The Movie Mind is proud to present the Greatest Triva associated with the Rocky franchise that has ever been assembled - PART II. I’ve heard from some readers who were thrilled with scoring just above the Paulie-level in Part I so you better get to studying your Rocky knowledge! Remember, this is Part II of the full Rocky series with plenty more to come so there’s still time to redeem yourselves. Big shout out and thanks again to ”A-Lo” for his hard work and frightening recall of these films.

Here is the scoring recap:

Numbers of Answers Correct:

18 - 20 out of 20: “Mick” (you are the sage of Rocky Trivia)
15 - 17 out of 20: “Duke” (you are a wise man who knows much but just one notch below the master)
11 - 14 out of 20: “Rocky” (you have good intentions but have been hit in the head a few times)
10 or below: “Paulie” (you mean well but had a few too many cocktails & spend too long in the meat locker)

After the jump comes Part II of the Quiz series. There will be additional posts for each of the Rocky films so stay tuned and continue sharpening your skills! Please enter your answers in the comments section and then you can highlight the missing text after each question for the answers (answers will only display when you highlight them with your cursor), Good luck!

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When you are an NFL team, there is so much detailed research and analysis that goes into selecting a college player in the annual draft that it can become overwhelming for us “regular” fans to keep up with. Even the most die-hard football crazy fans surely can’t watch as much game (and practice) tape on the hundreds of draft-eligible players. Even self-proclaimed draft “experts” like Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, who make a living from analyzing draft picks, typically fall flat on their face many times with their analysis and predictions. Yet billion dollar corporations (teams) are about to invest mind-boggling sums of money in 21 year-old kids who like to run into each other as hard as they can. If the NFL Draft was a Wall Street investing strategy, it would be like Warren Buffet pouring his fortune into a twenty-something trust fund baby that calls himself a hedge fund. Nonetheless, these kids represent hope for a franchise and its fans that pay such keen attention that we can’t help but think we can do it better than those Warren Buffet’s of the draft world.

Instead of lining up with the rest of those pundits and wanna-be Kiper/McShays, I’d rather blaze my own trail and put forth a mock-draft that I KNOW those teams, owners, evaluators, and Kipers cannot possibly do better than I can. This Mock Draft is about what teams would do if the pool of draft-eligible players consisted solely of fictional movie characters. Most of you have seen these movies and since you are avid readers of FootballNation.com you are probably pretty knowledgeable about the game and players. Now let’s see how well you can merge the two-worlds together. Much like Tebow in Times Square, there’s going to some awkward moments. If you happen to agree with my prognostications or perhaps you feel more like former Colts GM Bill Tobin responding to Mel Kiper’s criticism of their first round pick in 1994 by saying, “Who the hell is Mel Kiper? My mailman knows more about the draft than he does”, I welcome your input regardless.

Movie NFL Mock Draft Criteria:The pool of players consists of any character from a movie with football as the main component in the plot. Characters that were based on real-life players are NOT draft-eligible. Much like the real NFL Draft, some positions have great depth and some do not. Each team’s positional needs will be addressed according to their glaring weaknesses from the 2011 season.

Selection to this team is based on a combination of the character’s “movie” ability (how talented the character is within context of the film), as well as the actor’s ability to represent a true football player.

This team includes all movies through March 2012. Without further ado…Mr. Commissioner:
“The Indianapolis Colts are on the clock.”

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The Movie Mind is proud to present the Greatest Triva associated with the Rocky franchise that has ever been assembled. Just as noteworthy is that this post marks the first guest quiz ever published on TheMovieMind.com! Submitted by a true Rocky afficionado who goes by the name of “A-Lo”, this upcoming series of Quizzes is not for someone who is merely a casual fan of Rocky. If you can’t recite your order from best to worst of all the films with the same ease of your pets’ names, then this may not be the quiz for you (Full disclosure: The Movie Mind’s order - 1, 4, 3, 2, 6, 5). If your favorite lazy Sunday afternoon isn’t spent watching a TBS marathon of all of the Rocky’s, then you might struggle with these.  

Nonetheless, give it your best shot and see where you rank on the Rocky-knowledge hierarchy:

Numbers of Answers Correct:

18 - 20 out of 20: “Mick” (you are the sage of Rocky Trivia)
15 - 17 out of 20: “Duke” (you are a wise man who knows much but just one notch below the master)
11 - 14 out of 20: “Rocky” (you have good intentions but have been hit in the head a few times)
10 or below: “Paulie” (you mean well but had a few too many cocktails & spend too long in the meat locker)

After the jump comes Part I of the Quiz series. There will be a new post for each of the Rocky films so stay tuned! Please enter your answers in the comments section and then you can highlight the missing text after each question for the answers (answers will only display when you highlight them with your cursor), Good luck!

