biggest takeaway from the movie positive positive is the look of it the feel of This movie felt like It was made in 1976. It feels like a 50-year-old movie, and not in a bad way. It just fits in. It doesn't feel like a modern telling of a story that took place 50 years ago. It felt like a movie that they shot right alongside of Rocky, the making of Rocky, and they're just releasing it 50 years later. That's how it feels. It just has that feel, and that's a big shout out to Peter Farrelly and the cinematographer and the production designers who really made this feel like it was set in 1976. With all that being said, the movie wasn't perfect. It had its flaws, and I think partially because we saw a lot of the story. We saw a lot of... how the film came to be but i wish we would have got a little bit more of the other stories that surrounded the making of rocky like the casting of call reathers there's a lot of story behind that that wasn't touched in on i think we only got like two scenes with uh the apollo creed call weathers of it all we only got two scenes with the uh Adrian of it all. You know what I'm saying? It didn't really touch in on those characters. Now, I know that this film is centered around the POV of Rocky, of Sylvester Stallone. That's who's telling the story. That's the narrative. I understand that. And that's cool. But there are so many more characters that are important. to the rocky franchise like apollo creed like adrian like uh mickey you know we wanted to at least i did i wanted to see more of that how these characters came to be and uh give us a little more background on why these characters are important for example there's a scene in the movie where they're trying to cut the budget trying to cut back and there's a scene that the producers wanted to cut out. And Sylvester Stallone was like, well, no, we can't cut this scene out. I know we can't afford it, you know, but we need this scene. This scene is important because this is the scene that sets up this particular plot in Rocky. You know, it all culminates here. You know, this is where it started. Without this scene, that particular storyline doesn't work. and i'm dancing around it because i don't want to spoil what it is but uh i can't cut this scene and he was serious about it and you felt you felt the emotion behind it and you understood why the producers decided to keep the scene and fought to keep the scene and made sacrifices to fund it to make sure that they had the money to shoot this scene but other than that We didn't get anything else about that character, you know, on why that scene was important. We just were told that that scene was important. Now, for those of us who watched Rocky, and I'm assuming that's 99% of this population on Earth that's seen it, yeah, you get it. But if you've forgotten how important that scene was or that storyline was... You're watching I Play Rocky and you're like, well, you don't really feel that, you know, you get what I'm saying? So at least I hope you do. I hope you get it. But I just didn't feel it in the movie because it wasn't a spawned upon in that movie. I shouldn't have to go back in my Rolodex in my filmography and like, OK, well, in Rocky. such and such happens this is in that scene is important because of the setup in the actual film and there are a couple of scenes in the movie like that uh they're set up a scene and how the scene plays out in I Play Rocky, why it's important, and why they try to nail a take. But you have to really have a reference to it by watching Rocky. It would have been nice to have watched this movie, not being a Rocky fan, and just appreciate the movie. I think the movie gets more appreciation for Die Hard. rocky fans as opposed of people who aren't super rocky fans who just want to watch this movie about sylvester stallone struggling to get this movie made and really feeling it and being inspired by it and even being inspired to go back and watch rocky again you know and maybe have a greater a greater appreciation for it and i don't think the movie does a good job of that and so for that reason That's why it's not the greatest of movies. I want it to be, you know, on the level of Rocky. I didn't expect it to be as good as Rocky because this is a depiction of how the movie got made. So it doesn't have that same pop. But with that being said, it is still an inspirational movie in the sense of watching Sylvester Stallone make sacrifices. pursuing his dream of being an actor and ultimately achieving that goal and willing willing to literally eat dog food if need be and to pursue that dream it isn't inspirational and i don't think it's as inspirational as rocky himself but of course that's a hollywood movie so you know it's gonna have sunshine and rainbows attached to it as opposed to real life. With that being said, I Play Rocky gets a letter grade of a B+. Yeah, it is really good. If you're a Rocky fan, if you love the movie Rocky or any of the Rocky movies, you will like I Play Rocky. I think you will. I think you will enjoy it. I don't think it will fall in your top ten, but it will definitely be an enjoyable watch. Yes, everybody. 50 years 50 years to put that in perspective i'm i'm not even 50 i'm 47 years old this movie came out three years before i was even born but it still plays a big part of my life i remember watching rocky with my dad i remember watching rocky 3 with my dad i think i watched rocky 3 before i seen rocky That's that's how crazy, you know, me being born after the fact is, you know, I saw Rocky three first. And so going back and watching Rocky, I had to grow an appreciation for Rocky. It took me maybe three watches, you know, on my third viewing when I actually grasped the importance of Rocky. And that was right. before I saw Rocky IV. And so when Rocky IV came along, that's when I really started to grow an appreciation for all of these films. But yeah, man, 50 years. Sylvester Stallone gave us this franchise that has touched generations, man. I don't care how old you are. Your grandparents, your granddad loved Rocky. Your dad loved Rocky. And now with Creed, you know, your children will grow in appreciation for Rocky. You know, it's just something that has survived for 50 years and never lost its luster. Even the bad ones. And I'm talking to you, Rocky V, I think it was. That's the one with Tommy. tommy tommy i i couldn't stand and that had the original director uh john uh uh avison i think he directed that one and it was i just i hate that is my worst that is the worst one and i'll i'll take it back i apologize i don't hate the movie but it is it is bad it pales in comparisons instead of others. Does it have a story to it? Yes. Is it an entertaining watch? Yes. But. It pales in comparison to the first four of the Rocky films. Rocky Balboa was good. That was inspirational. I remember going to see that with me and my friend. We went to the theater to go see that. And I didn't think much of it because I thought it was going to be, you know, just a swan song type of Rocky film that didn't have much substance. But it had substance to it. and they made it believable to say this old man rocky uh fighting the current uh heavyweight champion of the world how would they make that believable they found the way to make it believable it it was well i say believable is no way that would happen in real life but it was still uh an entertaining movie and i i did enjoy for what it was uh and then creed creed just knocked it out the park. two it it left it left some things to be desired in creed three same thing it it's not the greatest of of movies but i enjoyed it for what it was what's your favorite rocky which one of them uh touched you more than any other pause which one which one was your favorite Out of the 50 of them all, I would love to know. Subscribe to the KBRadioNetwork.com website where you can be notified of new episodes dropping on that site as well as previous episodes you can go back and listen to. Don't forget about YouTube. Subscribe to the KBRadioNetwork channel and like this video while you're there. Don't forget about the five stars, the reviews, and sharing this show. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever, you are currently listening to Movie Goodness here on the KB Radio Network. Everybody, thank you for joining me as we went into this double feature, the little special episode of Movie Goodness, when we reviewed the 50th anniversary of Rocky and the upcoming feature biopic. I play Rocky. Want you all to know that I love you. Continue to love everyone. And until we speak again, you all be blessed.
