In 1976, Rocky Balboa appeared on the silver screen for the first time in Rocky and an underdog icon was born. Now, nearly five decades later, the franchise—not so much an underdog but a champion—boasts multiple sequels, with the latest, Creed III, releasing in theaters on March 3. The film, which is the ninth in the Rocky franchise and the third in the Creed series, centers on Adonis “Donnie” Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, as he confronts dark secrets from his past after and old friend-turned-foe reappears in his life after 18 years.
The film marks a series of firsts for the franchise; for star Michael B. Jordan, who’s portrayed Adonis since his breakout role in Creed in 2015, Creed III will be his directorial deb…
During the opening scene of Power Slap: Road to the Title, the TBS show debuting last week that features the emergent sport of slap fighting, striker Chris Thomas steps into a square and calls “right three.” He’s indicating to the official that on a count of three, he will wind up and smack his opponent, Chris Kennedy, with all the velocity and power available to him in his right hand. Kennedy, meanwhile, holds his hands behind his back, clutching a sort of stick to ensure that he won’t raise his hands to defend himself from this assault.
One, two … SMACK! The chalk that Thomas put on his hand before the blow flies off Kennedy’s face, as Kennedy falls to the mat. Ohhhh! the people in the crowd yell. Someone curses. Tho…
Some people are blue-people people and some are not. James Cameron’s ambitious 3-D fantasy Avatar caused a sensation when it was released in 2009. No one had ever seen anything like it, which didn’t make it a great movie, though its novelty did help make it one of the top-grossing movies of all time. Avatar seemed to tap a genuine desire for novelty, and its relatively simple story—of a moon-planet of highly evolved nature-loving beings with azure skin, invaded by greedy colonialist humans—made for an easily recognizable parable of the myriad real-life crimes white people have been perpetuating in our own world for centuries. Whether or not you cared much about the Na’Vi, the blue people of Cameron’s invented moon, Pandora, you could…