First, a disclaimer—the following remarks pertain to a recut 1980s version of an original 1970 film, so it’s possible these reactions don’t apply to the earlier version. No Place to Hide first hit screens as a low-budget political thriller featuring then-unknown Sylvester Stallone in an important role. He plays a member of a Weather Underground-type group planning to bomb an office building as an act of radical anti-Vietnam War activism. The story intercuts his exploits with an investigation by FBI agents as well as scenes depicting the activities of other radicals. An ironic oh-the-humanity ending concludes the storyline, to the surprise of exactly no one. After Stallone scored with Rocky (1976), the picture was recut to focus on his participation and given the new title Rebel. Yet another reissue followed in 1990, with the material somehow reconfigured for laughs under the moniker A Man Called . . . Rainbo. If nothing else, the mutability of the material and the apparent failure of anyone involved in the first incarnation to protect the sanctity of the piece suggests that No Place to Hide, the original film, was lackluster.

          Certainly that adjective, and much stronger ones conveying disappointment, suit the ’80s version screened for this review. (Best guess—the rights holders reconfigured the material for home-video release, adding horrible mechanized music and low-rent electronic title cards.) On the plus side, Stallone brings his usual impassioned quality to his performance as anguished radical Jerry. On the minus side, he’s grossly miscast, which becomes painfully apparent during scenes of his character romancing a hippy-dippy girl who says things like this: “The deeper I reach, the more roads I take into the universe—my universe.” Unless you’re a Sly completist, chances are the only version worth tracking down is the warts-and-all ’70s original, and even in that circumstance, viewers shouldn’t expect much. FYI, No Place to Hide features Henry G. Sanders, respected by many for his naturalistic work in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), as the lead FBI agent. His work here is not impressive.

No Place to Hide: LAME

             This weekend, longtime fans and newcomers alike will help give the seventh installment of a franchise that began in the 1970s the biggest opening in movie history. Yet somewhat lost in the din of the wall-to-wall coverage surrounding the debut of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens is a unique coincidence. Another seventh installment of a franchise that began in the 1970s reached theaters during the 2015 holiday season. Although audiences and critics have bestowed quite a bit of love on Creed, a clever revitalization of the Rocky series, I haven’t seen much commentary devoted to the parallels between Creed and The Force Awakens. Nonetheless, these parallels are formidable and meaningful.

            As becomes plain by scanning lists of successful movies from the last few years and/or schedules of upcoming releases, we’re in an unprecedented era of cinematic recycling. The endless sequels. The numberless adaptations of old games, toys, and TV shows. The pointless reboots of cinematic franchises whose corpses aren’t yet cold. It’s all been exhaustively catalogued, and the whole sad spectacle can be summarized by the fact that Marvel and Sony will soon collaborate on a brand-new Spider-Man movie, despite the fact that the (mostly) beloved Spider-Man series starring Tobey Maguire ended just eight years ago, and despite the fact that a middling attempt at rebooting the series with new star Andrew Garfield unspooled in two movies spanning 2012 to 2014. Even without bringing the whole silly “Batfleck” business into the conversation, it’s inarguable that we’ve gone past the saturation point and entered the realm of the ridiculous.

            Still, there’s an interesting difference between rebooting a franchise (which generally seems crass) and simply continuing a storyline (which is fine as long as there’s still gas in the narrative engine). While it’s wonderful that some high-concept movies have been left alone, with no disappointing sequels tarnishing the brand, many popcorn fantasies were designed to introduce universes filled with open-ended story potential.

Among the most striking aspects of Creed and The Force Awakens is that both films combine elements of these seemingly incompatible approaches. They are simultaneously reboots and continuations.

One could argue that the first Rocky (1976) was a self-contained gem for which sequels were superfluous, whereas the first Star Wars (1977) contained a natural ellipsis all but demanding a sequel—the picture’s unforgettable main villain, Darth Vader, survived the climax, representing a plague on the land that our heroes needed to set right before claiming ultimate victory. In that sense, it’s somewhat shocking that we’re still seeing new Rocky movies in 2015, and less so that we’re still seeing new Star Wars movies. (Obviously, commercial success rather than aesthetic necessity is what prompts the creation of sequels, so let’s accept as a given that we’re talking about franchises the public embraced.)

