Million Dollar Baby

So this just came out on DVD and since I missed it at the theaters, finally saw it. I purposefully avoided all the reviews and commentary on this in the media, but with the whole Terry Schiavo case going on at the same time, and comments about this movie right next to it, I figured someone was going to die via assisted suicide. I still have the dvd's of Ray and the Aviator on my list to go over to compare all the oscar movies from last season, but so far, between Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby and Sideways, Million Dollar Baby is the "better" pic imo. Finding Neverland is a close second however, i really loved that movie.

The boxing scenes in here i thought were all incredibly well done and very believable. The transformation they show her going through is pretty decent, but i really wanted to see her going to town on the speed bag after such a big buildup with it, they only really show her on it briefly. Her jump rope work is pretty slick though. Hillary Swank once again dissapears into her role aided by an accent which, imo, was spot on and rare too, since american actors seem to have the biggest trouble with accents, at least compared to our aussie and brit counterparts, who can make their accents dissapear in a flash (Cate Blanchet, Collin Farrel, Eric Bana, Nicole Kidman, to name a few, and Kostner being the poster boy for bad accents from Robin Hood).

storyline is FILLED and i mean just packed with foreshadowing. i think the genius in clint's direction, which is akin to what spileberg does to, is that while i knew exactly what was going to happen, the story and acting was just so engaging, the tale was enjoyable to watch how it unfolded. this is exactly what was missing imo from the star wars prequels. since everyone knew exactly WHAT was going to happen in the prequels, all that was left was the HOW. And the "how" for star wars, overall sucked, imo (with a few good moments like the last one). with the morgan freeman character, we see and are even TOLD how clint's character blamed himself for the loss of his eye, that clint should've thrown in the towel and stopped the fight. we have the cardinal rule of boxing that clint tries to drub into maggie's head... 'protect yourself at all times,' and then there's the matchup with the 'dirtiest fighter around.' so... the dots are all pretty well connected before maggie steps into the ring. in spite of that, it was incredibly enjoyable to watch and see maggie gain her father figure she lost, and clint gain the daughter figure he lost.

all the while, morgan's narration tieing everything together, and then again, the HOW of morgan's summation at the end brilliantly tied everything together. the 'reveal' of what the gaelic on the back of her robe meant at the end was just superb. it's great emotional porn that not many directors can execute at all. more often than not, it comes across as incredibly schmaltzy, cheesy, and forced. the other thing that helps in these situations is the score, which spielberg has the benefit of the incredible john williams helping him out. here... it's Clint himself that did the score. he is one talented mofo. i got the 2 disc special edition but havent had a chance to watch the extras on disc two; round table with james lipton and the three leads, behind the scenes featurette, and comparison of the script with the real life events of certain female boxers the film is based on. will check those out soon and post on those.

defn a great movie. next up will be Ray and The Aviator. and i'll have to compare /contrast that with the original The Aviator with Christopher Reeve.

peace
k2

I liked the movie alot but my wife had a problem with him killing her. She belives even if she wants to die,they need to keep her alive as a veg so the doctors can suck as much money out of it.

I have not seen Finding Nevrland but I felt Million Dollar Baby was better than the other nominated films. Not a bad foursome.

Ray was more of aperfomance movie with a repetative story, Sideways was good but trying to be smarter than it really was, the Aviator was solid epic but ultimatley seems hollywood -- surprising for a Scorcese movie

Ray *** / *****
Sideways *** / *****
Aviator *** / *****
Million Dollar Baby ****1/2 / *****