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Update: Events in my personal life have made me question whether perhaps my original title for this review, āWhen Eights Donāt Hateā was a little naive about the Classic American Enneagram Eight, you knowālike, itās natural, maybe, to want to let the āman of the peopleā have his day in the sun, but it can lead to naivety and un-realism/cheerleading for kinda un-naive, un-idealist people who donāt exactly lead in with their heart, you know. Some things more closely related to the movie itselfāthe acquaintance who loves the movies, the scene where Rocky tries to tame the ātough girlā from his neighborhood, right, among other scenesākinda support that idea. (Re-assessment.) I mean, itās not the worst movie, or the most unambiguous red flag, by any imagination, right: itās not like saying, āOh yeah, I saw āGet the Gringoā, it was Excellentā, right. Itās just that, there is a sort of naivety in America about the essential smash-and-grab personality type, given our history: and even though at the very same time we can sometimes often be extremely uptight about people who arenāt proper and classic-rich and uptight, you know. But thereās the mythology of the colonial governorās mansion and the mythology of the colonial fighter, (the latter being a fighter not only against the British, lol), and theyāre justāyou know, very naive, and in the case of the fighter, about someone who isnāt even classically naive, right.Ā
Maybe the obscure 70s Poitier adventure really WAS better, you know. The white guy in that movieāIām sorry, I donāt know all actorsāarguably WAS still the most important character, but, it was more of a collaboration, rather than a cheerleading thing, you know.Ā
But either way thereās no way to make a perfect movie, or a perfect anything. Actually very few movies do I find to be exceptional, regardless of whether or not they are āclassicsā, you know. (shrugs) But anyway.Ā
ā¦ā¦ā¦..
In the Enneagram, the Eight is the lusty, aggressive number.Ā
So yeah, I liked this, pretty uncontroversially, I guess, as much as the 1975 Sidney Poitier adventure that I liked but has been largely forgotten, right, (The Wilby Conspiracy), and I actually think that you would make yourself smaller by only liking serious, edgy, whatever it isāI mean, I hear Rocky won an award but it does seem pretty popular and simple, and not, you know, serious or edgy or whatever it is; I actually feel like Iāve seen too many, proportionally, of the serious adventures, the adventures into grandness, as opposed to other kinds of movies. The movie apparently does impress people, but not by trying to impress people, and I think thatās a valid style.Ā
And it is rough, but it has heartā¦. And heās not, I donāt know, the perfect man, the ideal man for marrying, even though in a different time, a time that probably hasnāt come yet, itās easy to imagine him being one sort of ideal manā¦. If I were Isis, or even Aphrodite, I wouldnāt select him as my first round draft pick, rightā¦. But if heās not the ideal man, IMO, he certainly is A man, and thatās a valid choice, you know.Ā
ā¦. Itās funny, these kinds of guys can be jerks, you know: but I know I want to experience this movie, because if you had asked me before, when I was meditating on the ādark/scaryā tarot cards in my way meditating through the Mythic Tarot, like if you had said, Suppose you drop a jar of processed corn syrup, basically, because youāre still spinning subconsciously about your co-worker (I work at a grocery store) there, and his, you know: a more accurate thing would have been, āDonāt mind me, Theodore; Iām just leaking from my leaky negativity canister: it leaks in between January and Decemberā¦. Love you bro! Or I dunno: whateverāāthatās almost the sense of itāand something about being attacked triggers my skittishness, which turns off the basic life strength needed to hold a jar of corn goo, you knowā¦. (I was only supposed to be picking up my check and was waiting for the bookkeeper to come back, so I didnāt have a bag on me.)ā¦. But yeah, I knew even as I was writing about my decision to not flinch at the sometimes hairy, ugly disgusting nature of life that I wasnāt rooted in that yet, although somehow I didnāt think like Life was going to show me up within the hour or whateverā¦. Although people seem to perceive me as a very calm person, and will occasionally give me unsolicited positive feedback along those lines, sometimes while Iām wondering why my mind is likeā¦. Making monkey noises while trying to tame a wild horse, basicallyā¦. Although I suppose I must have a lot of foundational calmness, despite the surface of my mind getting skittish or riled up easilyāor maybe Iām just the philosophical equivalent of the pretty girl who never knows when sheās having a good hair day, right. But skittish, yeahāthatās why I gave up my horror movie hobby I once hadāit just seemed likeā¦. āThe professor must have been discovering science before he got interrupted by theāah! Jump scare!