The most noteworthy quality shared by Creed and The Force Awakens is that each essentially remakes the first movie in its respective franchise. In Creed, an underdog boxer gets a chance to prove himself by battling a world champion, thereby facing not only a physical opponent but also the psychological demons that fill him with self-doubt. In The Force Awakens, rebel heroes struggle to destroy a massive weapon that insidious villains can use to control the universe. Creed features a mentor relationship that toggles between antagonism and paternalistic love, as did Rocky. Concurrently, The Force Awakens features a young hero learning to use the Force, the very same supernatural energy field that a young hero learned to use in Star Wars. The synchronicities between the new films and their predecessors are myriad, from familiar music cues to visual references evoking specific scenes from the original movies.

Ryan Coogler, the co-writer and director of Creed, does a more graceful job of balancing nostalgia with originality than J.J. Abrams, the co-writer and director of The Force Awakens, though it must be said that Abrams faced a bigger challenge on every conceivable level.

Expectations for the seventh Rocky film were infinitesimal, because franchise creator/star Sylvester Stallone dimmed the luster of his own creation with too many inconsistent and repetitive sequels. Expectations for the seventh Star Wars film were insanely high. Not only was Abrams tasked with improving on the preceding three Star Wars pictures, which were disappointments creatively even though they made gobs of money, but he was tasked with reintroducing the beloved actors and characters from the original 1977–1983 trilogy—all while finding a way to make Star Wars relevant to audiences numbed by more than a decade of CGI-centric superhero extravaganzas. Whereas Coogler had essentially a blank canvas upon which he could paint a fresh interpretation of the intimately scaled Rocky legend, Abrams was expected to make the biggest movie of all time and withstand the scrutiny of an obsessive and vocal fan base numbering in the millions.

That both men can be proud of their accomplishments is a testament to their creative powers, even if Coogler’s film is superior not just as a cohesive artistic statement but also in ways that are relevant to this conversation about revisiting the ’70s.

First, The Force Awakens. (As Yoda might say, fret not for no spoilers here there are.) The key creative team behind the picture, including new Lucasfilm overlord Kathleen Kennedy, Abrams, and once-and-future Star Wars screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, made one crucial choice that defines The Force Awakens. Although the picture is a direct sequel to Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983), the heroes of the original trilogy are not the actual stars of the new film. Rather, The Force Awakens introduces the fresh faces whom audiences will follow for at least two more films, the already announced Episode VIII and Episode IX. Smart on so many levels. The story of the original characters has been told, the actors playing those characters have reached ages where their believability in action scenes is dubious, and the introduction of new characters is required to generate story material for future trilogies. (Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm a few years ago for $4 billion, has said it plans to make Star Wars movies for so many decades into the future that the fans who saw the original films as children will not live to see the end of the story—yikes.)

Additionally, Abrams and Kasdan have said they wanted to prioritize brevity, given the tiresome bloat of so many modern blockbusters. Hence The Force Awakens’ running time of roughly two and one-quarter hours, versus, say, the absurd three-hour sprawl of The Dark Knight (2008).

Given all of these circumstances, Abrams faced an impossible job. Reintroduce and service the main characters of the original trilogy, without edging them into leading roles. Generate a handful of new characters and make the audience fall in love with them. Provide a rollicking space adventure that reconciles the comparative visual simplicity of the earlier Star Wars films with the sensory-overload expectations of current moviegoers. And keep the whole thing as close to two hours as possible, figuring that something like six to seven minutes will get consumed by end credits. Did he stick the landing? No. The Force Awakens is a problematic film with myriad dead ends, derivative moments, and plot holes.

I elect to focus on the many things the picture does well. By shooting on film instead of digital and by employing a fair amount of practical effects, Abrams approximates the handmade quality of the original trilogy. He also accentuates the most important tropes from the earliest Star Wars films—themes of destiny, family, heroism, loss, and sacrifice. At its best, The Force Awakens recaptures the fun of seeing relatable human beings juxtaposed with a crazy-quilt backdrop of creatures, magic, and spaceships. The picture even achieves that rare goal in a sequel by legitimately deepening the journeys of returning characters.

