Word: avildsen
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Nearly three dozen students came to the Hasty Pudding Theater last night to hear "Rocky" director John G. Avildsen recall how he made the Best Picture of 1976 in 28 days for under $1 million...
After a screening of "Rocky," which brought the filmmaker an Oscar for Best Director, Avildsen answered audience questions, recounting misadventures on the set and the working habits of such stars as John Belushi and George C. Scott...
...Avildsen, whose directing credits include "The Karate Kid," "Joe" and "Neighbors," emphasized the practical side of Hollywood moviemaking. The director said he did not mind being overshadowed by the attention Stallone and other actors received, "as long as the bank gives me the credit...
...Ralph Macchio as the Kid and Noriyuki ("Pat") Morita as the apartment handyman who teaches martial arts and pacifistic wisdom to the 97-lb. weakling tired of being beaten up by the bullies at school. Robert Mark Kamen's script is developed with maddening predictability, and John G. Avildsen's direction is literal and ambling. Films like this are what the PG r ating is supposed to be all about. And how one longs to spot a few gremlins chuckling malevolently in the corner...
...folks next door. For this to work in the movies it must be played either with the film equivalent of Berger's fastidious prose-Ordinary People in apocalyptic dead pan-or with the cauterizing fury of a Bunuel satire. A ham-fisted director like John G. Avildsen (Rocky) need not have applied. Nor were Bill Conti's services required: his score sounds like a Spike Jones symphony of klaxons, sassy trombones, Bronx-cheer kazoos and the Hallelujah Chorus. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd maneuver through this minefield on literal flat feet, turning the Blues Brothers into...