Word: balboa
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This conviction arises not from any air of promise about them but from their total lack of it. Norman and his charges are such stuff as Rocky Balboa and the Karate Kid are made of -- not to mention old Frank Capra movies. The coach is a Knight-errant, a good man with a blemish on his record that only redemptive labors can expunge. The players are few in number and woefully lacking in any natural gift for the game. Worse, Hickory's only talented hoopster has quit the squad, and the townsfolk do not care for Norman's outsider independence...
...Diego is not what most people, even most San Diegans, think of as an artsy town. It is celebrated for sun and surf and margaritas, for driving with the top down and perpetual pursuit of youth. The city's Balboa Park is full of museums, but at least one of them, the San Diego Museum of Art, is not above erecting a giant outdoor cutout of the Cat in the Hat to lure spectators to an exhibition of the drawings of Dr. Seuss. This, then, is not the sort of place where a culture vulture might expect to find...
Stallone further pares down the film by eliminating all the interesting characters. Creed of course is dead, as is his manager Micky Goldmill, who bought it in Rocky III. Adrian Balboa (Talia Shire) has approximately five lines and the dreaded Drago even less. In place of the grimy hodgepodge that peopled the now primitive Rocky I, Stallone gives us a talking robot maid, droves of stony-faced KGB agents and a shadowy figure in the royal box who bcars marked resemblence to current Soviet Premier Gorbachev...
...species. Perry's, which brought the singles to Union Street 15 years ago, is still worth a scan, and Rocker Boz Scaggs has opened a bar and country-cookin' restaurant across the street. A couple of blocks west on Fillmore, there are chance encounters aplenty at the Balboa Cafe and the new Golden Gate Grill...
...when he laced up his gloves and socked it to the champ for the full 15 in Rocky; consolidation of stardom in Rockys II and III, which he directed as well as wrote, mixing sentimental bravura with slam-bang action sequences. And who was Tony Manero anyway but Rocky Balboa with faster feet? You've seen one athletic, inarticulate, sweet-souled Italian American, you've seen 'em both. And so the deal was made: pair Travolta and Stallone for a sequel beyond all sequels, a refreshed Saturday Night Fever that would take Tony out of Bay Ridge...