Marketing Movie and TV Diversity

This is a tough post to write, because it involves so much sensitive content, and the culture wars, and the way that Hollywood works these days, which everybody has a different opinion on.  I make no secret that I am progressive, and all in for better representation, social justice causes, and avoiding bad practices like erasure, whitewashing, and cultural appropriation. However, I'm not really talking about any of that today.  I'm talking about marketing.

Not so long ago, Hollywood casting practices generally always defaulted to straight white actors with the most star power to lead movies and television shows, no matter if the role was actually appropriate for them or not.  You might remember "Prince of Persia" with Jake Gyllenhaal and Scarlett Johansson in "Ghost in the Shell." The biggest excuse was always marketability. People wouldn't see a blockbuster starring a brown nobody! There weren't any actors of the correct ethnicities/sexualites with enough star wattage to sell the picture!  And that kind of rhetoric has thankfully diminished over the past decade as the culture has shifted and representation has gotten better.

There is, however, still the marketing issue.  These days it feels like the trade off for having any representation in a piece of media is that the representation often becomes a talking point.  The new "Aladdin" has a cast full of Middle Eastern and Indian actors? The casting search becomes a story, bolstered by puff pieces in "Entertainment Weekly."  "Wonder Woman" is the first female lead superhero film in a decade? She's quickly elevated to female empowerment icon by the press. Much was made of a rewritten LeFou being the first gay character in a major Disney film, the live action "Beauty and the Beast," and Joe Russo playing the first gay character in a Marvel film in the latest "Avengers."  Context matters, of course. Obscure animated horror movie "Paranorman" has a gay character and nobody bats an eye. The PBS kids' show "Arthur" has a gay character, and nobody can stop talking about it.

Personally, I don't take too much issue with this.  Hollywood has been selling films based on their social conscientiousness for ages, especially around awards time.  However, there have been a lot of cases lately where the representation hasn't lived up to the press. The gay characters in "Beauty and the Beast" and "Avengers," for instance, were onscreen very briefly, and the implication that they were gay was easily obscurable, in case foreign markets like Russia or China would object.  It's easy to become cynical that the studios are just collecting "woke points," praising themselves for perfunctory inclusivity without taking any real risks. And make no mistake that giving major roles to women/minorities/LGBT/disabled folks can still be a sizable risk.

I can understand the benefits of the approach too.  It's an easy way to get more attention and more press, bad or good.  We've been seeing several films like "Black Panther" and "Crazy Rich Asians" being rewarded for catering to underserved audiences.  Suddenly, this is a valid strategy for selling big blockbuster films instead of only niche films. If having a gay character in a Disney movie attracts a gay audience looking to see itself onscreen, why not try to draw them in by talking up the inclusion?  It might be pandering, but the audience is out there, and it's become increasingly clear that these tactics work.

We're also still in the #Metoo era, in the Black Lives Matter era, and the critics of problematic media can be fierce.  With social media part of the equation now, and many recent films bombarded with criticism over representation issues - see "Green Book" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" - it makes sense to try and get ahead of the cultural conversation and work to control the narrative from the get go.  A film or television show flaunting their progressive bona fides can help to deflect or stave off criticism. And occasionally it backfires. See "Ghostbusters."

One of the reasons I started writing this blog was that back in 2010, "The Last Airbender" decided to initially cast all the roles with white kids, and I needed somewhere to vent about it.  I've been keeping a closer eye on diversity efforts in Hollywood ever since, and I'm thrilled that movies like "Love, Simon" and "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" are now seen as profitable ventures.  The recent trends in media marketing strike me as phony and insincere too much of the time, but honestly all media marketing is phony and insincere.

It's best to remember, the art is the art, and the marketing is just trying to sell you something.

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Like It's 1999

There are a lot of retrospective pieces that have been written this year about 1999 movies, and it's not hard to see why. 1999 was a great year for film, full of unexpected hits like "The Matrix," "The Sixth Sense," "Fight Club," and "American Beauty." It was a milestone year for me at the movies too, the year I finally moved to a big city, got full control over my viewing choices, and had access to nearly any movie I could name. It was suddenly possible for me to go out and see things like "Eyes Wide Shut" in theaters. I got carded, even! My first trip to an art house theater was to see the US release of "Princess Mononoke," the first Miyazaki film to get a Stateside theatrical release

And so 1999 is the first year that I can really quantify as a moviegoing year for me. Before that point, I watched a lot of movies, but always at random, always having to negotiate viewing times and selections with the rest of my family. My parents were pretty open-minded and we watched plenty of independent and foreign movies, but they had their tastes and I had mine. And it was still mighty uncomfortable watching adult dramas like "The Ice Storm" and "Leaving Las Vegas," with their frank depictions of sexuality, in the same room as my parents. They still don't do so well with certain kinds of movies with a lot of adult content. (Mom hates all the cursing.)

