![]() ![]() ![]() And Rocky was one of the era’s most durable franchises, with Rocky III’s $125 million gross the series’ best. When it hit theaters (and cleaned up) over Thanksgiving weekend of 1985, Stallone was at the height of his powers: his Rambo: First Blood Part II was one of the biggest hits of the previous summer, more than tripling the grosses of 1982’s First Blood, the actor’s first non- Rocky hit. That said, at the time when he was making Rocky IV, you could understand his logic. There’s so much to love about this opening, it’s hard to even know where to begin: the fetishism of the photography, the simplicity of the symbolism, the resurrection of Rocky III’s hit single “Eye of the Tiger.” But what I like best is the image of the title design company pitching this opening to writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone I’d like to think they only had the flag-gloves thing in mind, to which he smiled and added, “Yeah, but what if they, like… exploded?” (And then there were presumably high fives and eightballs all around, this being the ‘80s.) And, of course, think of the iconic images that open Rocky IV: giant close-ups of two boxing gloves, turning to reveal one emblazoned with the hammer and sickle and star of the Soviet Union flag and the other decked out in the stars and stripes of the USA! USA! USA! The two gloves face off, charge at each other… and explode. Think of the snow globe falling from the hand of the dying title character in Citizen Kane, the yellow cab emerging from the smoke and filth of Gotham in Taxi Driver, the rising of the earth and the sun in 2001. The great opening shots of cinema are small artistic miracles, captivating us with their aesthetic beauty, plunging us into the physical world of the narrative, underscoring the themes we’ll spend the next two hours exploring. And in this spirit, Flavorwire brings you this month’s Creed-inspired edition of our occasional So Bad It’s Good feature: the hilariously overwrought and comically jingoistic Rocky IV. But the most rewarding terrible movies are those we know as “so bad they’re good” - entertaining in their sheer incompetence, best braved in numbers, where the ham-fisted dramatics and tin-eared dialogue become fodder for years of random quotes and inside jokes. There are nearly as many categories of terrible movies as there are for great ones: insultingly stupid ( Batman & Robin), unintentionally funny ( Birdemic), unintentionally, painfully unfunny ( White Chicks), so bad they’re depressing ( Transformers), and so on.
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