Tribute to Burgess Meredith (2006)
*** (out of 4)
Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Carl Weathers and Lee Grant pay tribute to actor Burgess Meredith, the Hollywood legend best remembered to most folks for playing Mickey in the first three ROCKY movies. Stallone starts off talking about what he was thinking when he wrote the character of Mickey and then he goes into details about the type of actor he wanted for the part. Stallone then goes into details about what he thought Meredith brought to the part and he says it always shocked him how energetic Meredith was for the part even after all those years acting. Young tells a nice story about the two of them going to a post Oscar party and Weathers talks about his favorite scene from the film and that's when Mickey shows up at Rocky's house and gets turned away. Grant, not connected to the series, talks about how Meredith would always throw parties for the police and how they all loved him. Overall this is a fairly good tribute as it's clear all four people here thought so highly of the veteran actor. I think there's a cheap feel to it as usually we just get the four talking over a still photograph of Meredith so it's obvious that the budget didn't allow for them to use some of the hundreds of film clips that they could have. Still, it's the thought that counts and hearing these stories were at least entertaining.