I think that early excitement was a big reason why I still remember what I watched in 1999 so well. I still have very good recall of even the oddball pictures like and "Muppets in Space" and "Stigmata" - remember that trend where the new millennium was going to trigger the Apocalypse? The bigger titles like "American Beauty," which I saw in theaters multiple times, wound up having a major influence on my own developing tastes. I was lucky that 1999 was the height of the American indie boom, when the studios were giving chances to smaller filmmakers and weirder films that they would never get today. I watched "Being John Malkovitch," "Three Kings," and "Magnolia," from up-and-comers Michel Gondry, David O. Russell, and Paul Thomas Anderson, having no idea who these directors were.

The internet was still getting off the ground. There wasn't the hype cycle and the instantaneous judgement passed down on every new release, but it was a new source of information that made me aware of titles I wouldn't have known about otherwise. I was still relying mostly on television and print ads, however. Ain't it Cool News might have had early reviews of "Sleepy Hollow," but nobody had the bandwidth to download more than poster images and productions photos back in those days. Online marketing was just beginning to be a thing, with titles like "The Blair Witch Project." Heck, DVDs were only just getting off the ground. "The Matrix" was one of the first to do anything creative with the menus and easter eggs.

Speaking of "The Matrix," it's still one of my favorite films, but I'll never be able to think of it separate from the Columbine shooting, which happened a few weeks after "The Matrix" was released in theaters. The news media pointed fingers, and for weeks we saw clips of "The Matrix" and "Doom" used to illustrate the purported dangers of violent media. Similarly, the hype for "The Phantom Menace" was so massive, part of me still gets a little excited whenever I see any of the old promotional images. It took me a few years to realize how little I cared for that movie, though I still enjoy the soundtrack.

And it was the year I watched "The Iron Giant" stumble at the box office, to the dismay of my fellow animation fans. The year "The Cider House Rules," revived Michael Caine's career as a supporting actor. The year nobody liked "Wild, Wild West" or "Inspector Gadget." The year I got my very own Blockbuster card. And Hollywood Video card. And Reel Video card.

It was the year I truly started down the path toward becoming a media junkie, and sometimes I miss it. And then I remember 1999 was before I could drink legally, and I count my blessings.
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"Counterpart" Year Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

Well, it's definitely worth sitting through the first season of "Counterpart" to get to the second. The show gets better, though not in the way I expected. J.K. Simmons, whose excellent performances were the driving force behind the earlier episodes, gets less screen time and less to do for the first part of the season, allowing time to explore other characters. Olivia Williams and Nazanin Boniadi benefit the most from this, as Emily and Clare become major players in the hunt for the terrorist group Indigo, and its leader Mira (Christiane Paul). We also meet some new faces, notably a new investigator, Naya Temple (Betty Gabriel), and the head of a secret prison, Yanek (James Cromwell).

The show becomes more of an ensemble effort to its benefit. There are some weak spots - the assassin Baldwin is still problematic, though she's used in better ways this year, and Ian (Nicholas Pinnock) still remains dreadfully one dimensional. However, I found Emily and the Quayles equally as compelling as Howard this season, and sometimes moreso. Emily gets more agency and more personal flaws to combat, as both her Prime and Alpha versions, and bonus points for depicting what recovery from a coma is really like. Meanwhile, the twisted relationship of the Quayles is tested by new developments. The new MVP is definitely Betty Gabriel, who takes a thankless role as the IO's new mole hunter, and creates a memorable, moving character. Simmons is still fantastic, but both Howards are sidelined from the main plot for quite a while, with one stuck in IO custody and the other helping the formerly comatose Emily with her recovery.

