Million Dollar Baby

She was actually in, and was "The Next Karate Kid", in or around '94.

 

amazing movie. almost the first movie that i shed a tear in publicly.

wonderfully done. hillary swank is amazing.

 

I had to choke back tears.

Just saw it last night. A very powerful and riveting film. I highly recommend it.

 

I just saw this film, and if it's really "The Best Film of the Year", it must be sort of a crappy year for films. Don't get me wrong. It was decent and watchable and the acting was very good, but it wasn't that great. Here are my criticisms:

1. Morgan Freeman doing ANOTHER voice-over? He did that in Shawshank Redemption, which was a much better film. Also, enough with the campy hat and understanding old man role for Freeman. It's kind of played out.

2. Hillary Swank acting her part really well, but her character was flat. OK, we know she's motivated by wanting to get out of the trailer lifestyle, but she has no friends and nobody to talk to, ever? At 30 something, she hasn't even the remotest thought, positive or negative, of having a relationship or babies? It was like they put more into Clint Eastwood's character than hers.

3. Her family was better suited for a sitcom than a drama. Certainly, there are people and families with similarly negative intentions against their own, but they were way over the top in terms of their physical stereotype and demeanor.

4. Swank's injury coming at the hands of a dirty punch after the round seems unnecessary. That would not have happened like that at a championship level, and if it did, they would have looked at the tape and awarded her the win by disqualification. Her opponent didn't need to be a bad, mean person. It would have been better if she was hurt as part of the normal course of a regular fight.

Overall, I think the movie leaned on easy schtick and was given too much credit because it addresses the moral conflict and newsworthy nature of assisted suicide, and people love to love Clint Eastwood. It was good.

 

Easily the best new film of the last year

 

So do you disagree with my individual points of criticism, or just feel that the positive aspects of the movie are enough to overcome them on the whole?

 

I'm late in seeing this, but I would like to slap whoever wrote it.

 

Yeah me too. Saw it about a month ago (really bad timing), had no freaking idea. I thought it was a film about boxing.

 

wasn't too impressed with it when i saw it. figured out what was going to happen. swank's acting was not all that. how hard is it to "act" paralyzed? i do it every sunday on the couch during football season.

eastwood needs to step away from the 'bridges of madison county' crap and get back to what he does best. kicking ass in the old west.

 

Saw it finally. Good movie with some amazing performances. Some of the foreshadowing was bordering on anvil dropping and they barely skirted some cliche moments and only fell into one with the "evil" advesary, but the acting pulled it off. In the hands of a lesser director or actors, this movie probably would have been a Lifetime Movie of The Week class, but Clint et al. pulled it off.