Films I Watched This Week — Jun 16–22, 2025
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
The film started out with a bang watching a young Rocky Graciano break free from his abusive drunken father. We becomes a street punk committing violence he was brought up learning. This is all he knows. His friends are a street gang with Paul Mineo as his closest alley and a uncredited Steve McQueen! Watching a violent teenage delinquent whose built up rage explodes into sponateous violence and chaos is spectacular to witness. It is hard to look away watching Rocky creating havoc wherever he goes committing acts of crimes with his gang. Gave me a On The Waterfront feel in its gritty naturalism. Whether its running away from a juvenile center multiple times, going AWOL from the Army Draft after knocking out his superior, Rocky seems to be a lost cause by most, besides his mother. But many do notice his punch and the power that it has. Over the years scraping with his abusive father and getting into multiple gang fights over territory disputes, Rockys powerful punches tend to not go unnoticed by boxing coaches. Especially when he spars against a professional heavy weight, just to make a couple of bucks. His anger emerges once he gets hit enough and he explodes knocking out cold a respected middle weight fighter. Even though it takes much convincing, (his own father was a failed boxer), he signs on with a coach and in time he becomes one of the best professional fighters. Thats when I feel the film loses much of the fresh exciting elements that made so much of the first half so great. Once he becomes a fighter the story turns nto a more basic conventional rags to riches boxing story involving mob bribes and sports politics. I actually enjoyed the awkward romantic sideplot between Rocky and his sisters friend and found it quite touching. But Paul Newman's abrasive performance, which was impressive at first, became grating, constantly yelling and obnoxiously stereotyping a loud-mouth New York Italian. Unlike Newmans more cool and calm characters that he is known for later in his career, in this he tries a little too hard, chewing up the scenery. The gritty and stark black and white cinematography in Somebody Up There Likes Me is breathtaking and deserved that Oscar for both cinematography and editing. The fight sequences, especially the final fight, look beautiful with intense close up impact shots, plus the blood and the snaps and clicks of all the cameras brought me back to the aesthetics of Scorsese's Raging Bull. So I am not surprised he does a audio commentary for the film. Something Up There Likes me begins with a intense and powerful beginning about a angry young man, but started to drag near the last half of the film. A fun boxing film, but its no Set-Up, Champion or Body and Soul.
La Chinoise (1967)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Chico & Rita (2010)
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