And this year is very plot-driven. Previously, I mentioned that "Counterpart" was largely a spy thriller that didn't seem interested in its genre elements. This season proved me wrong, as the show's creators dig deeper into the history of the double worlds, and clarify some of the major themes. An entire episode, "Twin Cities" is devoted to the accident in 1987 that created the interchange, and the original group of scientists that studied it. It's the best installment of the series, and actually works decently as a standalone piece. We learn about the clashing ideologies and tragic mistakes that lead to the original rift, making for some wonderful Cold War allegory. And we watch our present day characters wrestle with the same issues, as they try to prevent Mira from carrying out her sinister terrorist acts against the Alpha world. The terrorist threat is a much stronger and more effective throughline this time, driving the whole season.

I complained about the murkiness of the visuals in my last review, but they've improved, and the show's style has grown on me. This year more happens in the daylight, and there's generally a cleaner, brighter look and better demarcation of potentially confusing elements. Nearly all those nameless minor characters I couldn't keep straight last year are gone. The visual storytelling also becomes much more important, as the two worlds are more directly compared and contrasted this season, even including split screens to follow simultaneous action in a few key sequences. We see a lot more doubles interacting onscreen, including a very disconcerting partnership between ambassador Claude Lambert (Guy Burnet) and himself. The action and spycraft get more outlandish as the season goes on, but they still offer some good thrills.

In the end, the "Counterpart" worlds feel a little smaller than they did last season. The grand conspiracies turn out to be limited to only a handful of people. The mysterious Management is all too human and fallible. However, it's a better defined, more fascinating world, shaped by personal vendettas and crippling paranoia. We get to see a few new places, like the prison, Echo, and there are several mysteries left unsolved. However, so many of the central ones have been wrapped up, and so many of the character arcs so nicely closed out, that the season finale feels like a series finale. I'm sure that "Counterpart" could have gone on for years, but I'm not disappointed that it ended the way it did.

There are a fair amount of shows running these days that should have wrapped up in similar fashion before wearing out their welcomes.

"Chernobyl" is a Triumph

The success of HBO's "Chernobyl" miniseries came as a surprise. However, it's definitely deserving of all its good press, and I'm thrilled that it seems to have had a real cultural impact. Much of the show's success comes from the approach that the creators decided to take with it. First, the series takes aim at the lies and the misinformation that contributed to the tragedy, rather than the stickier controversies about the use of atomic power, avoiding "China Syndrome" style fearmongering. Secondly, though the USSR government doesn't come off well, "Chernobyl" gives them credit where it's due, and takes pains to honor and spotlight the heroism of the individuals involved.

Created by Craig Mazin, the miniseries follows the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster from the moment that the initial explosion occurred, to the massive cleanup efforts, and later to the struggle to assign accountability and ensure reform. The series positions scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) and bureaucrat Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgaard), who spearheaded the containment and cleanup efforts, as our leads. A third protagonist, nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson), is wholly invented, and intended to represent all the scientists who helped during the disaster. All three are lionized considerably, mostly to help give the show a more dramatic narrative, but it never feels too egregious. We also see many smaller stories play out. One subplot follows Lyudmilla (Jessie Buckley), the wife of one of the firefighters, Vasily (Adam Nagaitis) who suffers from radiation poisoning. Another concerns the engineers present during the disaster, Akimov (Sam Troughton), Sitnikov (Jamie Sives), and Toptunov (Robert Emms), whose warnings were ignored by the reckless chief engineer Dyatlov (Paul Ritter). Other memorable figures include mining chief Glukhov (Alex Ferns), a young cleanup "liquidator," Pavel (Barry Keoghan), and a frustrated Mikhail Gorbachev (David Dencik).

There's been some debate as to why "Chernobyl" is so effective, and why it has elicited such a response. I think it comes down to the creators' success at humanizing all these characters facing the most horrific industrial disaster of all time. Sure, there's the uneasy thrill of watching the disaster unfold like a horror film in the early hours, but the drama is so much more moving when you see imperfect individuals struggling to process their existential despair, and summoning up the strength to try and fix things. Harris and Skarsgaard are absolutely stellar here as Legasov and Shcherbina, who are the ones who finally confirm the extent of the damage and its implications. They're perhaps portrayed as too heroic, but I think the audience needs such hopeful figures to help guide them through the utter hell of Chernobyl's aftermath. They embody all the sacrifice and bravery that the Soviets showed when it counted, counterbalancing the corruption and incompetence that lead to the tragedy.

