Rocky Vs. The World

Rocky is such an interesting movie franchise, all the way through. Even the bad ones have a certain dumb charm to them. Rocky is about a Philadelphia boxer who winds up by chance, getting the chance to fight the HeavyWeight champion. Up until now he had never really thought of himself as anything special, but he's suddenly able to become something. So to not waste this chance he trains hard every day and deals with the idea of maybe slipping back into nothingness, having wasted his chance and therefore his life.

One of the best things about the movie is all of the existential crises that Rocky has over the movies, they can be handled very simply and powerfully, while at the same time nuanced enough to actually have something to say. Like Class issues, living in a working class neighborhood and the problems of self-image that arrive. Or Race, which is handled very subtly, about an Italian nobody fighting a Black somebody and through sheer will and effort are they both able to take themselves out of their respective holes that life dug for them.

With all of the sports movies there's something that's very striking to me, which is they function like war movies, only they are allowed to be a little sillier. The lessons in all of the war movies are, some times people die, work hard and give your life for something bigger than you, honor, respect, the team is important, etc. Even a movie like Jarhead or Fullmetal Jacket had these as lessons, although they are a little more didactic and cynical about their lessons.

But in a sports movie you don't have to deal with all of that gravity, you don't have to push it and separate it from normal life, while still maintaining the same lessons. In a way, I think that it's silliness or as I affectionately call it, it's dumbness allows it to have the same import and weight to the lesson, without all of that being separated in your normal daily life. How to perform like a warrior, even when not training for battle.