I love Black Friday Movies. Long before I knew about the insanity of America’s Insane Obsession with turning shopping into a gladiatorial spectacle… My family went to the movies. It’s always been that way. Thanksgiving was about enjoying a day of family & friends in, feasting and enjoying the comforts of home. Then before cabin fever went nuts… we’d see at least a double feature, some years a triple feature.
Today – we decided to see a couple of Biopics. CREED & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN… giggle. But the reality is – we got two stories of legendary men today. The order was CREED and VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN quite on purpose. I knew CREED would be emotional, I don’t kid myself – I fucking love ROCKY. But ROCKY is kind of like my personal MAN LEGEND. Seeing ROCKY in a hospital bed going through life stuff. Who the fuck am I trying to kid, that’ll savage me. So afterwards, I need something silly awesome fun. And the idea of seeing Professor X and his delightfully faithful assistant Harry Potter working on some manner of bio-electrical meat puzzle… well, that just seems filled with shits and giggles – and proper good stuff. I’ll be able to leave the theater and welcome the new cold front that blew in while I was inside! Proper holiday shit!
So first up, CREED…
I woke up to a Twitter direct message from Sylvester Stallone… We were both bummed about not getting together for this one. He was hoping I’d have as much fun with the film as he had making it.
So… SLY – NO, I DIDN’T HAVE “FUN” WITH IT. In fact, I feel like a frozen side of beef in a fucking Philly freezer having its ribs beat in, you FUCKING MANIAC!
Look – In the entire history of ROCKY movies – Rocky has fought fights that no rational human could possibly expect him to win. I saw the first one days before my 5th Birthday in 1976. I was in the early stages of being a pudgy kid at the time, not the Falstaffian presence you all know now, but Mom & Dad’s cooking, my penchant for reading comic books on my belly. Now, ROCKY Rocky Balboa – wasn’t a chiseled man, Sylvester Stallone had a paunch.
At this point in my young life, I fucking worshiped the movies of Bruce Lee. He symbolized in my mind what an asskicking perfection of the human form was. Him and Muhammad Ali. So Stallone… yeah, not seeing it. He looked like the arm breaking street thug he was. The second I saw Carl Weathers’ APOLLO CREED – I knew who was going to win this fight. Every insult that Mickey yelled at him, all that shit was true. He had no business being in that fight. Of course by the time he got to that fight, you were definitely daring to dream. Rocky’s dream to go the distance with the champ, that was something new. You don’t have to win to win. POWERFUL SHIT. You win by meeting personal goals.
Rocky Balboa is most likely the Guinness Book of World Records Champion for singular character repeatedly hit in the head while you love him. I believe this same level of punishment equals endearment formula has been repeated by Mel Gibsons’ Riggs and Bruce Campbell’s Ash.
Seeing Rocky get pummeled, watching his face swell up like a ripe plum is like a visual flagellation – through Rocky’s suffering I realize I can survive anything life hurls at me. ROCKY IV being the most impossible thing ever. Rocky vs the Mutant Genetically-Engineered Super Soviet – in the midst of the Cold War… ROCKY IV was my families BLACK FRIDAY movie of 1985 – and it was filled nearly to capacity with uniformed men on leave and watching ROCKY IV at Sykes Center in Wichita Falls. I was a Freshman in High School. At this juncture in my life, I was pretty sure I was going to grow up to be President of the United States. See, I’ve always been mildly delusional. But if you dreamed of being a President under the COLD WAR version of the United States – and even if you weren’t – the media made the SOVIET UNION the scariest fucking bogeyman on the planet Earth. As a lover of Monster movies, I always wanted to know everything I could get my hands on that had the Soviet flag on the cover of – and Magazines constantly had it. I read everything. THEN – Dolph Lundgren (1985) – it was clearly David & Goliath. That Rocky got a room of brainwashed Soviet Killers to chant ROCKY… it meant, the United States was going to win! I just knew it.
Ok – I know – silly stuff, but it was my childhood. I know I skipped MR. T who was the scariest man ever. But you know what – Mr. T and Ivan Drago are YouTube Kitty Cat videos next to CANCER.
Rocky vs CANCER. Holy shit.
CREED has Rocky Balboa as a supporting character, but to this 43 year old man… And I know Sylvester Stallone – and that shit right there is just absurd. Absurd. Insanely improbable. Chemo Rocky – shit ain’t right.
I mean, shit even thinking of it right now – tears pour. Cancer is the thing my Dad has openly been terrified. It’s killed friends younger than me. First cancer death I knew was this kid in Elementary school. Before the movie there was promo for St. Jude with famous folks doing the right thing and trying their bests to get folks to care. CANCER. The Sun can give it to us. So can everything else. And, there aren’t cures. Stories of survivors happen and those are the ones we hang onto. C’mon Nanotech!
Anyway – yeah – I know Michael B Jordan was fucking great. Yes, I love everything about his story – but emotionally – for me. About 99% of my love and eternal devotion to the character of Adonis Johnson-Creed is that he was Rocky’s Mickey/Apollo/Pauly/Adrian… He taught ROCKY BALBOA to fight metaphorically and with everything he has cuz you never fucking know what’s around the fucking corner – and when NANOTECH MAKES US IMMORTALS – Stallone is using that shit forever and we’ll have ROCKY Movies for the next few dozen millennia.