And the depiction of the systemic corruption is very effective. The most sobering part of "Chernobyl" is how woeful the initial reaction and mitigation efforts were. The first two episodes that deal with the early response to the Chernobyl explosion and fire are immensely frightening. It's not because of the severity of the disaster or the impressive scale of the production, but because almost nobody we see in those initial hours understands or is prepared for the danger from the radiation, and in many cases seek to downplay or hide it. It's the dosimeters that are kept in the safe. It's the hospital that doesn't stock iodine pills. It's the bureaucrats whose first instinct is to find someone else to blame. The culture of secrecy and denial are shown to contribute heavily to dooming so many people to horrible deaths, attitudes that are sadly too familiar in the current political climate.

I found the second half of "Chernobyl" a step down from the first half, especially the way that the creators frame the conflict and invent a lot of courtroom theatrics to create a moral victory for the main characters. However, it's very impressive to see the scope and the ambition of the series as it tries to tackle many different aspects of the disaster and tell stories from many points of view. Also, clearly a lot of work went into getting the little details right, from home decor to protective gear and emergency vehicles. So on the macro and micro levels, the series is very strong, which makes it easier to forgive the dramatic liberties. In the end, "Chernobyl" does something that no other piece of media has managed - it's put a human face on the tragedy at last.
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"Hawaii" and "The Sand Pebbles"

My Top Ten project has brought me to the films of 1966. And I've had to face the uncomfortable truth that the further back in time I go, the more problematic portrayals of minorities in American films I find. In the films I've watched lately, these have ranged from the peculiar, like the curious use of blackface in "Finian's Rainbow," to the outright racist, like the Chinese kidnappers in "Thoroughly Modern Millie." However, there is a clear progressive sentiment running throughout many projects, and pains are often taken, however clumsily, to try and humanize the foreign Other.

That brings us to two epic historical films of 1966 that have been mostly forgotten, as neither are very good, but share one notable thing in common. Both received Academy Award nominations in the supporting actor categories, for performances by minority actors. Mako, as the boiler room worker Po Han, in "The Sand Pebbles," gave a rare positive portrayal of a Chinese character. Then there was Jocelyne LaGarde as Malama Kanakoa, the leader of the Hawaiian island where missionaries arrive to convert the population in "Hawaii." She was the first actress of indigenous descent to be nominated for an acting Oscar.

Both "The Sand Pebbles" and "Hawaii" are films that would never be made today for a variety of reasons. "The Sand Pebbles" was Robert Wise's passion project, about the involvement of a gunboat, nicknamed "the Sand Pebble," and her crew, during the start of the Chinese Civil War in the 1920s. It initially strikes an almost apologetic tone, as it addresses the mess that Western colonialism has made of China, and includes a stridently anti-imperialist character, the missionary Jameson (Larry Gates). However, the action stays with our protagonist Holman (Steve McQueen), a machinist aboard the Sand Pebble, and his efforts to work in the curious system that has developed between the soldiers and the boat's Chinese laborers.

Subplots include Holman training and befriending Po Han after initial reluctance, another soldier falling in love with a Chinese woman, and rising tensions as the political situation heats up, turning popular sentiment against the Westerners. The first half of "The Sand Pebbles" is fairly entertaining as it examines the seedy ecosystem of the gunboats and port towns, where commerce caters to the sailors. The Chinese characters are largely stereotypes, but a few can be viewed as heroic figures. Mako gets a fantastic boxing sequence where he has to go up against an American bully to keep his job. However, once the larger hostilities develop, the story becomes far more muddled. Nobody ever bothers to explain the conflict in any detail, and despite some good action sequences, the movie drags terribly through the second half of its interminable three plus hour running time.

"Hawaii" is similarly a film with good intentions, but considerably worse execution. Christian missionary Reverend Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) and his new wife Jerusha (Julie Andrews) come to Hawaii in the early 1800s to convert and civilize the native Hawaiians. Reverend Hale is a joyless, inflexible, zealot who sees sin everywhere, and the film is largely concerned with showing how Hale's marriage and his time with the Hawiians, lead by Malama and her son Keoki (Manu Tupou), eventually soften his outlook. For the vast majority of the running time, however, Reverend Hale is an insufferable ass of a man, and my favorite part of the movie was when Malama responds to his early attempt to shame her by simply slapping him upside the head and then ignoring him. An incredibly charismatic presence, Jocelyne LaGarde steals the movie and is almost worth sitting through the film to see her.

