Only two movies in July! I’ve got to step things up.
Creed, 28 July 2017, Amazon Prime
Full disclosure: I don't think I've watched any of the Rocky movies. I mean, I’m familiar with all the parts we all know via cultural osmosis, but I have no ties to the narrative history. I just really love Michael B Jordan, from
Friday Night Lights, and it's well past time for me to familiarize myself with his work with Coogler. (
Black Panther, y’all.) And who can say no to Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad? (Stallone was a surprise, but yeah, that Oscar nom wasn't a sham.)
The charm of the movie, outside of its stars, were the pops of media-savvy: Youtube and the tri-color of the projector cascading over Donnie, the goofy playfulness of the pop-up boxer stats, the stilted hagiography of HBO Sports, the idle Google searches over breakfast, the cable sports commentary riddled with chyrons. The legend-building methods of the original movies are long in the past.
Congratulations to whoever created this graphic for knowing, I suspect, nothing about sports except what’s on this screen.
What's so odd to me was that the actual boxing, with its zooms and dramatic music, felt drastically un-boxing-like. I grew up watching matches on TV, and boxing is largely poorly-lit rounds of aggressive hugging, rapidly punctuated by oil-slick jabs. By making the matches a series of dramatic combos, they lost out on something.
In any case, think of this as a movie of folks who know they're making a dumb decision either immediately before or after they hurt someone, and then reluctantly attempt to do better, clumsily. Then it's incredibly graceful. And who doesn't love a good training montage?
Spider-Man: Homecoming, 29 July 2017, Riverdale 10 VIP Cinema
- Either this movie is excessively charming or enough time has passed to rob me of my rage about having paid to see Spider-Man 3 a decade ago.
- Brown folks! Brown folks everywhere! Of varying ethnicities, genders, roles, linguistic histories, and socioeconomic brackets! Plus NED! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!
- This is why students need affirmation and challenges, STARK. Do you need a link to my teaching philosophy? GOD.
- Those Cap videos are delightful, and twice as much when you think about the work that must have gone into them.
- This is an argument that we need stronger unions, right? That's what I’m picking up.
And on to August!
