Rocky (1975)

“Rocky” is near religion to me. No, it is religion. I grew up in Philly, and Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, was our god. These were not just “movies” to us kids back then. They were documents of our home. Rocky was one of us. Enough sentimentality, onto the film itself: Rocky is 30, piss poor, working for a “second rate loan shark” in Kensington, boxing on the side to make a couple bucks. He hates his life. Then he’s plucked from his rut to box Heavyweight Champ Apollo Creed for a set-up, bullshit New Year’s Day 1976 fight to marks the U.S.’s 200^th anniversary. The fight is fixed. Rocky does not stand a chance, and knows it. He cares not. He wants to prove to himself, his shy pet shop girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire), and anyone who is ignorant of where Kensington is, that he matters, that he can go the distance, as he says. It’s hilarious that conservatives see “Rocky” as their film, when in fact this story is about the people left out of the American dream, pushed and punched around a boxing ring in a match where the rich always win. Always. One of my favorites. A+

Signs (2002)

I loved M. Night Shyamalan’s box-office-smash ghost story “Sixth Sense,” and dug the under-appreciated bleak superhero thinker “Unbreakable.” For me, sky was the limit for Shyamalan when his alien-invasion flick “Signs” hit cinemas. I was stoked. Then I saw it. Sky fell. Hard and fast, and has never risen again. This is a painful, awkward, insulting film to sit through, the absolute symbol of bad cinema to me. Not just when Shyamalan unleashes his trademark “gotchya!” shocker when a legion of world-invading aliens turn out to be allergic to water (!) on a planet full of water, but the whole damn dull story of a faithless priest (Mel Gibson) living with his young children and faithless baseball player brother (Joaquin Phoenix, young enough to be Gibson’s son). Hours drag by as the titular crop circles appear, the plot is set for the green visitors to arrive, and then the climax comes and a glass of H2O and a Louisville slugger are the weapons of choice. Ridiculous. This is the moment where a star filmmaker turned incredulous hack, when Shyamalan screamed aloud, “They’ll love it,” and no one said, “No.” He’s never recovered. F