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Ed Wood, The Player
Better Than:  Some movies on Turner Classic Movie channel
Worse Than:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman

Sometimes a title can be misleading but in this case, it’s completely apropos. It turns out The Movie Mind was just pronouncing it wrong. Call it a case of mistaken expectations. I thought I was going to see a film called The Artist, a truly groundbreaking film that ran away with multiple Oscars including Best Actor, Best Directing, and of course, Best Picture. It turns out I had simply misunderstood what I was going to see. To fully appreciate what I went through while watching this movie, we should first begin calling it by its true name, pronounced, “The Ar-teest”. This is because not even the word “artist” is worthy of having such a filmmaking accomplishment to be attached to it. There’s just something more regal and nobler about calling by its correct annunciation, “Ar-teest”. If you’re feeling worthy, maybe even throw in “Le” in front of “Arteest” instead of plain, ugly old “the”. Surely someone calling himself The Movie Mind must consider himself one of the chosen few who can truly appreciate the splendor of this epic. For if not, they must face the high crime of treason by “true” film critics. Well, in case you haven’t picked up on it by now…I ain’t your standard film critic. And if treason is what I face, then bring it on. This was the biggest piece of self-aggrandizing gimmicky trash I’ve seen to come out of Hollywood in a long time. They can take their best picture and stick it where the sun don’t shine because if they think I’m going to lead any one of my readers astray and point them in the direction of this fraudulent egocentric puff-piece for the sake of being in their “club”, then they must not know that I don’t live on the $75 I’ve made off this site in the last 4 years!

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THE GAME

I suppose it would be hard to complain about a game which wasn’t decided until the very last play where a deflected pass fell inches away from diving hands that had they reeled in the ball would have changed the outcome…but I will. The NFL, in its never-ending quest for parity, has come a long way since the blowout Super Bowl wins by the 49ers and Broncos in the 90’s. Over the last 9 Super Bowls, the most lopsided win was when the Saints beat the Colts in XLIV by 14 points, and that game was much closer than the final score indicated. So from the perspective of The Movie Mind being a die-hard football fan, I am happy with the end result and getting to watch a very entertaining game. What I do have a hard time believing though, is that these were the two best teams in the NFL this year. Not to take anything away from the Giants or Pats, because anytime a team weeds their way through a long NFL season and grueling postseason to get to this point, they deserve credit; but let’s be realistic, this was a poorly-played game all-around…with exception of a single player: Eli Manning. Manning was the lone bright-spot on the field for most of the game. He put in about as good of a Super Bowl performance as I’ve ever seen. He was under constant pressure, threw into excruciatingly tight windows of coverage, and had pinpoint precision on almost every pass. Off the top of my head I can count a dozen passes that would have been tipped or picked off had they been 3 inches in the wrong direction. The Pats on the other hand looked uncharacteristically out of sorts and at times even unprepared. The biggest issue I saw though was that they were brutally inconsistent. Brady looked like Tyler Palko suited up in his place for a couple of quarters and then at the end of the half appeared to be the Brady of old. Unfortunately for Beantown fans everywhere though, on this past Sunday, he was no Eli.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Sideways, Duets
Better Than:  Valentine’s Day
Worse Than:  Little Miss Sunshine

Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore

It’s become apparent that Steve Carell has been able to develop his niche on the big screen. He’s essentially the male version of Jennifer Anniston, only much funnier. Give him credit for being willing to step into the Hollywood void of a charismatic male actor who can make a pretty damn good living playing the victim. He does it like no one we’ve seen before. The problem is, it’s starting to get a little irritating. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still love the guy. I think he’s hilarious. But I’m hoping that sometime in the near future he decides to play something other than the wounded, naïve, woe-is-me character he’s been recycling since The Office. With that being said, Crazy, Stupid, Love is not a bad flick. It’s somewhere in between decent and good. There are quite a few very funny parts and a couple of plot twists that aren’t entirely obvious from the get-go. For that, it’s worth you renting and getting a couple of giggles for the night. Unfortunately there are a couple ginormous errors in the film that I can’t get over and thus prevent it from becoming more than a run of the mill romantic comedy.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Sideways, Duets 
Better Than:  Michael Clayton
Worse Than:  Little Miss Sunshine

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Alex Shaffer

For the most part, The Movie Mind tries to avoid the lame, stale, clichéd play on the movie title that most cheeseball critics throw out there. At some point you may have read from some hack, “This film was “The Perfect Storm” of drama, intrigue, and excitement.” How clever. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time avoiding that cliché here because simply put, watching this film is a Win Win scenario for all viewers. Want a sports movie? It has some decent elements of competition without the typical Hollywood sports movie ending that we all usually see coming from miles away. Do you like family and real life drama? There’s plenty of real world relationship dynamics and family conflict that most people can relate to. It’s not too goody-two-shoes, yet it still has some life lessons and positive messages without being too overbearing. Overall, this is just one of those rare well-written, well-acted, original stories that flies under the radar because it’s not one of your typical big budget remakes.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Knocked Up, Adventureland
Better Than:  Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Grown Ups
Worse Than:  The Hangover, Wedding Crashers

Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne

From now on I refuse to hear any of The Movie Mind’s female readers ever complain about crass dude-humor because Bridesmaids was full of it…and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more if I tried! I’ve heard many comparisons saying this was the female version of The Hangover. I couldn’t disagree more. Bridesmaids had much more of a Swingers – like feel to it thanks to the genuine buddy-comedy components and believable characters. What Swingers was to Vaughn and Favraeu, Bridesmaids will be to Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. Mark my words, this is one that you’ll want to watch over and over, as there’s sure to be jokes you missed from laughing so hard at the ones before. Aside from the last 30 minutes of the film and portrayal of the male characters, there’s nothing “chick-flick” about it. This is straight-up guy-comedy cloaked inside some dresses. And if the female contingent is cool with that, then hot-damnit so am I!

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