Million Dollar Baby.

[mookydooky]

I haven't seen this particular movie, but it seems to have done very well tonight at the Oscars. As far as I know, it won the following:

1) Best Picture
2) Best Director
3) Best Actress
4) Best Supporting Actor

I guess Martin Scorsese will have to wait a bit longer.

[barneygumble742]

poor marty. at least he's got his caterpillar eyebrows. he may end up getting the cecile b. demile award like hitch****. i don't think hitch**** won an oscar but he did receive the latter award.

however IMHO, goodfellas and raging bull sucked. i liked casino a lot more.

[GrahamGarside]

I think the swear word filter is a tad sensative
He has done some damned fine films, but then thats not what the oscars are about.

[mashakos]

I just watched Million Dollar Baby yesterday.

The movie is the best that american film making has to offer this year in my opionion.

The movie manages to include cultural and racial references without offending any race or culture or adding misplaced humour or drama regarding any race or culture. This is a great achievement for an american film or a film made in any country for that matter. I can't count the number of movies (from at least 4 countries) where the creators unintentionally added offensive or over dramatized cultural or racial references.

The pace of the movie is well balanced. My attention never wandered while the story was unfolding.

The story is universal, it's also distinctly american, not in a "we're American" kind of way. You can relate to the characters and also understand that they are people from a particular place in the world living that place's conditions and circumstances.

The plot has a twist at the end which completely changes the mood of the movie.

The movie is about an old boxing trainer and manager, Frankie Dunn. Although Frankie Dunn is an experienced trainer with great knowledge and talent, his inability to take risks proves too much for his top boxer, who decides to go find another manager willing to get him a title fight. This hits Frankie Dunn hard when he says that no other manager can teach like him and his boxer answers "I've learned everything I need from you", walking away.
With no other boxer to manage, Frankie retreats to his office where he concentrates on his main hobby, learning Gailic, oblivious to the world. As he looks on at the gym downstairs, he finds a girl practicing in front of a punching bag. When he explains to her that he does not train girls and that at 31 she's too old to start training, she confides that her life started in a trailer and will probably go nowhere. Her fear of leading a no account life has made her determined to become a boxer. This impresses Frankie who decides to train her, on the condition that she goes her own way once she is finished training; he doesn't want to be her manager.

One thing I'd say about the movie which won't be to everyone's taste: It's about the real world. It's serious, thought provoking and sometimes depressing. This is not the movie to watch if you want to escape the daily grind.

[Chesso]

Perhaps people take them too seriously that's why they seem so racial.

[mashakos]

Originally Posted by Chesso

Perhaps people take them too seriously that's why they seem so racial.

That's the thing about Million $ baby. There is nothing that anybody can find offensive, everything that's put in is well explained and in the context of the movie.

A French audience watching a French movie wouldn't notice if some references to let's say the Japanese were offensive, because they don't know what offends the Japanese. Million $ baby had some references to the Irish culture, but that didn't alienate me from the movie. The word 'N*****' is uttered in the movie and as an African I wasn't offended, even though it would be very hard to make that unoffensive in a movie unless all the actors were black. I thought that was interesting.

[Chesso]

Well it's very difficult to please everyone if not impossible. Sounds like they put alot of thought and effort into it though.