Most intriguing of all is the movie’s expression of mortality, a theme that’s embedded deep into the DNA of Star Wars. Rather than venture into story terrain that viewers should be able to enjoy for themselves, I’ll tack to Creed because mortality is just as important to that movie, for the same fascinating reasons.

In case you stopped watching Rocky movies a few sequels back, life hasn’t been amazing for the Italian Stallion since 1990, when the series’ first run sputtered out with Rocky V. At the end of that picture, boxer Rocky Balboa (Stallone) was still happily married to shy Adrian (Talia Shire), and he had a decent relationship with his son. Yet when Rocky Balboa (2006) began, Adrian was dead from cancer, and Rocky was estranged from his now fully grown son. He participated in one more boxing match to exorcise his demons, and then he seemed ready to walk into the sunset.

Enter Coogler, the gifted young filmmaker behind Fruitvale Station (2013). He conjured a story about Rocky becoming the trainer for Adonis Creed, son of the champion whom Rocky fought and eventually befriended during the Rocky movies of the ’70s and ’80s. Coogler persuaded Stallone to reprise his role for the first Rocky movie that Stallone did not write, and the first Rocky movie in which Balboa does not fight. Coogler came up with something quite special, because while Creed honors the earlier pictures, it also gets into the problems faced by young black men raised without fathers—to say nothing of mortality.

The Rocky we meet in Creed is a tired old man waiting for death—just like the Han Solo we meet in The Force Awakens is a haunted old man hiding from life, even though he still has a quick wit and a rascally smile. As of this writing, Stallone is 69 and Harrison Ford, who plays Han Solo, is 73. No other versions of these characters would make sense.

But what does it mean when we watch our heroes age? And what does it mean when the inevitability of our own endings is foreshadowed by watching treasured characters face mortality? I think the answers to these questions address the deepest purposes of storytelling. We look to stories for escape from our daily lives, of course, but we also look to stories for guidance. Simple stories about noble heroes overcoming adversity—like the Rocky films—can seem like platitudes when they’re done poorly, and they can seem like inspirational fables when they’re done well. Layered fantasies about metaphorical characters seeking to balance the benevolent and destructive impulses of the human animal—like the Star Wars films—are stupid when they don’t work, transcendent when they do.

The first Rocky is a shameless tearjerker, just as the first Star Wars is a manipulative crowd-pleaser. It’s easy to regard these movies cynically. On the worthiest plane of audience engagement, however, these films strive to eradicate cynicism. Star Wars presents a galaxy in which good people reject selfishness for the benefit of their community. Rocky revolves around an uneducated man who possesses innate wisdom. Recalling Frank Capra’s optimistic movies of the 1930s and 1940s, the first Rocky and the first Star Wars offer homilies about the great things that young people with their lives ahead of them can accomplish.

Creed and The Force Awakens recycle those themes by introducing new characters with endless potential for positive change, and yet Creed and The Force Awakens also acknowledge that yesterday’s heroes are today’s teachers. Rocky Balboa’s role in Creed involves passing along what he’s learned even as circumstances remind him that far fewer days lie ahead than behind. The roles played by the original heroes of Star Wars in The Force Awakens are similar. Time to pass the torch. Or the lightsaber, as the case may be.

As a child of the ’70s, it’s bittersweet for me to realize that Rocky Balboa will never step in the ring again, and that change will always visit the Star Wars galaxy with its usual savage caprice. It is for exactly those reasons that I think both Creed and The Force Awakens are markedly more resonant than the average reboot or relaunch or remake or retread. Creed justifies its existence by treating Rocky Balboa as a living embodiment of his own legacy, and by exploring difficult issues pertaining to race. The Force Awakens, despite its flaws, casts the ugly shadows of loss and regret and time over the jaunty textures of outer-space dogfights and swashbuckling sword duels.

