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Statik 360 is the Best Charger Cord You Will Ever Own

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Take it from the guys at Fight News Unlimited. We love this product. It is durable, practical and will keep your hassles with phone charging to a minimum. Check it out:

boxing, movies, Tony Penecale

Tornado goes to the movies: rocky iV remastered review

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by: Tony “the Tornado” Penecale (above)

Here is my review of the Rocky vs Drago movie plus a photo with the movie poster. Guess who walked out with it!

So I went to see the Rocky vs Drago Director’s Cut film last night.


Here are 2 spoilers that shouldn’t be spoilers.  Apollo still dies and Rocky still wins.


So the movie had approximately 40 minutes of new footage.  It also kept approximately the same run time so with 40 minutes of new footage, there is nearly 40 minutes of omitted footage.


Now for some spoilers.  If you don’t want anything spoiled, I suggest you stop reading here.


There were two shots that I really hoped would have been edited out for this film but somehow still made it in.  I’ll get to them later.


So I’ll breakdown some of the changes/additions/omissions and give my thoughts.


1) New opening. Usually, it starts with the ROCKY title scrolling across the bottom to one of the series signature songs.  Then it breaks into the last round of the previous movie.   This movie starts with various clips from Rocky 3 including Rocky’s loss to Clubber Lang, Apollo talking him out of retiring, and the climatic fight scene.  It completely omits the Rocky and Apollo sparring session.  I was not a fan of the new opening.  I am used to the normal movie openings that last 2-3 minutes and set the stage for the new installment.  I wasn’t a fan of the song they used “Sweetest Victory” which is on the Rocky IV soundtrack but never used in the original.


2) No robot.  While this was seen as a cross between corny and creepy (Paulie’s girlfriend?), the omission of the robot, likely due to licensing agreements, meant that many scenes with Paulie or Rocky Jr had to be cut including Paulie’s birthday scene.


3) The new Drago introduction press conference explains that they tried to arrange a fight with Rocky.  I thought that was good but they cut out Drago’s wife comparing him to Popeye eating spinach.   In fact, a lot of Brigitte Nielsen’s dialogue was cut.  Could it be because of her “rocky” relationship with Stallone?


4) The reasoning for Apollo to take the fight was improved.  Yes, he still shows up out of nowhere and part of the table scene had to be cut (no robot, remember) but they talked about how Rocky ignored the challenge and Apollo feeling the need to take it.


5) I thought the omission of the whole pre-fight dressing room scene with Rocky and Apollo was a mistake.  Not only does it cut one of my favorite lines “I didn’t say anything about snails, I said Nails N-N-Nails” but it shows Apollo’s overconfidence and Rocky’s trepidation.  The only part of the original dressing room scene that is preposterous is where Rocky was trying to convince Apollo to postpone.  Seriously, who postpones 5 minutes before they are scheduled to walk to the ring?


6) The Creed-Drago fight was greatly improved.  Except for the one shot they left in from the original where Apollo is clearly not wearing gloves.  They missed that edit the first time.  How did they miss it again?  The fight was extended and Apollo got up after an early knockdown and kept trying to fight back. 


7) Apollo’s funeral was extended and improved with his father-figure Duke giving a speech and Rocky giving a more emotional speech.


8) The scene with the boxing commission not sanctioning the fight between Rocky and Drago was included as it was shown in the original 1985 trailer but cut from that movie.  


9) The scene of Rocky talking to his son before leaving was extended and improved.  


10) The training montages were slightly changed and some edits to the scenes in Russia.


11) The final fight was still enjoyable.  There were some added elements to it.


12) Two of the better movie speeches were changed to voiceovers.  Apollo in the dressing room telling Rocky he would understand when it was over was changed to voiceover in Rocky’s head.  The epic speech to Adrian where he said Drago would have to kill him to beat him was also changed to an inner-monologue voiceover.  I definitely think that was a mistake because it takes the charm away from seeing the facial expressions of Apollo and Rocky respectively as they said those lines.


13) The moment before the final round when Drago’s manager ran from his balcony seat with the Kremlin to berate Drago in his corner.  I was hoping that if any scene was cut, it would be that one.  I would rather there be a scene of Paulie marrying the robot and announcing she was pregnant than this scene.  I hated it in 1985 (when I was 9 years old) and I hate it now.  There is 60 seconds between rounds of a boxing match.  This man ran from the balcony, through the crowd, got to Drago’s corner, and berated him in less than one minute.  Drago, for having endured 14 punishing rounds, is able to stand up and lift him with one arm before dropping him off the apron.  Talk about taking some serious liberties.


14) The fight end.  You get used to the way a Rocky fight ends.  He scores the big knockdown, his opponent struggles to get up, and ultimately falls back down as the count reaches 10.  This one, Drago goes down, makes a move to get back up, a falls flat.  The referee stops with no count at all.  I also hated Rocky’s leap at the end.  In the original, he was lifted in the air as he stood there exhausted by triumphant.  This one looks like he is able to do a leaping swan dive into a pool.