At the same time I love that this is the evolution of the Rocky Balboa story. Michael B Jordan’s Adonis is a great character all on his own. Bastard child of an affair he wasn’t even aware of until after his mother died and then Phylicia Rashad’s Mary Anne Creed adopts him – she tries to tame the fight in his soul, shadow boxing ghosts upon Youtube. Tijuana Club Fighting, feeling he can be someone and goes off in search of a trainer. Mary’s stories of Apollo and Rocky – make him head to Philly and Balboa.
Everything about his story is on target. Going by Donny Johnson is easier growing up in a culture that doesn’t think obsessively about MIAMI VICE any more, but ADONIS CREED – would be an enormous target. I completely get it. Adonis is a lot like young Rocky Balboa – but better educated. Imagine growing up as the bastard son of Apollo Creed. Jess Franklin Christ that’d be hard. But also – so much of the footage that would’ve survived would so you how to be a braggart dick champion. He wouldn’t have seen the fine mind of Apollo, but his mom would’ve given him those lessons – about using your mind. That’s why he was a young successful business man. You can just imagine Mrs Huxtable raising a young man. WONDER HOW? I religiously watched from 1984-1989. Love bringing her up without having to mention that other character.
But Donny Jonson’s path or Club Fighting as a moonlighting a dream he dare not mention, while feeling dead inside at a job that makes him a bit smaller everyday. It’s a different moral quandary from Balboa’s Bruiser, but they’re both paths I don’t want to travel. And I get that fighting is the escape and the dream. At the same time, seeking out the man that took your father’s belt, whom on Mary Ann’s drunken self-pity moments, she’d probably cry about how Rocky killed Apollo… He’s been raised with a degree of FEAR of FIGHTING being a constant. Never having anyone believe in him. He just needs someone to believe and ROCKY owes him that and gives in.
I also loved Tessa Thompson who is a lot more than Adonis’ Adrian, but she’s a great character – one that could be used as the emotional life tragedy or jubilation in future CREED movies – and I already kinda adore her. She’s great.
By the time Adonis has Apollo’s big eye plum – you’re rooting for him – and how the fight ends – PERFECT. Just perfect. How the movie ends – Great Stuff. And yeah, Niagara Harry. Whole family loved it. Lots of hugs. I can see a very strong push for a Supporting Actor nomination & possible win for Stallone. The makeup and the physical performance of Sly’s was just on target. He always has me when he goes into Rocky voice – but this was a whole helluvalot of physical weariness. But I think personally I’d give him the Oscar for reading the newspaper to Adrian & Pauly. Holy shit, made me cry more than a fucking Shirley Temple flick. Fuck SOPHIE’S CHOICE or SCHINDLER’S LIST – those are movies where you know it’ll be psychically brutal. But man. No. Just No. EVIL.
And – HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE ROCKY’S TURTLE – and don’t you wonder if it’s CUFF or LINK – and don’t you want to know which? And don’t you kind of want the living turtle to be LINK – and in CREED 2, Rocky could say he named it after his fave character on THE MOD SQUAD and CREED could say, “I knew you weren’t cool enough for ZELDA!”
See, that’s what we call deflection, where I make a silly joke so I could wrap this out by not being a wimpy wuss – but ya know what, crying makes us stronger.
OK – time for the VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN movie that was written by the SON OF THE DIRECTOR OF AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON – and that had me in all the right kinds of mood.
First I love when I watch a double feature to find common themes. The most obvious commonality between CREED & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN is – they both feature Flame Breathing characters. That’s a very odd repetition of imagery. I mean. Weird. I love Flame Breathing performers – but it’s not in very many films in a year – and it kind of made me feel that fate bound these movies to me. ALSO – from a stand point of the first film being about a guy whose father was this famous person and he’s trying to go out there and kick a little ass on his own – only this time it was behind the scenes with Max Landis writing a Victor Frankenstein In London story instead of a Werewolf. And I’m totally cool with that.
I swear I remember when Max Landis was talking about this project, it was called IGOR – but I think I’m going a bit crazy. But I swear that’s what I remember. Anyway – I LOVED IT!
Also, I really dig the director, Paul McGuigan. He’s directed some absolutely sterling episodes of SHERLOCK. I’ve been a huge fan since he made GANGSTER NO. 1. Liking both WICKER PARK and LUCKY NUMBER SLEVEN, but since, he’s been doing solid TV work.
Visually – there’s a part of me that wants to strip all the color out of the film – and make it high contrast black & white. Cuz there’s YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN joke that’ll play even better in Black & White. Also – the production design of Eve Stewarts and Art Direction by Grant Armstrong – well… if this were David Lynch ELEPHANT MAN Black & White, this movie would have been very well received I feel. NOT THAT THE COLOR is a problem, it’s lovely THEATRICAL stuff. It’s very fun stuff.
