Bonus Blog #3: Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

In the summer of my sophomore year of college, I took a film studies class called "Hollywood on Hollywood," an analysis of movies that were about both the town of Hollywood itself and the movie-making business. Among the films we watched in the class were Sunset Boulevard, The Day of the Locust, and Sullivan's Travels.

Though many of the films in that class left an impression on me, Sullivan's Travels was one that truly surprised me. A film from 1941, written and directed by Preston Sturges, it felt modern and fresh in a way that most of the films from the 30s and 40s I'd seen so far simply hadn't. In our review of this film in that class and my continued education in film studies, I would learn that this style of writing was something Preston Sturges was famous for, combining wonderful turns of phrase with vaudevillian physical comedy…

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Bonus Blog #2: The Secret Garden (1993)

In the house I grew up in there is a detached garage that sits at the end of the driveway. Along the right side of it is a path to our small backyard, accessible through a white picket fence gate. The walls of the path were overrun with jasmine and ivy; and tall, grassy weeds burst through the concrete path all over. Pulling all the weeds and trimming the greenery was a big job, so often we simply let nature take over for a season or two until we summoned the strength to clear out all the debris. 

I always liked when that path was overgrown, and the tall grass peeked through the slats of the gate. It made that small space feel magical and special somehow, a kind of secret passageway to an unknown world. When I saw The Secret Garden as a young girl, the idea of a place with a hidden door where miraculous things could happen completely captured my imagination and added to my fascination with magic and secrets…

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Bonus Blog #1: Rocky (1976)

Quick programming note, this first Bonus Blog is free for all to view, but in the future these posts will only be for our Patreon supporters! Become a Patron for access to bonus blogs, exclusive album art, higher quality audio, and more!

When James and I started this project, the objective was to share some of the media that has most impacted us, with each other and anybody else who wanted to listen in. There’s a powerful assumption in our society that one’s media consumption is a great indicator of their personality. Especially now, in the age of streaming and endless content, what we consume is treated as a marker of class and taste, accurate or not. James and I have been together for over 10 years and we share many favorite TV shows, movies, and games. And yet, the slight differences in our personal tastes, our upbringings, and our developing interests through childhood and adolescence would every now and then reveal something new. 

I’m sure anyone who has ever been in a relationship recognizes the ongoing game of “you haven’t SEEN THAT?” that plays out as you idly poke and prod at each other’s media history. I remember thinking that doing this podcast would be a fun way to explain little idiosyncrasies about myself. I would get to tell James about childhood memories of watching movies with family, how certain quotes and songs got wedged in my subconscious, all the little things that made an impression on me and helped to shape the person I am today. What I didn’t entirely anticipate was how much I would enjoy revisiting these films with a fresh perspective, with the intention of sharing what makes them special with someone I love.

That feeling was there in full force when we watched Rocky from 1976, directed by John G. Avildsen and starring Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, and Burgess Meredith. Going back and rewatching Rocky and revisiting this episode, I’m so glad it was this movie to be our first, because it really is a rich film that laid the groundwork for an entire subgenre and it only improves with repeated viewings. I showed it to James because it was a piece of media that had been part of my movie vocabulary for as long as I could remember. As I mentioned in the episode, being around my family meant being immersed in the fan culture of movie quotes, sports memorabilia, and nostalgia. Rocky’s infamous cry of “ADRIAAAAN!” at the film’s conclusion, the woman who heckles Rocky in the first sequence with “You’re a bum, you know that? A bum!”, the raw eggs for breakfast, the training montage, it was all baked into my understanding of sportsmanship, determination, grit.

Rocky was a piece of art that spoke to my parents, my uncles and aunts, and they deemed it necessary to pass on to the next generation. That instinct is what I love so much about this project and about art in general; as humans we seek out stories that resonate with us, that teach us something about the world or that reflect something we know to be true. What joy there is in finding those stories and being compelled to share them with others, and how special that I get to experience that with my husband and all our listeners.

Every now and then we do an episode that really hits me and I realize what an incredible gift this is, the act of sharing experiences and memories and building new ones with the person I love most. In that spirit, I’d like to revisit our past movie episodes for you, our wonderful patrons, to provide more analysis to the films themselves combined with the "behind-the-scenes" story of what it was like to share that experience with James.

