Akira Kurosawa Laid The Groundwork For Inspirational Sports Movies With His Directorial Debut Sanshiro Sugata

There was a time when the world of cinema didn't include director Akira Kurosawa. It's hard to even imagine, it's like picturing comic strips with Peanuts or rock n' roll music without The Beatles, but there was indeed a time period for filmmaking before Kurosawa started out his directorial career. Said career began with the motion picture Sanshiro Sugata, which was released in Japan in March 1943 (it wouldn't debut in America for three more decades in April 1974) to resounding success that paved the way for the numerous movies Kurosawa had yet to make. Many of those movies are superior to Sanshiro Sugata, but this is still a solid movie with plenty to offer beyond its historical importance.

Creed II is Satisfying But Disappointingly Not Very Surprising

Creed II is not as good as the first movie. That was inevitable because Creed is one of the best movies of the last few years, how could you possibly top it? Trying to follow up that motion picture was gonna be a difficult task for anybody and new director Steve Caple Jr. (taking over for the original Creed's director Ryan Coogler who is now off in Wakanda) does a commendable job expanding on the story of Creed from the first movie. Even without comparing this sequel to its predecessor though, one can't help but feel like some spark of originality is missing from Creed II. This movie knows how to pack a punch but you can always see the punch coming.

Step Into The Ring With An Emotionally Powerful Feature Like Million Dollar Baby

Ever since Rocky delivered knockout box officer numbers over forty years ago, the boxing drama subgenre has been a prominent fixture of cinema all over the world. It's one that's reliable both in terms of drawing a crowd for studio and plucking at the heartstring of audiences. Plenty of duds exist in this cinematic niche (remember Southpaw or Grudge Match?), but when done well, like with Creed, the creative apex of this entire subgenre, there's really nothing quite like it. Clint Eastwood's 2004 directorial effort Million Dollar Baby is no Creed, but few movies are. Positive marks are in order for a movie like this one that rides on traditional storytelling to mask how crafty it is at knowing just when to strategically get the viewer wrapped up in a blanket made of emotions.

Good Luck Chuck, With A Movie Like This One, You're Gonna Need It

We've all heard of the movie Rocky, but do you know about the real-life boxer who helped inspire that famous film character? Despite the title leading you to think it was a film adaptation of a Zachary Levi NBC sitcom or perhaps a biopic of Chuck Berry, Chuck is all about the life and times of Chuck Wepner (portrayed here by Liev Schreiber), a boxer who got to fight Muhammad Ali (Pooch Hall) in a high profile fight that Wepner ended up losing. You might think that might have been shattering to Wepner, but he took the loss in stride and ended up becoming a minor celebrity due to him managing to briefly knock Ali off his feet during the fight.