And that’s where these two movies have perhaps their greatest impact. Like children who understand their parents once they have children of their own, fans of these two franchises must face complicated feelings by engaging with Creed and The Force Awakens. At various times in these pictures, sobering truths take center stage: age replacing youth, disappointment supplanting optimism, fatigue usurping vigor. In twilight, what matters is what is left behind. Legacy. For the story that began with Rocky and continues with Creed, what remains is the quaint notion that each individual has value. For the story that began with Star Wars and continues with The Force Awakens, what remains is the modest proposal that we’re all part of something bigger than ourselves. As legacies go, you could do a lot worse.

The ’70s are dead. Long live the ’70s.

          Anger and darkness aren’t the first things that come to mind upon hearing the name “Neil Simon,” but it’s useful to remember an aphorism that was likely coined by TV funnyman Steve Allen: “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” In other words, misfortune is so integral to the soul of humor that exploring the grim subject matter permeating The Prisoner of Second Avenue really wasn’t such a leap for the guy behind such bittersweet classics as The Odd Couple. Where The Prisoner of Second Avenue represents a break from Simon’s usual style, however, is that the writer doesn’t hide pain behind pratfalls. Although the movie, based on Simon’s 1971 play of the same name, has plenty of the writer’s signature rat-a-tat dialogue as well as a steady stream of visual gags, it’s not designed as a laugh riot, per se. Rather, it’s a bitterly satirical exploration of the myriad ways the modern world can drive people insane.

          Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft, both perfectly cast, star as Mel and Edna Edison, residents of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. During a heat wave that’s compounded by a garbage strike and periodic power outages, Mel spirals toward a nervous breakdown that’s triggered by hassles with neighbors, the loss of a job, a robbery, and other traumas. And when Mel finally decides to fight back at the unjust universe, he manages to pick the wrong target, mistaking a young man (Sylvester Stallone) for a mugger and then chasing the poor guy through Central Park and seizing his wallet, which Mel believes to be his own. Upon discovering his mistake, Mel reports to Edna, “I mugged some kid in the street.” Proving she’s reached her limit, as well, she replies, “How much did we get?”

          That wild sequence, which Simon characteristically nails with a perfect comic grace note, is indicative of The Prisoner of Second Avenue’s vibe. In many ways, this is a serious picture about troubling topics, and yet it’s presented flippantly. Not only does the wiseass humor suit the milieu, but it reveals one aspect of Simon’s genius—using jokes to make the exploration of pathos palatable to people who might normally avoid, say, the work of Arthur Miller or Eugene O’Neill. To be clear, neither The Prisoner of Second Avenue nor, for that matter, any of Simon’s stories should be mistaken for titanic literary achievements. Simon writes trifles, and some of them have more nutritional value than others. For instance, the takeaway from The Prisoner of Second Avenue has something to do with gaining perspective and not letting the pressures of daily life metastasize into full-on neuroticism. Simon services these themes well, dramatizing that some of Mel’s problems are of his own making.

          Lemmon, who previously appeared in the screen version of Simon’s The Odd Couple (1968) and the Simon screen original The Out-of-Towners (1970), is an ideal vessel for the writer’s laments about obnoxious neighbors, overbearing relatives, and unfeeling corporations. Meanwhile, Bancroft is an excellent foil, playing early scenes straight but then echoing Lemmon’s character with a downward spiral of her own. So, even if producer-director Melvin Frank’s execution is little more than serviceable, the material and the performances are winning. Additionally, The Prisoner of Second Avenue captures a particular time, that being the bad old days when New York City was poised on the edge of oblivion thanks to financial problems, rampant crime, and ubiquitous cynicism.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue: GROOVY

          Despite an inconsistent tone that wobbles between action, comedy, drama, and social satire, the car-race flick Cannonball! is periodically entertaining. As cowritten and directed by Paul Bartel—whose previous film, Death Race 2000 (1975), provided a more extreme take on similar material—the picture tries to capture the chaotic fun of the real-life Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal trek from New York to L.A. that attracted speed-limit-averse rebels for several years in the ‘70s. (In Cannonball!, the race is reversed, starting in Santa Monica and ending in Manhattan.) Bearing all the hallmarks of a Roger Corman enterprise (the picture was distributed by Corman’s company, New World), Cannonball! has a strong sadistic streak, seeing as how the plot is riddled with beatings, explosions, murders, and, of course, myriad car crashes. Yet while Death Race 2000 employed a body count to make a sardonic point, Cannonball! offers destruction for destruction’s sake. Shallow characterizations exacerbate the tonal variations, so the whole thing ends up feeling pointless. That said, Bartel and his collaborators achieve the desired frenetic pace, some of the vignettes are amusingly strange, and the movie boasts a colorful cast of B-movie stalwarts.

