Stallone's iconic underdog has spent decades inspiring athletes and nonathletes alike to fight for their goals. As a poor local boxer, Rocky gets his break when he enters a fight with World Heavyweight Champion Apollo Creed. Due to his rigorous training and Creed's relative apathy, Rocky becomes the first challenger to ever push Creed through all 15 rounds.
It was the lesson of the UK general election and it's the big 'takeaway' from Cannes too: prediction is a mug's game. All week the chatter was that Todd Haynes' lesbian love story Carol was set to collect the Palme d'Or – or that Holocaust drama Son of Saul from first-time director László Nemes would triumph. In the last few days a consensus began to form around The Assassin from Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien; according to British bookmakers, The Lobster was the one to beat. But when Jacques Audiard's Dheepan was announced as the winner, the response was a collective “really?” For all the pundits, critics' panels, insider gossip, statistics and God knows what else, few had picked it. Oh well: c'est la vie.
When the federal government shuttered in October, Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500)CEO Howard Schultz refused to sit on the sidelines while businesses everywhere suffered. Instead, Schultz wrote a petition calling on his peers to rally together and put pressure on Congress to come to an agreement.
Following the devaluation in mid-August, the renminbi rallied in September and October. Devaluation resumed in November, however, and the renminbi closed at its weakest level in three months at 6.4082 to the dollar yesterday. “Since October many countries around China have experienced some capital outflow, and China has had its share,” said Xie Yaxuan, an economist at China Merchants Securities in Shenzhen. “The strengthening dollar is bound to cause some repositioning into dollar assets.”