Creed

It takes a real man to admit that he was wrong. I am a real man and I can at least admit when I was wrong. 

Yes I am a Rocky fan. Have been since I was a child and was introduced to Rocky III and was soon introduced to the WWF through Hulk Hogan’s appearance in the film as well as become a fan of boxing and MMA and have closely followed the series through all of the films.

The films have greatly influenced my life as well as the lives of many others.

When I first heard the announcement for Creed I was none too happy to find out about the plot as I thought that Rocky Balboa was the best way to finish out the series. I thought that the film would suck.

I was also not happy to find out that Burt Young and Tony Evers would not be in the film. Next to Stallone these characters are main stays in the franchise as they have been in all of the films.

Now on the plus side I always felt that there was much to be done with the character of Apollo Creed and when the character was killed in the fourth installment at the hands of Ivan Drago the character and his legacy was all but dropped, with the exception of a few mentions in the next two films.

I apparently was not the only one.

Hot off the success of Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler pitched the idea to Stallone of a spinoff film that followed the son of Apollo Creed as he starts his fighting career and is trained by Balboa.

Fruitvale Station also starred Michael B. Jordan in the role of the ill-fated Oscar Grant and would take on the Title Role of Adonis “Donnie” Creed.

We soon learn that Donnie is the illegitimate son of Apollo and after the death of his biological mother found himself falling thru the  cracks of the system and getting into fights landing himself in Juvenile detention until one day he is found by Mary-Ann Creed and raised as her own.

Now where many people will think that this is history repeating it’s self we soon learn that Adonis has been given the best education and has a great life lined up before him but wants the path of a championship boxer.

Being spurned by Mary-Ann and Apollo’s Academy including the son of Duke,  Donnie travels to Philadelphia where he seeks out Rocky Balboa.

Rocky is pretty much where we left him nearly a decade ago running his restaurant and visiting the grave of his late wife and now his best friend Paulie and soon decides to take on Donnie as his protégé.

While Donnie is romancing a young singer Bianca Rocky soon finds that he is ill and fighting his most deadly opponent…Cancer.

This was an amazing story that while watching with a packed house and hearing the reactions of the attendees who were all into the flick from beginning to end with the humor and highs and lows in emotions in the flick. There was even many with tears in the theatre.

The Camera work was amazing and I am going to get many dirty looks but this was probably the best fight in the sequels from a technical and story perspective.

The film also maintains continuity to the Rocky series and answers the question as to who won the third fight between Rocky and Apollo in the end of the third film. 

There is also a scene where Rocky shows a picture of his son and it is of Sage Stallone who played the character in Rocky V. Sadly Sage passed away in 2012.  

I want to say that I was impressed with Stallone but I have always had him pegged as a great actor and filmmaker but I was more impressed with Jordan who could stand next to Stallone playing the character of Rocky Balboa and still maintain to keep the focus on the film on the Creed character.

Credit also needs to go to Tessa Thompson for her performance as Bianca.

There is already talks of a sequel.

5 Stars

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25 Years of The Undertaker: The Rise

Being that this upcoming Thanksgiving marks the 25^th anniversary of Mark Calaway’s  tenure in World Wrestling Entertainment with the debut of his character The Undertaker and that he is by far my favorite Wrestler and one of my heroes from childhood to now and I have to honor him in this series of blogs that are to follow the different eras of “The Phenom”.  

I was first familiar with Mark Calaway due to his time as Texas Red in World Class Championship Wrestling and his time in WCW as Mean Mark Callous with the Sky Scrapers with his soon departure “Up North”.

In the 1990 4^th annual Survivor Series featuring the 4 on 4 Team elimination matches as always one of the top villains was The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team facing off against The American Dream Dusty Rhoades, Koko B Ware, and Bret “The Hitman” Hart and his tag team partner Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. The rest of the Million Dollar team consisted of The Honky Tonk Man, and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and a mystery partner.

There was much speculation of the identity of the Mystery Partner ranging from Macho Man Randy Savage to Virgil and there was in fact a giant egg that was in arenas at the time and many speculated that the mystery partner was inside the egg.

DiBiase soon announced the identity of his 4^th competitor “led to the ring by his manager Brother Love, Weighing in at 320lbs From Death Valley, I Give You…The Undertaker”

A Somber funeral march began to play as announcers Roddy Piper and Gorilla Monsoon reacted to a 6ft 10in man in black that grimly strode to the ring and started off the match against the Future Champion and Hall of Famer Bret Hart. 