Rocky opens with a horizontally scrolling title card, big bold white letters against a black background, and the fanfare opening of the theme song, “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti. The black fades into an image of Jesus holding the Eucharist, then we pan down and zoom out to observe a sweaty boxing match between Rocky Balboa and Spider Rico. It’s an incredibly effective way of introducing us to Rocky. 

We start out with this beautiful, inspiring music backing up marquee-size letters, the image of Christ Himself, we know we’re about to see a heroic tale. But then we drop from our lofty height, Jesus fades from view, and we find ourselves in the middle of a dirty fight between two not-very-heroic looking men. The inspiring music has been replaced by the hoots and jeers of a crowd, there is neither honor nor glory in this arena. After a messy fight in which Spider headbutts Rocky and Rocky retaliates with a flurry of angry blows, Rocky receives his winner’s pay of... $40. Talk about a fall from grace.

Something we touched on in the episode was James’ surprise at what an introspective film the first Rocky is, and this opening scene is a great example. After winning the $40 for getting his head cut open by another man’s face, Rocky walks home on the dirty streets of 1970s Philadelphia, stopping to bum a smoke from a group of people standing around a burning barrel and singing. They greet Rocky warmly and he remarks that their singing gets better every year before heading home to his small, dingy apartment. 

The opening action scene gives way to a quiet walk home alone on the street. Rocky is just some guy from the neighborhood. He’s a strong man, capable of violence, but he has a soft heart and a vulnerability to him, emphasized by his love of animals, his shy courtship of Adrian, and his humble way of speaking.

Throughout the movie, Rocky continues to take Ls from all sides. We learn his day job is being hired muscle for a local loan shark, Tony Gazzo, and his only friend is Paulie, Adrian’s brother, a small, bitter man who actually aspires to being a “leg-breaker” for Gazzo and is abusive to his sister. This slow build to a hero’s triumph set a new standard for sports films, as we also discussed in the episode, the underdog story would continue to follow the example started by “wrestling pictures” in the 30s and modernized by Rocky in the 70s, with an emphasis on the hero’s journey and highlighting the pathos of sport and competition.

Speaking of Paulie, I just have to reiterate how much Paulie sucks. We mentioned it in the episode, and rewatching it now it hit me all over again. What a performance by Burt Young here, depicting the guy who comes from the same environment as Rocky, who has been beaten down in the same way, but just doesn’t have the same heart and has instead become consumed by his despair and self-loathing. 

Paulie is deeply sad and angry, and he turns all that negativity outward at the only people who support and care for him. His plan for getting Rocky and Adrian to go out on Thanksgiving is flat-out insane: he invites Rocky over for Thanksgiving dinner, insisting that Adrian approves and is very excited to see him. When they arrive, it becomes clear that not only did Paulie not tell Adrian anything about Rocky coming over, his plan is actually for them to go out together immediately, ignoring the Thanksgiving dinner Adrian has presumably been preparing all afternoon. When Adrian says she cannot go out because of the food she’s preparing, Paulie grabs the turkey out of the oven and throws it into the alley, dusting his hands off and considering the matter solved. He nonchalantly tells Rocky everything is fine now and for him to just go talk to Adrian and take her out, she’s no longer busy. It’s absolutely monstrous behavior, but Paulie won’t get his overdue dressing-down until later in the movie. 

Despite Paulie being happy to ride Rocky’s coattails into success when it’s through his connection with Gazzo, when Rocky gets the opportunity to fight Apollo Creed for the big bicentennial fight, his gradual transformation and self-improvement inspires jealousy in Paulie. Wallowing in depression and self-pity, Paulie blames everyone around him for his problems and shortcomings and insists they sit in the shit with him.

This is also an iconic role for Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed, the clever and cocky heavyweight champion who masterminds a #marketableAF fight when his original contender has a broken hand and cannot compete. Creed is talented, cool, and calculated, he chooses Rocky as an opponent out of a book based on his nickname, “the Italian Stallion.” His only sin is overconfidence, and seeming to care more about being a showman than a fighter. But when we finally get to the match at the film’s conclusion we see he has the skills to back up all his big talk, even if Rocky does catch him occasionally unawares. Apollo Creed is not the villain of Rocky, because the true battle is within the man himself.

Once he is offered the chance at the championship title through a surprise match with Creed, Rocky struggles to get into shape before accepting the help of his old coach, Mickey. We went over the scene where Mickey comes down to Rocky’s apartment to offer his services in the episode, and how much I love the stubborn masculine tension of it all. Mickey is one of the few people Rocky gets angry with and that scene is one of those moments. 