I say almost, because aside from Legarde's performance, "Hawaii" is remarkably off-putting. I've generally enjoyed Max von Sydow and especially Julie Andrews in their other film roles. However, their characters here are so glum and miserable, it's difficult to stay engaged. Reverend Hale's spiritual journey is a bore. Andrews' big moment is a harrowing childbirth scene. Individual Hawaiian characters are treated sympathetically, and there's some lip service paid to their disastrous exploitation by Westerners, but they remain firmly supporting roles with little real agency. It's a given that the Hawaiians will all be saved by becoming good Christians in the end. The movie also suffers from an overlong running time - again, over three hours.

Both of these productions were expensive prestige pictures with big stars and notable directors. Audiences were receptive, and both films were among the top five grossers of 1966. That's the reason I sought them out. It's fascinating to see how far Hollywood has come in portraying characters from other cultures, and the kind of patronizing nonsense that they used to get away with. And yet, while I might complain about the subservience of Po Han or Malama being used for some easy laughs, these were rare chances for minority actors to shine, and the parts were created by filmmakers who were earnestly trying to do right by them. It's no accident that they are far and away the most impressive and memorable parts of their respective films.

Mako never got a comparable role, even though he was active in film and television for the next forty years. Jocelyne LaGarde, however, never appeared in another film. "Hawaii" is her lone acting credit.

"Killing Eve," Year Two

Moderate spoilers ahead.

I've heard "Killing Eve" described as the sapphic "Hannibal," and that's a fair comparison. You have a cop and a serial killer playing cat and mouse games with each other as their mutual obsession grows. "Killing Eve" doesn't have quite the nightmarish visual sense or flair for the horrific, but it makes up for it with a much stronger supporting cast and a good sense of humor. Also, the plotting is a lot more coherent, which is a big plus.

Picking up pretty much right where the first series left off, Eve and Villanelle continue their careers as British intelligence agent and contract killer respectively. Eve gets a new case involving a new female assassin and several new co-workers, notably Hugo (Edward Bluemel) and Jess (Nina Sosanya). Villanelle, having displeased her employers, has to deal with an annoying new handler, Raymond (Adrian Scarborough). We also get a lot more of Fiona Shaw as Carolyn Martens, Eve's supervisor, and Owen McDonnell as Niko, Eve's increasingly frustrated husband.

The departure of creator and showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge definitely has an impact here. The second series of "Killing Eve" loses a lot of its unpredictability and edge. There are still plenty of twists and turns, but the show largely falls into the pattern of similar serial killer stories, though I won't spoil which ones. I like the new villains who crop up, particularly the creepy tech mogul Aaron Peel (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), but I miss the sense of chaos and anarchy. Villanelle is still mercurial and selfish, but a lot more vulnerable to meet the demands of the plotting. She rarely feels as dangerous as she ought to.

Still, the performances of Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, and Fiona Shaw are all great stuff. Oh and Comer spend much more time interacting, and a real relationship develops between the two. It becomes a tug of war, with Villanelle trying to provoke Eve's dark side and Eve trying to find ways to use Villanelle's lethality for good. Sexual attraction is definitely part of the equation, though nobody ever quite confronts it directly. Of course, this doesn't resolve to anyone's satisfaction except the audience's. And perhaps Carolyn Marten's, who is quickly becoming my favorite character in the show. Her epic unflappability is simultaneously unnerving and terribly funny. I'll keep watching if only for the chance to see Carolyn and Villanelle interact more.

The show's production values feel like they've taken a step up. The action sequences are a little more elaborate, and the settings a little more varied. There's still a good deal of globetrotting and lifestyle porn, with the finale taking place in Rome. There are also some fun instances of the heroines playing with disguises and accents, doing their own spins on the usual spycraft tropes. There are other moments that play on typical crime drama and action thriller scenarios. My favorite is a reveal that takes place halfway through the season and uses Sandra Oh's ethnicity - still refreshingly a total non-issue - to take advantage of the the audiences assumptions and pull the rug out from under them.

However, there are a few iffy structural choices that I felt impacted the show negatively. Though there is an overarching mystery to follow from week to week, and compelling characters to follow, it has a troubling habit of leaving dead ends everywhere. The first half of the season spends a lot of time building up and having Eve chase the new killer, the Ghost, and then it seems to completely forget about her halfway through the season. Maybe this character will become important again next year, but the storyline is dropped so abruptly, without a satisfying conclusion, that I was left reeling. Other minor characters have a habit of disappearing without explanation. I know the actress left the show, but what happened to Kirby Howell-Baptiste's Elena Felton from last season?