Soon Koko was tagged into the ring and flew off the ropes at his opponent who was soon caught in midair by the pale destroyer who quickly turned him upside down and dropped him on his head in what Monsoon instantly labeled “A Tombstone” and Koko was pinned and rolled out of the ring.

The Undertaker would also eliminate Dusty Rhoades who would then attack Brother Love resulting in Taker coming to his aid being counted out and therefor eliminated from the match. For the brief time that he was in the match he left a large impression on the crowd and the millions watching at home.

Soon it was announced that Brother Love would soon relinquish his managerial duties of the Undertaker and his new manager was announced to be William Moody aka Percy Pringle III but to WWE fans he would always be Paul Bearer.

Paul would lead The Undertaker to the ring carrying a mysterious Urn that The Undertaker would draw his power from and would make quick work of the Jobbers in squash matches before placing them in a Body Bag.

I have to admit that there was a slight fear that I had of The man and I can tell you that I had been ringside during this time and The Undertaker had a presence and when he would walkout it was all silence. 

It was announced that at Wrestlemania VII that The Undertaker would face Superfly Jimmy Snuka and at the event the crowd was amazed during the match at the short work that The Taker made of the future Hall of Famer and legendary wrestler.  

This was the beginning of the Streak at 1-0.

The Undertaker continued his dominance of the WWF Superstars leading to a feud with former Champion The Ultimate Warrior after locking him in an airtight coffin.

Warrior seeking to learn the secrets of death turned to Jake Roberts to get over his fear of the Deadman only to be betrayed by “The Snake” who was revealed to be in with The man in Black all along.

This storyline was quickly dropped after The Warrior left the WWF in 1991 and Jake the Snake was soon locked in a feud with Macho Man Randy Savage after Taker and Jake destroyed his wedding reception.

However The Undertaker was soon announced in the Main Event of the 1991 Survivor Series as Hulk Hogan’s “Gravest Challenge” for the WWF title.

The feud leading up to the event found Hogan facing off against The Undertaker and soon Ric Flair found himself involved in the storyline and interfered in the match with a steel chair costing Hogan the match and giving The Undertaker his first WWF title.

This reign was short lived as Hogan won the title back at the Tuesday in Texas event 7 days later using controversial methods to defeat the Deadman resulting in the vacating of the title.

It was soon after the 1992 Royal Rumble on Saturday Night’s Main Event that while Jake The Snake was about to attack Randy Savage and Elizabeth with a Steel Chair that The Undertaker turned face by stopping the assault.

 Facing off against The Snake at Wrestlemania VIII making his streak 2-0.

It was after Wrestlemania that The Undertaker and Paul Bearer began to feud with the Monsters of the WWF such as the Berserker, Papa Shango, and The Ugandan Giant Kamala. It was the feud with Kamala that came to an end of the 1992 Survivor Series that was the world’s first introduction to The Casket Match.

The purpose of the Casket Match is simple and that is to place your opponent into a casket and close the lid. This was the beginning of many of these matches to come.

At the 1993 Royal Rumble was attacked and eliminated by a The Giant Gonzalez  who gave the undertaker his first real “beat down” resulting in a match at Wrestlemania IX in Las Vegas.

Coming to the ring with a funeral chariot with a large vulture the undertaker took what Gonzalez had to dish out and then gave it back to him and Gonzalez then chloroformed The Taker getting himself disqualified and Taker was soon carried to the back of a stretcher leaving Gonzales celebrating for “Killing The Undertaker”…That is until the bell tolled again and the Undertaker emerged from the back rejuvenated and beating the Giant back to the Back and with the DQ making the Streak 3-0.

While The Undertaker was continuing to feud with Gonzales and Curtis Hughes to Summerslam with Yokozuna dominating the WWF as the champion stating that there was no competition, a feud was inevitable.

While Lex Luger was Captaining the American team with the Steiner Brothers against Yoko’s Fanatics of Ludwig Borga and the Quebeckers  and after teammate Tatanka was put out of action following a beating from the team it was announced that The Undertaker would join Team USA.

The Feud with Yoko resulted in yet another Casket Match and with the advantage in the Undertaker’s corner The champion had some tricks to his advantage.

With the match won and the champion soon being placed in a Double Wide Double Deep Casket The Undertaker soon found himself being attacked by a large amount of heels from the locker room area and after Yoko Smashed Paul Bearer’s urn Taker was placed in the Casket and was wheeled to the back Broken and defeated.