He yells, venting his frustrations with Mickey, not to his face but knowing Mickey can hear them. Rocky has to let it all out before running after him, to accept his offer. He knows Mickey means well, and he does need his help after all, if he’s going to “go the distance” with Creed. It just strikes me as one of those poignant, human moments, beautifully captured on film. These two proud boxers, squaring off in a dirty living room and struggling with all their might to simply be honest and vulnerable with one another. They both fail; Mickey has no response to Rocky’s dig about being kicked out of his locker at the gym, and Rocky cannot express his angry, hurt feelings to Mickey’s face, waiting until he has left to yell them through the wall. But they make it work anyway, shaking hands out in the street, illuminated by the city lights.

Throughout, the love story of Rocky and Adrian is being told. In the beginning of the film, Rocky stops by the pet shop where Adrian works to say hello and tell her a joke, like he always does. And in the finale, Adrian exclaims “I love you” to Rocky for the first time. As we mentioned in the episode, the arc of their relationship is essentially as important as Rocky’s arc of training and motivation. There are more moments of quiet contemplation and conversation than there are big action sequences.

As we also discussed in the episode, Rocky does suffer from the cliche wherein a woman who wears glasses suddenly stops wearing them once she has Achieved Confidence. In this case, after Rocky and Adrian have sex for the first time. As James eloquently put it, “Did Rocky’s dick cure her eyesight?” But Rocky and Adrian’s romance is satisfying as well, they inspire and support each other and through the events of the film transform into different people. 

Adrian is meek and unassuming when we first meet her in the pet shop at the beginning of the movie, everybody walks all over her. She seems to enjoy Rocky’s company but is uncomfortable with his attention, she lacks confidence and is uncertain about what she wants. But as Rocky continues to gently court her, she opens up and expands as a character and a presence in the film.

Adrian’s development culminates in the scene where Paulie finally sees some consequences for his behavior. At Christmas, Paulie makes another scene when he comes home drunk and looking for a fight. When he fails to boss Adrian around, he erupts and takes a baseball bat to the decor, screaming that Adrian is a burden who ruined his life, blaming all his shortcomings on her, and calling her “damaged goods” because of her relationship with Rocky.

At Thanksgiving, Adrian simply swallowed her emotions and put the walls up, locking herself in her room after Paulie’s outburst and then silently emerging to accommodate his request. But this time, she fights back, yelling at Paulie that he is the one who drags people down, not her. Adrian defends herself, confident in her own worth for the first time, and decides to move out, asking Rocky, “You want a roommate?” after the dust has settled. (And listen, Rocky’s zero-hesitation response of “Absolutely.” is more swoon-worthy than Stallone’s beefcake bod.)

In the end, Rocky doesn’t win the championship title, but it is still a triumphant finale. The night before the fight, when Rocky has a moment of doubt, he confides to Adrian that he knows he probably can’t win, but that all he wants to do is “go the distance,” last through all rounds of the fight without getting knocked out.

He accomplishes this, proving to himself once and for all that he is more than a bum, some schmuck from the neighborhood, and that he has what it takes to hold his own against a champion, earning the respect of Apollo Creed in the process. In the end, it’s about the journey after all, the lessons we learn from hardship and how we use them to become better versions of ourselves.

Rewatching this movie I fell in love all over again, and listening to our episode on it I was struck by how earnest I was in the intro about how much I wanted this project to be about love and sharing. At the time I was picturing a show where my husband and I walked down Memory Lane together, arm in arm, learning fascinating stories about one another and experiencing masterpiece after masterpiece. It’s been a little different than that, of course. We’ve had frustrating gaming moments, watched movies that didn’t quite hold up, and dealt with our share of technical difficulties. But I’ve also gotten to hear some stories about James’ childhood that I’ve never heard, put words to feelings about what certain movies or characters meant to me, and gotten to preserve all that in funny little conversations that we can share with you. 

I’m glad we started with Rocky, a movie that would become the blueprint for sports underdog movies for decades to come. Not only is it wedged deep in my subconscious, the jumping off point for stories about my boisterous uncles or boxing with my cousins in my grandma’s hallway, but it’s also a really beautiful, simple film about one man reclaiming his self-respect and finding the courage to dream bigger.

Thanks for joining me for this first blog, friends. This one has been made public but future posts will be Patron-only. I'll be writing about our second movie, The Secret Garden from 1993. Hope to see you then! 

With love,

Elyse