Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars in his 1979 follow-up to the 1976 hit Rocky. Picking up moments after the first film ended, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is dealing with the fallout of his fight with Rocky (Stallone) while Rocky is having his first brush with fame and money even as a rematch is on…
Tag: boxing
Mission: Impossible (1973) – The Fighter, and Speed
It’s my penultimate instalment of Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series. Five episodes to go. First up this week is The Fighter. Written by Stephen Kandel and Nicholas E. Baehr from a story by Orville H. Hapmton, this episode first debuted on 9 February, 1973. It starts out with a fun guest star, Herbert Jefferson…
Mission: Impossible (1968) – The Contender: Part 1, and Part 2
Phelps’ (Peter Graves) and his IMF team go undercover to bring down a crooked fight promoter, Charles Buckman (Ron Randell), who not only has some serious control over the boxing ring, but is planning on spreading his influence over other sports as well, as part of a move by organised crime. The story ends up…
The Twilight Zone (1963) – In Praise of Pip, Steel, and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
It’s time to dive into the fifth and final season of The Twilight Zone. The Complete Series on blu-ray, available from Paramount Pictures unveils the first three episodes of the season this week, as the series returns to a twenty-five minute runtime per episode as opposed to the fifty minute episodes of the previous season….
Billy Elliot (2000) – Stephen Daldry
The final recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book for my viewing of West Side Story isn’t necessarily a musical, but it definitely shares the same love of dance. Billy Elliot, which has since inspired a stage musical perfectly captures joy in dance and simultaneously juxtaposes the ordinary events of day…
Raging Bull (1980) – Martin Scorsese
We move back to Drama in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book, and take a look at Martin Scorsese’s biopic on boxing legend Jake La Motta, brought to visceral life by an Oscar wining performance by Robert De Niro. As succesful as La Motta would prove to be inside the boxing ring,…
The Rockford Files (1978) – A Fast Count and Local Man Eaten by Newspaper
Private investigator James Rockford (James Garner) has his hands full this week. First up is A Fast Count, written by Gordon T. Dawson and aired 1 December, 1978. The phone gag this time around features a woman calling and giving a rather convoluted money trail about $250. Jim ends up working for a boxing…
Hot Docs: Last Woman Standing – Lorraine Price and Juliet Lammers
The film opens with three important facts. Women’s Boxing has been added as an official medal event at the 2012 Olympics for the first time in history. The world’s two best female boxers reside in Canada. Only one can be selected to compete for Olympic gold. All that in itself would make for a captivating…
The Boxing Girls of Kabul – Ariel J. Nasr, Canada
The Olympic Stadium in Afghanistan, once a grim execution ground for women under the Taliban rule, is now home to a boxing coach and the ragtag group of determined young women he has been training. Their passion for the sport is immediately evident in their enthusiastic attempts to learn everything their coach can teach…
The Mind Reels 