Million Dollar Baby
September 2, 2010 by: nickadmin
Description”I DON’T TRAIN GIRLS”, trainer Frankie Dunn growls. But something’s different about the spirited boxing hopeful who shows up daily at Dunn’s gym. All she wants is a fighting chance. Clint Eastwood plays Dunn and directs, produces and composes music for this acclaimed, multi-award-winning tale of heart, hope and family. Hilary Swank plays resilient Maggie, determined not to abandon her one dream. And Morgan Freeman is Scrap, gym caretaker and counterpoint to Dunn’s crustiness. Grab your dreams and come out swinging. Amazon. comClint Eastwood’s 25th film as a director, Million Dollar Baby stands proudly with Unforgiven and Mystic River as the masterwork of a great American filmmaker. In an age of bloated spectac. . . More >>
Could this be the year? That appears to be the very question on everyone’s mind this Oscar season and the answer always depends on who you are asking. Based on the fans of The Aviator, they believe co-heartedly that if the Boston Red Sox could lift their once-ancient curse then there is still hope for Martin Scorsese in the Best Director category. For Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator’s only true competition (Sorry Sideways), Clint Eastwood could prove to be back in contention form. Though many critics praised last year’s contender, Mystic River, it had nothing on the existential strength that was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. But, seeing as how that was the last film in the trilogy, the field for Best Picture is left wide-open, but truthfully only two face a bout-to-bout battle for the prize. Do you feel lucky, punk?
Frankie Dunn, quite possibly one of the best boxing trainers in the country, is not the type of person who will ever get close to anyone again, especially after his daughter wants nothing to do with him, returning all of his letters to her, and his champion-in-training abandon him for a chance at the big time. Then one day, a typical white-trash diner waitress named Maggie Fitzgerald walks into his gym and asks to be trained to fight in the ring. Dunn quickly refuses, stating being “tough is not enough”. Eventually, after witnessing Maggie’s sheer determination in her training, Frankie takes her on based on two conditions – that she listens to everything he says and that she does not ask any questions. Though begrudgingly brought together by fate, the two begin to form a solid father/daughter-like relationship together, each sharing a common bond with one another based on family abandonment lodged in their pasts. This relationship will be tested to its limits by an event none of them ever expected or ever wanted to face. The story for Million Dollar Baby is darn near impossible to define in precise terms. What starts out as not only an engaging and exhilarating boxing drama but also an emotionally stirring divulgence into the belief of second chances quickly, and all too suddenly, shifts gears into a pure spear-headed propagandist piece. Why did things have to go so disturbingly wrong? The first two-thirds of the film showcased some of the most heart-warming, breathtaking, and all-out inspirational boxing sequences this side of Raging Bull. Truly an Oscar tour-de-force from everyone involved. And then they had to go about and kill it, so to speak, with a conclusion that felt as if someone had side-checked the audience into a brick wall.
Clint Eastwood, in the role of the hard-shelled – are not all his characters that way – boxing trainer Frankie Dunn, was mainly nominated for his performance due to his marquee name – Paul Giamatti deserved it more – but the character itself is too wild for even the most Hollywood of clichés. It is both an appalling and disturbing sight to see critics and the public alike applaud a performance in which Eastwood comes in at the end of the film through the hospital wing like the “Angel of Death” to secretly kill a woman he raised as if she were his own daughter. Perhaps audience members were given the wrong perception on the real daughter that left him. Maybe she was the only one with the true sense about her. If you knew your father would end up doing what he did to Maggie, would you not leave him? The parish priest asks Frankie one day after exiting the morning service, “Why do you bother coming to church?”, or something to that affect. This honestly has to be the most thought provoking question in the entire film after witnessing how he goes against practically every Christian teaching on the subject of valuing the human life in the book, specifically The Bible. Hilary Swank is obviously on tap to receive the Oscar for Best Actress this year at the Academy Awards for her performance as boxer in training Maggie Fitzgerald, but does she truly deserve the honor or rather is there a serious lack of true competition against her? Should she receive kudos for training excruciatingly hard for the role and floating gracefully around the boxing ring like a true woman champion? Sure, she deserves every bit of it. Should she be the one to receive two golden statuettes in such a short period of time while taking lead roles in such trash as The Core and The Gift? Not so sure about that one. Maggie also acts as a rather crude insult toward anyone from the South – in fact her entire family could actually be brought into this discussion while we are at it. In Million Dollar Baby, every individual who happens to be from the southern region of the country is portrayed as either a know-nothing country bumpkin, complete with inbred appearance, or a worthless piece of white trash that will never amount to anything in this world. This is the typical cliché of both Hollywood and the liberal establishment in general. They love it so much it kills them to see over and over again – if only.
Overall, Michael Moore occultists, more accurately those left who have yet to buck up the nerve to take their Kool-Aid following the reelection of Bush-Hitler, can at most find some consolation in the fact that at least some left-wing propagandist piece could walk away with a golden statuette on Oscar night, though seeing as how it is not from the imagination of the grand-master himself it may mean little to them. Already the fringe leftists have a pathetic excuse for their bumbling actions claiming, “But at least Frankie was not cruel enough to do the deed while she was sleeping. Was it not the most touching moment when they said their good-byes before the end?” Sure, if your name is Michael Schiavo, master of illusions, willing to romanticize the concept cold-blooded murder in order to knock off your wife and collect on her life insurance in which to live happily ever after with your mistress and your two children. Straight out, euthanasia is nothing more then a gussied up word used by liberal elitists to cover-up the act of cold-blooded murder, accepted only by the slack-jawed idiots churned out by donkey universities who can not put two-and-two together.
