Rocky Balboa (2006)

In this movie, Sylvester Stallone, who also directed, is a shambling, endearing weirdo with extensive plastic surgery on his face. His character wears a maroon blazer and entertains visitors to his restaurant (named "Adrian" after his erstwhile wife, who died of what he calls the "woman cancer") with old fight stories. Rocky is a local hero, and intimately connected with South Philadelphia, where all of the houses seem to remind him of Adrian, and there's something truly pathetic and moving about his quest to recover a sort of meaningful life after Adrian's passing.

I didn't really buy the idea that this quest would lead Rocky back into the ring to fight the current champ, Mason "The Line" Dixon (AWESOME), a young black hotshot who has never really gotten to fight somebody of his own caliber and is trying to prove himself. There's a lot of talk on the part of The Rock about fire in the belly and feeling like you haven't finished what you started, but in real life, wouldn't one fight just lead to "just one more"? It would for me, and that's the pathos of human nature: you always think "just one more" will satisfy you. Not Rocky - he really does want only one more, and when he's done, and has taught Dixon the meaning of tenacity, he can go back to his restaurant and his stories and maybe a romance with "Little Marie", the local girl who's platonically present throughout the film.

There's also a lot of weird race stuff in here - from the black champ's posturing and obnoxious posse; to the group of white kids in a bar who harass Rocky and who speak in affected hip-hop slang, who are supposed to signify the downfall of the neighborhood; to "Little Marie"'s son Steps, a biracial kid who serves as sort of a scarlet A signifying Marie's fallen status as single mom and ex-mate of a Jamaican. Rocky's fight is sort of a resurgence of white masculinity in the face of all of this degeneration, a la James Jeffries, the Great White Hope, who came out of retirement to fight Jack Johnson in 1910 in order to prove, quote, "that a white man is better than a Negro." (Jeffries, by the way, lost; this film lets Dixon win, but only in a split decision.)

Whatever. I still love Rocky's weird verbal tics and "yo"s and awkward posture and kindness to run-down old dogs. And I found out during this movie's training montage that Nick could once lift 615 pounds, which is valuable information and worth the watch.