āā You know, it didnāt feel like training for anything; jump scares are too intermittent and trivial to be consequential, although they are irritatingā¦. But yeah, Leaky Canister wouldnāt have noticed anything angry about what I said, because I wasnāt angryā¦. But yeah: I do want to experience this movie. Carlos, son of the Jungfrau and Amadeus Mozart, once (apparently) said something like, āThe best way to handle the other personās negativity is to know your ownāāor something like that, rightā¦.Ā
So yeah: hairy, ugly, disgusting: thatās what you gotta get into sometimes, if you wanna live, rightā¦. āGawana kite?ā Huh? (takes out mouth guard) āYou wanna fight? Cāmon; Iām RockyāIām a contender; (punch punch) (miscellaneous bar brawl fighter slang, lol)Ā
You gotta get in the ring.Ā
ā¦. But yeah: even in boxing movies, thereās plot points and build-up, rightā¦. Although, more so than in a horror movie or political drama, thereās a sense of, I donāt know, the brutally quotidian underbelly of the city, right. To you, itās Thanksgiving. āBut to me, itās Thursday.āĀ
As for the love interest, certainly whether you write a men-centric or woman-centric story, itās a patriarchal society, and one of about half a century ago now, right. And part of basically any society is that some stories are men-centric, so whatāre gonna do, right. In a story like thatā¦. And I mean, you could even argue that theyāre not setting up beauty standards for Everywoman, right: although I think you have to ask if itās beneficial that the main girl be essentially mousy and inconsequential, right. Sheās not a fighter; sheās not a contender. People push her around; she goes along with itā¦. And that scene with Rocky and the tough girl who wasnāt the love interest, right, that he lays down the Law of Reputation to, you know: thereās no fucking doubt in my mind that that scene is way too fucking long and way too fucking stupidā¦. If heās a fighter, he should Want a girl with a little life in her; who tells fighters to obey the rules that church mice set up, right? Or do they do the punching that the church mice are afraid to do?Ā
But yeah, itās bordering on kinda an older movie in that sense, but because I wanted to appreciate a snow-white or whatever Creed called the idea, a snow-white fighter, alongside and to the same extent as the obscure Sidney Poitier/South Africa political adventure, Iāll say that this is not just a basic-good four stars movie, but Iāll give it that extra point and call it 9/10 for being the first movie in a successful franchise: because I liked the basic emotive idea and theme of it being about life in the hairy, ugly, disgusting underbelly of the city, day in day out, and how you gotta be a contender, you know.Ā
ā¦. But yeah: I was with my family, and especially when I was trying to follow my dadās ineffective driving, I wanted to go back to the 70s so I could pull up besides a couple I didnāt know and say, Take her to the zoo~ you know. I understand the appeal of popular culture.Ā
I wanted to have spies tell me petty details of my relativesā lives, so I could say, I hear things. Donāt you think I hear things? ~Theyād probs be duly impressed, right.Ā
(cartoon old lady voice) I hear goosecapās doing real good nowāI think he runs the mafia.Ā
My family is just like Gen Zāthey slayā¦. Although more in the sense of, āYouāre killing me, Smalls.ā (face palm emoji)Ā
ā¦. But yeah, heās not a bad guy. I donāt know that I admire him, but heās not a bad guy. Certainly not as an individual. Maybe he is a little bad; we all partake in things that arenāt ours. But people told him education wasnāt for him, and, anyway, he needed to learn things that āourā schools donāt really teach, right.Ā
But yeah itās funny: they said ādagoā in the 70s and they still half-meant it, right; although America always wants the guy on-the-bottom-but-not-quite-on-the-bottom to feel taken care of, rightā¦. Although, what did they ever ~really~ do for him, right? Did they form in him an admirable character?Ā