          David Carradine, who also starred in Death Race 2000, stars as Coy “Cannonball” Buckman, a onetime top racer who landed in prison following a car wreck that left a passenger dead. Eager for redemption—and the race’s $100,000 prize—Coy enters the competition alongside such peculiar characters as Perman Waters (Gerrit Graham), a country singer who tries to conduct live broadcasts while riding in a car driven by maniacal redneck Cade Redman (Bill McKinney); Sandy Harris (Mary Woronov), leader of a trio of sexpots who use their wiles to get out of speeding tickets; Terry McMillan (Carl Gottlieb), a suburban dad who has his car flown cross-country in a brazen attempt to steal the first-place prize; and Wolf Messer (James Keach), a German racing champ determined to smite his American counterparts. Some racers play fair, while others employ sabotage, trickery, and violence.

          Carradine is appealing, even if his martial-arts scenes seem a bit out of place, while Bartel (who also acts in the picture), Graham, McKinney, and Dick Miller give funny supporting turns. Thanks to its abundance of characters and events, Cannonball! is never boring, per se, but it’s also never especially engaging. Additionally, much of the picture’s novelty value—at least for contemporary viewers—relates to cinematic trivia. Cannonball! was the first of four pictures inspired by the real-life Cannonball race, since it was followed by The Gumball Rally (also released in 1976), The Cannonball Run (1981), and Cannonball Run II (1984). Providing more fodder for movie nerds, Bartel cast several noteworthy figures in cameo roles, including Sylvester Stallone (another holdover from Death Race 2000), Corman, and directors Allan Arkush, Joe Dante, and Martin Scorsese.

Cannonball!: FUNKY

           When is a bad movie a good movie? Death Race 2000 falls short of any serious standards, because it’s campy, cartoonish, and silly, with one-dimensional characters cavorting their way through absurd adventures. Yet the film’s exuberance and lack of pretention manifest as a crude sort of charm, which works in tandem with breakneck pacing—the movie’s like a piece of candy you don’t realize you shouldn’t be eating until it’s all gone. Science fiction delivered by way of black comedy, Death Race 2000 presents a future in which the United States has become the United Provinces. The supreme ruler of the United Provinces, Mr. President (Sandy McCallum), has eliminated many personal freedoms and keeps the population narcotized by presenting an annual blood-sport extravaganza called the Transcontinental Road Race. A small group of drivers, each of whom has an oversized persona and a colorful costume to match, competes not only by racing each other from one coast to the next but also by running over pedestrians for points. During this particular iteration of the race, however, leftist rebels subvert Mr. President’s authority by sabotaging the event.

          The main racers are Frankenstein (David Carradine), the reigning champion whose body comprises replacement parts after years of racing injuries; “Machine-Gun” Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), a gangster-styled competitor determined to replace Frankenstein as the crowd’s favorite; “Calamity” Jane Kelly (Mary Woronov), who works a Western-outlaw motif; Herman “The German” Boch (Fred Grandy), the league’s resident ersatz Nazi; and Ray “Nero the Hero” Lonagan (Martin Kove), a vainglorious putz with a Roman Empire shtick. Each racer is paired with a navigator, so most of the film comprises standoffs in which teams try to beat each other’s racing times and score points by nailing innocent victims. Also woven into the film are running gags related to announcers and fans. Plus, of course, the violence of the rebels.