“But”, they stutter “should we truly allow those who are confined to wheelchairs, unable to move a single limb, live out the rest of their purposeless lives in utter agony?” Following that sense of logic, Christopher Reeve, in spite of whatever Brother John Edwards may want you to think, should have been put of his damn misery years before he actually died. In spite of how thickheaded the liberal establishment is, this should not be as complex an issue as it has been made out to be. First and foremost, your life does not solely belong to you; it belongs to the creator as well. God created everyone specifically in his image with a purpose in this life, though we may not know what that will be at the time, and he will take you from this world when he feels it is your determined time. You have neither the privilege nor the authority to dictate when and where you want to die. In spite of what the radical liberals may tell you otherwise, man is not higher up within the chain-of-command then God himself. Anything to the contrary is absolute sacrilege. And secondly, concerning the level of governmental authority over this issue, the 1997 Supreme Court case, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, in which the nine justices were unanimous in their decision, determined that the United States Constitution did not allow the practice of assisted suicide and declared that it should continue to be outlawed in this country. In addition to that, Baby promotes the ideal that if you are able to reach the zenith of your life, the one true shot at the big time, that even if you fail doing so you will have achieved your purpose in this world and you may therefore die with a sense of dignity having nothing left to live for. Perhaps that one could be explained more clearly to Mr. Eastwood, whether he actually wins on the big night or not, by taking a quick pot-shot to his head on his way to the limo. After all, does it not make sense for him to practice what he preaches? Million Dollar Baby is positively insulting, bordering on the line of being flat-out slanderous, both to Catholicism and the respect for quality of life in general. There should be no respect left for Clint Eastwood, either in the realm of films or politics, after this travesty.
Believe what you want, but the liberals of this country view the cruel methods of abortion and euthanasia (assisted suicide) as the justifiable means in which to purge themselves of the responsibility they have toward another human life. If that is the direction in which we as a collective national society are heading towards in terms of our moral values then we are all royally screwed, both within this life and the next.
Rating: 2 / 5
. . . as in, i dont like it; before this one, every movie from eastwood seems to me, not only well made, but great and sofisticated, i really like what this guy is able to make, but in this case the story seems to much to tell just a few things, and (probably is just me) the all movie seems to be about nothing, a not very new story, with nothing new to tell, in a very old way. . . anyway, the thing is still better than most releases, but i feel it felt short considering all it had going for it
Rating: 2 / 5
I have learned my lesson. If Paul Haggis wrote the script than the movie is wortheless (“Crash” also sucks!). Yes, this movie belongs to my list of decadent pseudo-intelectual entertainment. Let’s start translating the movie. First it presents us a character that always wins. When the character supposedly loses it’s because someone else cheated. This is a shameful manipulation trying to appeal to all the losers that believe that success is easy. But since losers never really get anywhere the final victory is not achieved. This is part of the manipulation because the losers watching the movie have to identify with it.
For me art is supposed to inspire people. Where is that inspiration in this movie? Where is it trying to lead us? The objective of the movie is just to give people an aspirin to make them feel better about their own sad lives.
The only good thing is that Mr. Haggis will be able to get that house in beverly hills that he always dreamed about.
Rating: 1 / 5
THis movie is nothing but pro-euthanasia propoganda. Anyone with a serious disability should be angry. I will never watch another movie directed by Eastwood or starring Hillary Swank.
Rating: 1 / 5
Watching this film, I was reminded that Clint Eastwood was a right-wing politician in California, I believe the mayor of some wealthy California town. His reactionary ideology comes through in this awful, manipulative film. Among the agendas being pushed is a hatred of welfare recipients, with the boxer’s family being a repulsive caricature of people in need of public assistance. No doubt, Eastwood has little problem with people in his tax bracket receiving government contracts and sweet deals for public land; but like most wealthy right-wingers I’m sure Clint loves kicking the poor in the face every chance he gets.
The movie also advanced the notion that “people love violence,” a thought shared by Morgan Freeman’s allegedly wise character, as the camera pans to the mob cheering as women pound each other. I don’t remember women’s boxing being all that popular, nor male boxing. In fact, the numbers of people going to violent pro sporting events (to root for modern day gladiators) is dwarfed by the numbers of people who go to national parks, libraries, museums, and engage in all sorts of non-violent activities. Clint may love violence because he spent much of his career posing as a tough-guy and making a bunch of money doing it. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear if gun-manufacturers paid him for all his cinematic gun-toting.
Other reactionary elememts of this movie include the celebration of Morgan Freeman’s Uncle Tom character, the portrayal of the younger black as a hateful thug, the endless sermon about “saving your money” (rich people are always lecturing the poor about how they simply need to save their non-existent money, and stop complaining about things like class war), and patriarchy (it was a bit narcissistic to see Clint cast himself as the man who gets fawned over by a woman a third his age).
This country is awash in reactionary propaganda, sometimes it takes obvious forms in our corporate news media (CNN and Fox). Sometimes it takes the forms of comments in advertisements, or the narratives of tv dramas like “24″ (where the US empire is always under-threat, but apparently never commits aggression against other nations). And sometimes the propaganda appears very subtlely in films like “Million Dollar Baby. ” We should keep an eye out for films directed by right-wingers, or starring right-wingers like Arnold Schwarzeneggar. These figures don’t put their politics to the side when the camera rolls; and neither should progressives (see Warren Beatty’s “Bulworth”).
Regarding quality-of-life issues, there’s a much better film called “The Sea Inside. ” It’s an award-winning film from Spain that doesn’t feel a need to try to convince us of how violent we are, or how awful the poor are, or how young blacks should get their teeth knocked out (a scene that says a lot about the mindset of the film-maker who created it).
Rating: 1 / 5