Again the Lights went down and The Undertaker appeared on the screen declaring that he will return and all mankind will witness his Rebirth and that he would not “Rest in Piece”.

Soon the Undertaker would be seen rising to the sky with all wondering if he would ever be seen again.

He would Rise again

In our next Chapter. 

I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance is Mine

Well Kiddies another Halloween season has come and gone and we find ourselves in a bleak November watching the three ring circus that we call the 2016 Presidential Campaign and well as I find myself   finishing up the last of my pumpkin ale and editing the footage that I shot this past season and I decided to check out some of the new releases that I have missed over the past month.

I am a frequent follower of I Spit on Your Grave, The Remakes as well as the follow ups to the remakes.

Now I don’t Consider I Spit on Your Grave 2 to be a sequel considering that it has no characters in this flick than in the first film or neither does it mention the events from the film either.

With the upcoming  sequel to the original Déjà vu with Camille Keaton returning as Jennifer Hill and Meir Zarchi's direction that is now currently in Post Production which I have to say that I am in fact looking forward to that flick.

That being said I Spit on your Grave 3 definitely came in under my Radar and it is in fact a sequel to I spit on your Grave (2010) with Sarah Butler reprising her version of Jennifer Hill. I find it interesting that this flick has been released with all of the hype surrounding the sequel for the original and this outing is helmed by a different director R.D. Braunstein  however Zarchi remains on as a producer.

Now as I stated earlier in my review of the remake that Camille and Sarah’s performances were different and both characters went into different directions and that does come into play here in this flick.

Taking place years after the events of the 2010 film Jennifer Hills has changed her name to Angela and is in therapy trying to come to grips with her experiences. Angela is haunted by flashbacks and the thoughts and fantasies of murdering men that she encounters leads her to the decision to join a support group for the survivors of sexual assault.  

Soon after her first group session she makes a friend in Marla, played by Jennifer Landon (Michael’s Daughter).  Soon Jennifer and Angela are “Terrorizing” many men that they encounter from a drunk in a bar to the stepfather of one of the other members of their group feeling that the law is refusing to help the victims of sexual assault and the members range from a young woman being molested by her stepfather and a man who’s daughter was assaulted and the perpetrator was released on a technicality resulting in her suicide.

Eventually Marla is murdered by her ex-boyfriend and Jennifer/Angela feels that the police are going to do nothing about the crime and once again takes justice into her own hands and soon there after begins to become the executioner for the assailants for the others in her support group attracting the attention of the police detectives.

Now some of my Horror reviewing brethren have already placed reviews for this film stating reviews in the negative due to the slasher feel in the second half but I liked that aspect of the film as it made me feel that I was watching a female version of Death Wish 2 just with knives in the place of Guns.

Jennifer is able to use seduction to entice the men into some of the compromising positions to gain the advantage however this does not always work in the flick but I feel that it helps the film in giving it a feeling of reality and vulnerability for the direction the character to take.

Now I have to talk about that side of the character as at times I felt that I was watching a remake of Ms.45 as like the character in that film Jennifer begins to see evil in the face of every man that she sees and soon begins to target them and I was almost thinking that she was going to don a Nun costume instead of a tight red dress. Luckily the film while taking us on that direction that is not the destination that we arrive at for the character.

Like the second film in this series and unlike the 1978 original and it’s 2010 Counterpart I liked the fact that there were male characters that were in fact not sleezy or rapists and were both while trying to help our Fatale in lending support in either legal or emotional capacities.

Now the kills were of all kinds of awesome! I can see where many will consider them to be all too graphic I have to point out that this is the era of torture porn and the Human Centipede  so I have to admit that I have seen worse and they are appealing to the sadistic crowd but it is not like the characters are all to innocent either.

As I stated earlier this film had more of a Death Wish feel than any real horror feel to it and I like that aspect to the film. And is definitely worth a look for fans of this particular subgenre but for the others I say go easy on the film and watch a lighter film as your follow up.

5 Dead Bodies

9 Imaginary Dead Bodies

1 Breast  (flashback scene)

4 Beasts

Penis stabbing, slicing and chomping,

Lead pipe to the anus with a sledge hammer

Stabbing

Shooting

Bashing

Gratuitous testicular tasering

Kudos to Sarah Butler for returning to the role

2 ½ Stars

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