          Based on a story by Ib Melchior, Death Race 2000 was produced by Roger Corman and co-written by longtime Corman collaborator Charles B. Griffith, whose sardonic touch is audible in the film’s playful dialogue. Director Paul Bartel, the avant-garde humorist who later made the cult-fave comedy Eating Raoul (1982), does a great job throughout Death Race 2000 of balancing goofy humor with sly social commentary—every gag is a nudge at consumerism, egotism, sensationalism, or something else of that nature. The movie is never laugh-out-loud funny, but the tone is consistent and the story (mostly) makes sense. Plus, this being a Corman production, there’s plenty of gore and nudity to keep l0w-minded fans happy. Carradine makes an appealing antihero, his casual cool suited to the role of a seasoned killer, and Stallone is amusing as his hotheaded rival. Meanwhile, Woronov lends a touch of heart, Don Steele (who plays the main announcer) sends up showbiz phoniness, and leading lady Simone Griffeth (who plays Frankenstein’s navigator) blends likeability with sexiness. Best of all, Death Race 2000 runs is course in 80 brisk minutes—all killer, no filler.

Death Race 2000: GROOVY

          While Paradise Alley is unmistakably a major ego trip for Sylvester Stallone—he wrote, directed, and stars in the picture, and he even (over)sings the theme song—his onscreen presence is more muted than one might expect, given the circumstances. A cornball ensemble piece about three Italian-American brothers living in Hell’s Kitchen circa the late ’40s, the film as much a showcase for costars Armand Assante and Lee Canalito as it is for Stallone. In fact, Canalito gets the showiest part because he spends much of the movie in a wrestling ring, playing the same sort of undereducated underdog that Stallone did in Rocky (1976) and its endless sequels. Yet if Stallone demonstrated restraint by ensuring that Paradise Alley wasn’t entirely about his character, that’s the only restraint he demonstrated—in every other regard, Paradise Alley is florid, overwrought, and schmaltzy.

          Our hero, Cosmo Carboni (Stallone), is a street hustler who anachronistically wears long hair and an earring while he pulls one scheme after another because he doesn’t want to work for a living. His brother Victor (Canalito) is a gentle giant who hauls ice up apartment-building stairs for a living—which means that, of course, we get an epic, sweaty scene of Victor lugging ice, only to have it fall down and shatter (in slow motion). Their other sibling, Lenny (Assante), is a haunted war veteran with a limp who works as an undertaker. Because, you see, he’s dead inside. Subtlety, thy name is not Stallone. As the turgid narrative unfolds, Cosmo courts Lenny’s ex, dancehall girl Annie (Anne Archer), and Cosmo gets into hassles with local mobster Stitch (Kevin Conway, giving the film’s most cartoonish performance). Eventually—which is to say, halfway through the movie, once Stallone remembers to generate a plot—Cosmo asks Victor to become a wrestler so the family can get rich. Inexplicably, this decision transforms Lenny into an avaricious prick, allowing Stallone to twist the story so his character can grow a conscience. 

          After several diverting but pointless sequences—Lenny decides he wants Annie back, Cosmo bonds with a broken-down wrestler (Frank McRae), and so on—the movie climaxes in an interminable wrestling match that is set, for no reason except that Stallone wanted a visual flourish, during a rainstorm. Cue repetitive shots of Canalito and his sparring partner flipping each other into puddles for maximum slow-mo splashing! The great cinematographer László Kovács shoots the hell out of Stallone’s absurd scenes, making the movie look better than it deserves, and the acting is so flamboyant that many scenes have energy. However, Paradise Alley is both clichéd and confusing—it’s as if Stallone couldn’t decide which old movies he wanted to pillage, so he copped something from all of them. Combined with the excessive storytelling style, the haphazard cribbing from vintage cinema turns Paradise Alley into an unappealing jumble.

Paradise Alley: LAME

          Were it not for the presence of two actors who later became famous, ’70s TV icon Henry Winkler and perennial action-movie star Sylvester Stallone, The Lords of Flatbush would have long since faded into obscurity, because even though the film is sincere and thoughtful, it’s simply not that memorable or well-made. A nostalgic story about a (mostly) nonviolent street gang in ’50s Brooklyn, the picture presents trite themes related to the transition from adolescence to adulthood, as seen through the interconnected journeys of four friends. The principal characters are David “Chico” Tyrell (Perry King), a smart-ass lothario who juggles multiple girlfriends, and Stanley Rosiello (Stallone), a none-too-smart bruiser whose hulking frame disguises a sensitive soul. As the film progresses, Chico tries to seduce a pretty girl from the suburbs, Jane Bradshaw (Susan Blakely), only to find that she’s a player as well, manipulating various men for her benefit. Meanwhile, Stanley gets his girlfriend pregnant and wrestles with the choice of whether to do right by her. Receiving much less screen time are the other two members of “The Lords,” Chico’s and Stanley’s gang—secretly smart Butchey (Winkler) and self-descriptively named Wimpy (Paul Mace).

