But despite all that, we have to admit: “BARACKY: The Movie” is pretty darn great.
[youtube:RyhIBXNfqMA]
The brainchild of former entertainment lawyer (and recent UCLA Film School graduate) Michael Fox, “BARACKY” has racked up more than 100,000 views since surfacing on YouTube last Thursday. Sure, the video–a slick, skilled montage of news clips, speeches and scenes from the original film–is an unabashedly pro-Obama revision of Rocky’s triumph-over-adversity tale; Clinton, whose real-life comebacks are nothing to scoff at, doesn’t exactly get a fair shake. But as pure entertainment, “BARACKY” is a knockout. The best part: Fox’s decision to superimpose Obama and Clinton’s faces on the bodies of Balboa and Apollo Creed, respectively, a move that produces priceless shots of a bobble-headed “Obama” hopping through the park with a railroad tie slung across his shoulders and a hulking, African-American “Clinton” dancing around the ring–sans blouse. (Watch for the Mark Penn cameo, too.) Even after three-and-a-half minutes–an eternity on YouTube–the technique still kills.
That said, Clintonites shouldn’t fret. Despite that fact that a triumphant Obama bounds up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps in the last frames of “BARACKY,” it’s worth remembering how the actual 1976 blockbuster ended. After 15 long, bloody rounds, the judges decide, in a split decision, to award the title not to the scrappy underdog but to the heavy favorite (who entered the fight believing he would win in a rout): Apollo Creed.
I wonder which version Hillary prefers.