And, yeah: itās a library DVD I was watching bit by bit, and Mercury is slowly easing into retrograde, right, but: the DVD got bad on me for a minute or two of the movieāand it took longer than a minute or two to figure out where the bad patch ended, probably five or six minutesāright as the classic-rich-guy asked Rocky if he ābelieved America was the land of opportunityā. I donāt know how you read that, assuming you believe in meaningful coincidence. Like in the real movie of life, does moment not happen, or does it maybe happen, but in the movie God makes about life, does a different music play, or somethingā¦.Ā
I mean, heās not a ābad manā in himself: and itās curious to see him represented as a good one, you know.Ā
ā¦. The depths of the man who thinks heās no good whoās friends are telling him he can make it and he says that theyāre no good and that he doesnāt think that they think that he can make it.Ā
ā¦. And yeah: itās funny or whatever, rightāRocky wants to make out~ Itās A Good Idea; Rocky doesnāt want to make out~ Itās Not A Good Idea. Ok.Ā
That said, I donāt know if Iād say āmostā, but many, I suppose, men who are probably old enough to remember this movie (way back at the back end of the ethnic miracle in the 70s, right) are, in the context of this sorta thing, doing a somewhat good jobānot punching people in the face, too often, etc. Some of the time, obviously.Ā
Although I donāt mean āpunchingā literally exactlyāboxing isnāt really my thing to watch, basically because the score/outcome is usually so arbitrary, you know; American football is probably at least as āviolentā and to some extent itās a perfectly amusing sport to watch, you knowā¦. But yeah, boxing lends itself to storytelling, rightā¦.Ā
ā¦. We all have negative thoughts, but I do wonder if the message of the movie isnāt basically, You can think like a loser, feel like a schmuckāand you can still be the title character!ā¦. All you need to do is learn this little trick by your fellow didnāt-used-to-be-white ethnic Americanā¦. Some of the lines are really crazy: you canāt make this crap up, right (crying laughing emoji) ā¦. Although they almost let the girl be like, a real supporting character: it gets very close, rightāso closeā¦. And her brother is like the difficult-to-believe stereotype of the guy like that, so that he can take the fall and we like the title character betterā¦. Itās all about the title characterā¦.Ā
But itās better than having your car get worked on, lol. āHey Rocky tell that guy his car is ready!ā (Rocky) Uh hello Mr. Nobody; my name is Nobody; I meanāRocky. Your car is ready for pickup, will you be paying cash or card?ā¦.Ā
~But yeah: itās interesting perspective-for-life, you know. Sometimes you meet guys, masculine men, especially but certainly not exclusively older and/or white, and itās likeā¦. Yeah, that guyās not doing so bad. Think of how he was educated by society, right? First he was told he wasnāt worth no education, and then he was educated in a bunch of bullshit ideas nobody who respected him ever told him to question, rightā¦.Ā
The training scene was certainly entertaining.Ā
ā¦. And the other thing is, itās not really paced properly, you know. My guess is that the fight should have ended about 80% of the way through a story of this length, and Iām over 80% of the way through, and itās just, about, to begin, right. Really, itās going to end, and thereās going to be just enough time for him to raise his hands up into the air and shout some vague, stupid thing, before the credits roll. There is a difference between fighting some kind of sports-fight to win at life and prove youāre a real champ or whatever, and being like an escape artist who literally just punches people sometimes, you know. Very indifferent storytelling; mediocre, really.Ā
ā¦. But yeah: no matter how American you are, epithet, the Irish-Italians will always be more American just by advertising their supposed countries of origin, right.Ā
(draws self up) And thatās because this is the United States of America. (beat) (chuckles)Ā Ā
ā¦. And yeah, it would be funny to make a list of the things Apollo/Apolloās people promote so that we can have a laugh at their expense, right. (Money/fashion/Canada, etc.)Ā
But donāt do that. Youāll get a headache. lol.Ā
ā¦. Life lessons: if you punch people enough, eventually, I donāt know, their whole face, right. It looks differentā¦.Ā
But yeah, now we know what Rocky has to go through before he can feel the slightest emotion, lolā¦.Ā
ā¦. ā¦. āDo you hate anybody, Rocky?ā No man, I donāt hate nobody. I donāt hate nobody, nothing like that. I donāt feelā¦. I donāt feelā¦. I meanā¦. Say, boss: what was the question?ā
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