          Much of the picture comprises scenes of the quartet getting into trouble while running around town in their matching leather jackets, and although the actors don’t make convincing teenagers (Stallone, for instance, was nearly 30 when he made the movie), co-writers/co-directors Martin Davidson and Stephen Verona obviously drew from personal experience to re-create the rhythms of life in ’50s Brooklyn. The problem, unfortunately, is that the narrative is inconsequential. Nothing makes these characters special or unique—they’re exactly the same as any other teenagers who mess around before growing up—and the storytelling is amateurishly blunt. Sure, a few moments connect, like Stanley’s pathetic attempt to save face while pricing engagement rings, but nothing really soars. That said, Stallone is quite good in the picture, running laps around his less dynamic costars, with King suffering badly by comparison—King’s swagger feels contrived, whereas Stallone’s posturing seems fueled by relatable anguish.

The Lords of Flatbush: FUNKY

          In many respects, cinema history has not been kind to Rocky, the feel-good hit that turned Sylvester Stallone into a superstar and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. The film’s detractors dismiss Rocky as pandering hokum, and Stallone has been dogged for years by rumors that he didn’t really write the script. Further resentment is fueled by the fact that Rocky won the Best Picture Oscar for 1976, defeating such acclaimed competitors as Network and Taxi Driver. And of course the film’s biggest impediments are the many gratuitous sequels that cheapen the Rocky brand. Yet when the muck is pushed aside, one quickly rediscovers a gem of a movie, which isn’t so much pandering as old-fashioned. The story follows low-rent boxer Rocky Balboa (Stallone), who supports his going-nowhere pugilistic career by working as a muscleman for a Philadelphia gangster, even though Rocky’s too inherently decent to inflict much damage on his employer’s enemies. A simple soul with zero self-esteem, Rocky’s in love with a meek pet-shop clerk, Adrian (Talia Shire), whose brother is foul-tempered drunk Paulie (Burt Young). The other key figure in Rocky’s life is a crusty manager, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), who doesn’t think Rocky will ever amount to anything. But when the reigning heavyweight champ, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), agrees to a publicity-stunt fight in which he’ll give a “nobody” a shot at the title, Rocky’s life changes overnight.
         Yet Rocky isn’t so much about boxing as it is about a small man learning his value in the world, so the filmmakers employ time-tested storytelling gimmicks to put viewers squarely in the underdog hero’s corner. The narrative’s pervasive optimism is leavened by a gritty visual style, courtesy of director John G. Avildsen, who uses working-class neighborhoods and other evocative locations to create a tangible sense of place, so in its best moments Rocky has a level of docudrama realism that sells the contrived storyline. Avildsen also created the definitive sports-training montage, often imitated but never matched—Rocky at the top of the steps! Stallone’s ambition infuses his performance, from the intensity of the boxing scenes to the sweetness of the romantic interludes, and the whole cast meshes perfectly, like the players in a well-oiled stage play. Bill Conti’s thrilling music, especially the horn-driven main theme and the exciting song “Gonna Fly Now,” kicks everything up to epic level, and Rocky boasts one of the all-time great movie endings.
          Three years after the first film became a blockbuster, Stallone starred in, wrote, and directed the first of many unnecessary sequels. Rocky II is the most irritating installment in the series, because shameless crowd-pleaser Stallone undercuts the impact of the original movie with a trite denouement that essentially erases the climax of the previous film. Rocky II features all of the principal players from the first movie, and it’s made with adequate skill, but it’s a hollow echo at best. What’s more, the next two sequels, both released in the ’80s, dispatched with credibility in favor of super-sized entertainment, so Rocky II represents the juncture at which the series enters guilty-pleasure territory.