Watching Daniel Radcliffe as a Circus Hunchback Clown Doctor With No Name… It’s insane. His hair is like the feral child from THE ROAD WARRIOR / MAD MAX 2. His clown make up felt like clowns I’ve seen in Venice. And his hunchback scurrying and being kicked and abused by the circus freaks… I loved this stuff. As a fan of Sideshow culture, I’ve always figured if worst came to worst, I’d get estrogen shots and be the Fat Bearded Lady. It’s weird to see Kathy Bates living out my ambitions. ANYWAYS – this is a quirky movie right from the get go – and it has interesting ENHANCED REALITY aspect to it – kinda like in CREED when the Stat Cards hit the screen, except way more cool. Here, Daniel Radcliffe demonstrates the ability to have X-Ray vision – only instead of it being like SUPERMAN, instead the Circus Hunchback Clown Doctor’s vision of the interiors of people become anatomical book illustrations that can animate as the people and animals move. That was neat. And later James McAvoy’s titular Victor Frankenstein demonstrates the same gift for X-ray Gross Anatomy Vision.
Another stylistic similarity between CREED & VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN was the main characters. Victor Frankenstein is an ambitious son of a famous and well regarded traditional doctor, trying to do something truly remarkable so he can finally grow beyond the shadow he has inherited, just like Adonis, and he seeks out a gifted assistant to help him achieve what will be his life’s work. Only the slightly disabled girlfriend goes to the Assistant.
The film has a wonderfully silly gross imagery – when it is revealed that IGOR isn’t entirely an authentic hunchback. All I’ll say is the gas siphoning metaphor was EXCEPTIONALLY FUCKING GROSS – and caused my entire row to get the giggles! Gross awesomery!
There’s a part of this film, when Daniel Radcliffe first gets cleaned up and is walking about Victorian London where the expression on his face reminded me of when he sipped LIQUID LUCK – and I genuinely couldn’t stop smiling. When Victor Frankenstein gives him the name of IGOR – ceasing his existence as Circus Hunchback Clown Doctor With No Name for all time… I giggled. This movie isn’t entirely serious – and I think if you go into the movie with the stick removed from your ass – and intent on having a good time – you’ll find that it’ll give you one.
James McAvoy’s VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN - is a young man that knows his theory is sound, but his ability to fine tune his concepts – slightly skewed due to his absolute giddy realization that he knows he can do something that nobody has ever done before, and nobody can know until I get it right – and then he find this Circus Hunchback Clown Doctor with an incredible clarity of vision and hands that are naturally gifted… and he’s the exact partner in crime in must have to give birth to his genius. He’s manic, obsessed with the affirmation that he’s right and everyone else is living in the dark ages.
Now the movie isn’t all laughs – this isn’t YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but it’s like you thought up a story that wasn’t slavishly dedicated to the aesthetic of classic Universal Horror films, this is 20th Century Fox after all, but what if you showed the young Victor Frankenstein… and what if IGOR the “Yes Master” kind of hunchback, but from a difficult traumatic background, but a gifted complimentary mind to enhance his work. It’s sort of like the previous tack with the character was reevaluated in the ways that people that played with that other UNIVERSAL series, SHERLOCK HOLMES – the character of Watson as played as a blustery bumbly loyal warm pal of a Watson… but then consider all the other versions. And Martin Freeman’s version is very different. Here, IGOR is no fool. But he’s not altogether properly adjusted.
It is definitely a gear to shift into when you’re watching, but once the killer bio engineered electro monkey starts going like a made up undead monkey would – I mean seriously – Frankenstein, you started with an Undead Monkey – and decided to build something bigger? Start with a mouse. Make one that’s friendly then go. BUT – and this is something you have to remember.
Victor Frankenstein is a MAD SCIENTIST! He’s the ORIGINAL MAD SCIENTIST! There’s a fun gear of camp going on here that comes inherent to the casting and the Landis sensibilities.
But man – The Undead Monkey that might’ve had LION PAWS… well – that’s fantastic. It’s weird, it’s fucking disgusting, it’s gross. But that’s kinda correct!
Andrew Scott plays an Inspector investigating the theft of parts of exotic animals from around London – and he is devoutly religious and I can’t help but think of him as Moriarty – and how cool would it have been had Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman had a Victorian cameo in this thing – cuz it feels right. It’s got a fun wit to it.
By the time we’re in a castle in Scotland making a two pair of lungs and two hearted mega Frankenstein – and Igor in love… I was just giddy.
These are properties that have been adapted endlessly, I’ve loved the story in many of the iterations, but this is a quirky stylized lavishly produced version of the tale, with even a hint of an open end. Like CREED.
If you love the mythology of FRANKENSTEIN, there’s a good chance you could have fun with this – if you’re the sort of person that likes Black Comedy Adaptations of classic literature. For me and my family – it worked as a great evening out at the theater.
CREED is dramatically sound and great. VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN isn’t entirely serious, loosely adapted with a great side of WHAT THE FUCK. That said, CREED is the better film, but boy was VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN the fun that I needed to get over the traumawesome of CREED.
Lots of great stuff at theaters this year. Something to give thanks for.