15) The speech is different.  He couldn’t reference his kid because showing him would show the robot.  I was glad in a way they cut the scenes of the kids watching the fight.  It always posed some serious questions to me.  If Rocky, Adrian, and Paulie were all in Russia, who was watching the 9 year old kid? The robot? Who is going to let an unsupervised 9 year old watch a fight where there is a fear that his father could be killed?  The part of the speech that was comical was Rocky’s talk about change.  He mentioned his friend (Apollo) couldn’t change and now he’s dead.  Wow.  Way to perk up the crowd there, Rock!


Overall it was enjoyable.  The changed scenes and alternate takes threw off the cadence so you were in truth watching a new movie.  There were a lot of scenes in this film that I prefer to the original (the extended Creed-Drago fight, the extended funeral, Rocky meeting with the commission).  There were some scenes that I think should have been kept (Rocky and Apollo in the dressing room, Mrs. Drago talking about her husband, etc).  There were a few things that I definitely prefer the original, most notably the superior intro scrolling logo/final round of previous movie scene.


So in my conclusion, there needs to be a Director’s Cut of the Director’s Cut and combine the best of the original and the best of the new version.  


We can call this one “Rocky IV Take III: The Tornado Cut”


Tornado 🌪

boxing, movies

CREED II Official Movie Poster and Trailer

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In Theaters Wednesday, November 21st

 

 

Life has become a balancing act for Adonis Creed. Between personal obligations and training for his next big fight, he is up against the challenge of his life. Facing an opponent with ties to his family’s past only intensifies his impending battle in the ring. Rocky Balboa is there by his side through it all and, together, Rocky and Adonis will confront their shared legacy, question what’s worth fighting for, and discover that nothing’s more important than family. Creed II is about going back to basics to rediscover what made you a champion in the first place, and remembering that, no matter where you go, you can’t escape your history.

 

 

Release Date: November 21, 2018

Director: Steven Caple Jr.

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Russell Hornsby,

Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu, Andre Ward, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren

Writer: Sylvester Stallone

Producers: Sylvester Stallone, Kevin King-Templeton, Charles Winkler, William Chartoff, David Winkler, Irwin Winkler

Executive Producers: Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Guy Riedel

Distributor: MGM, Warner Bros. Pictures

Official site: http://creedthemovie.com/

boxing, movies

The Debut premieres to rave reviews at First Glance Film Festival

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Beverly Hills, Calif. (March. 20, 2018) – Independent movie The Debut Premiered last week to rave reviews at the renowned First Glance Film Festival in Los Angeles.
The film which chronicles 21 year-old Shane Shapiro, a cancer survivor, desire to become a boxing manager.  The movie document’s Shapiro and the unique relationship with his first fighter, middleweight Cem Kilic, one week before their professional debut.
Cem Kilic and Shane Shapiro
The film performed in front of a sold out crowd of more than 300 people, which forced the festival to move the showing of the film to a larger theater which which was The Laemmle Theater in North Hollywood.
The film finished in the top four films out of 16 entered in the festival.
 “This experience of having our film shown on a big screen is beyond words. This moment is much bigger than me, this is for every one who has been touched by Cancer in some way, with a dream a desire there is No Limit to one’s success. I want to thank my family who have always been by my side and my biggest inspiration in life, my grandfather David Wiener, a holocaust survivor who inspires me everyday.” – Shane Shapiro.
The Los Angeles premiere at Shapiro’s alma mater, Beverly Hills High School will be announced shortly.
Shapiro is the Executive Producer.  Matt Conrad is the director.
For more information on the movie, access www.thedebut.life
Below is the official trailer for the film.
About the First Glance Film Festival
 
First Glance Film Festival 2018: http://firstglancefilms.com/
Since our inception in 1996, First Glance Film Festival’s have become one of the fastest growing truly independent film fests in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Named five times as one of the “Best Film Festival Investments” and “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” by Movie Maker Magazine and “One of the Festivals for the Rest of Us” by Time Magazine, First Glance has become a leader in mid-sized film festivals.
martial arts, mixed martial arts, movies

Assassins aren’t born, they’re made: American Assassin Trailer and Information

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AMERICAN ASSASSIN

 

Watch the official Teaser Trailer:

https://youtu.be/XwHAGKxsbcg

 

CBS Films and Lionsgate will release AMERICAN ASSASSIN in theaters September 15, 2017

 

 

 

Directed by Michael Cuesta

Screenplay by Stephen Schiff and Michael Finch and Edward Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz

Based on the American Assassin novel in the Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn

Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Nick Wechsler

Starring Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Scott Adkins and Taylor Kitsch

 

AMERICAN ASSASSIN follows the rise of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) a CIA black ops recruit under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton).  The pair is then enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on both military and civilian targets.  Together the three discover a pattern in the violence leading them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent (Shiva Negar) to stop a mysterious operative (Taylor Kitsch) intent on starting a World War in the Middle East.

 

For more info:

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For press materials:

https://cbsfilmspublicity.com

 

http://www.cbsfilms.com/

@CBSFilms