Also, as much as I love the actor, there's a major resurrection that I wish wouldn't have happened. That was my biggest beef with the second season of "Hannibal" too. They killed so many characters, but never let the dead stay dead for very long. It's a little disappointing to learn that "Killing Eve" really is a standard crime drama at its core - but it's a very good one.
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My Top Ten Films of 1976

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog.

The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.


Network - It's scary how prescient the film was, to the point where Howard Beale's mad media prophet actually seems a little passe in the era of FOX News and Breitbart. Combining the artistic forces of Sidney Lumet, Paddy Chayefsky, and a superb cast, the film is a fantastic exploration of unchecked ambition, madness, and exploitation. It makes the case that the media may be monstrous, but only because it is a reflection of our worst impulses.

Marathon Man - Who could forget one of the least graphic, most effective torture scenes ever filmed? I count this as a career high for director John Schlesinger and writer William Goldman. And while everyone talks about Laurence Olivier as the chilling Nazi dentist, I don't think that Dustin Hoffman gets enough credit. He does the lion's share of selling the escalating thrills and paranoia, famously pushing method acting techniques to worrying extremes.

1900 - This ambitious Bernardo Bertolucci epic is difficult to approach due to the language issues and the considerable length. However, it's worth it to see the rare intersection fo so many acting greats, including Robert DeNiro, Gerard Depardieu, and Donald Sutherland playing a criminally underappreciated psychopath. As historical drama, it's unusually earnest in its political stances, offering a candid look at Italian history from multiple perspectives.

The Bad News Bears - Walter Matthau plays a grouchy, drunken reprobate who is roped into coaching a dysfunctional little league team. Together they proceed to skewer and subvert every trope of sports movies, and especially kids' sports movies, that they can get their grubby mitts on. It's such a joy to watch these little stinkers embrace their status as oddballs and outcasts. It's also a rare movie that really commits to the moral that winning isn't worth selling out.

All the President's Men - Still the prime example of the modern journalism movie, a clear-eyed procedural that systematically shows the investigation and reporting behind the Watergate scandal. Rarely sensational, but utterly absorbing, the film offers a sinister, murky vision of Washington D.C. and the workings of the federal government. It's a view that serves as a vital counterpoint to the usual, jingoistic cinematic images of American politics.

Carrie - Has two of my favorite female monsters in all of cinema, Carrie White and her mother. It's still a gutting portrait of female growing pains, religious mania, and toxic parental relationships, as well as a real scream of a horror picture. This was the first major adaptation of a Stephen King novel, and made a star of Sissy Spacek, one of my favorite actresses. It also helped to cement the reputation of foremost schlockmeister Brian DePalma, possibly the only director who could have done the material justice.

Face to Face - A female psychiatrist has a breakdown and slowly loses her grip on reality, to thrilling effect. This is one of the inimitable Liv Ullman's greatest performances, and I've always been disappointed that the longer miniseries version of this Bergman classic is nearly impossible to find, because I'd love to see more of it. As is, "Face to Face" makes a good pairing with other Bergman/Ullman classics like "Persona" and "Cries and Whispers."

Rocky - It's hard to remember when "Rocky" wasn't really about the boxing, but about a young man looking for his place in the world and someone to share it with. I appreciate the movie so much for the way it follows Rocky's courtship of Adrian. The training sequences with Mickey and the final showdown are wonderful, of course, but it makes such a difference that Rocky Balboa's life is portrayed as a many-sided, emotionally interesting one on the way to his triumph.

Taxi Driver - A snapshot of New York on the brink of economic disaster, mirroring Travis Bickle as a man teetering on the edge of rage and violence. Robert DeNiro's performance remains deeply moving, frightening, and sympathetic, and Bickle is as starkly relevant now as he was in the '70s. This is one of several collaborations between Martin Scorsese and DeNiro, but it was also the first of four films Scorsese made with Paul Schrader, a cinema great in his own right.

Martin - Of all the different takes on vampires I've seen, George Romero's tale of a young man who may or may not actually be a real creature of the night stands out. Martin's struggles against his darker impulses and emergence as a minor radio celebrity make good metaphors for the difficulties of certain populations to adjust to modern life and society. Even if Martin isn't supernatural, he's clearly a monster of a sort, and just familiar enough to be fascinating.

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