Tag Archives: boxing

Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Christy” with Bonus Live Q&A!

October 14, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Female boxer with messy brown hair, red gloves, white mouthpiece and all-white outfit standing proudly in the ring and kinda roaring.

For anyone who was really hoping Spider-Woman would get to punch someone in Madame Web, have we got great news for you!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Next up on the list is Christy, a biopic based on the true story of welterweight champion Christy Martin, the first female boxer ever to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. Longtime MCC readers know sports aren’t usually my thing (the Creed trilogy doesn’t count because, uh, reasons!), but when time permits I do keep an ear open whenever buzz builds for potential future Oscar nominees. Quite a few actresses have endured the ritual of severe deglamorization For Your Oscar Consideration — toughening up, radically altering their physique, shedding their Instagrammable hairstyles, letting costume designers embarrass them, and in a preponderance of cases wrangling a thick southern accent. Sydney Sweeney, best known for such TV series as Euphoria and the first season of The White Lotus, takes a break from playing rich women with beauty regimens to explore that transformational career option.

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“Creed III”: Fighting It Out vs. Working It Out

March 19, 2023 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A giant CREED III theater standee with Jordan and Majors' characters sitting in their corners, glowering, ready to fight.

Killmonger v. Kang. Two villains walk in, one champion walks out.

Previously on Creed: Michael B. Jordan from The Wire IS boxing champion Adonis “Donnie” Creed, the lost son of Carl Weathers’ Apollo Creed, himself a champ as well as a frequent opponent to, and later best friend of, immortal contenduh Rocky Balboa. In the first Creed, Adonis emerged from his childhood turbulence to seek purpose in the same sport that defined his dad’s life, directed by the great Ryan Coogler (who then moved on to Wakanda). In Creed II Our Hero took on Viktor Drago, son of Ivan Drago, the wrecking machine that murdered Apollo, as overseen by director Steven Caple, Jr. (whose follow-up will be the next Transformers flick). Old man Stallone hung around to show the kid the ropes and assure folks all this was canonical in the Rocky Cinematic Universe.

Next up is Creed III, the RCU’s ninth entry. Rocky is out of the picture and Jordan has taken over the director’s chair, but he’s far from alone in prepping for his next title bout.

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“Creed II”, or “How to Train Your Drago”

December 8, 2018 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Creed II!

This time around, “Baby Creed” has a happier, less insulting context.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Creed, the seventh film in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky series, was one of my two favorite films of 2015. It was the first major-studio film for director Ryan Coogler, whose debut Fruitvale Station was my favorite film of 2013. This year’s Coogler model, the amazing colossal Black Panther, will be ranking very, very high for this year’s standings. Tangential note: remember how Black Panther was a 2018 release, even though it feels five years old by now, because 2018 has been that kind of year?

I was a little nervous knowing Coogler would be handing over the reins of Creed II to a relative newcomer, one Steven Caple, Jr. Granted, we knew the main cast would be back — Stallone himself, Thor: Ragnarok‘s Tessa Thompson’s Bianca (levels above the standard Concerned Girlfriend), and of course Michael B. Jordan, star of Fruitvale Station and costar of Black Panther and season 1 of The Wire, which I will never, ever stop name-checking. With the larger-than-life core of Creed still intact, could failure possibly be an option?

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“Creed” and the Fight to Mean Something

December 16, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Creed!

You wanna climb to the top, be ready to do the footwork.

It was probably unfair of me to assume Creed would be one of my favorite films of 2015 before I walked into the theater. Previously in the tragic Fruitvale Station, director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan together made my favorite film of 2013. A year earlier, Jordan costarred in Chronicle, a left-field surprise that became my no-contest favorite of 2012. Prior to that, he was in season one of The Wire and thereby granted a lifetime pass for any future catastrophes beyond his control.

On the other hand, I’d only seen three of the six Rocky films — the first one as part of a successful ’90s mission to watch every Best Picture Oscar winner ever; Rocky III at the drive-in, where a furious, pre-laughingstock Mr. T frightened 10-year-old me almost to tears; and the shamelessly jingoistic yet totally engrossing Rocky IV, the only time in my life I’ve ever seen dudes in a theater jumping out of their seats and cheering and fist-pumping at all-American awesomeness overload. Yes, really. I’ve never felt the urge to keep up with the Italian Stallion since then, or to backtrack for the second one.

So in fairness, I had to allow that Creed could’ve gone either way.

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