Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray]

Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray]

Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray]

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Blu-ray details

Actor: Bruce MacVittie, Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Margo Martindale, Morgan Freeman
Brand: Warner Brothers
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Widescreen, 2.40:1
Running Time: 132 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2006-11-14
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: 82845
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:

"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.

Blu-ray Reviews of Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray]

Blu-ray Review: Terrible!
Summary: 1 Stars

I am very unhappy with this film. It's blatant in two ways: first as a rip-off of the excellent and very well received (and awarded) Girl Fight, and even worse that it was written solely to get an Oscar nomination by purposely pandering to the emotions of the audience. Part way into this, I said to myself 'this is ridiculous... could they make it any plainer, and I will bet that they will kill her off to get even more emphasis'. Well, all that happened. You have Morgan Freeman narrating it, his voice and Clint's are both gravely - oddly so like they made them even more so. And they both appear to be 80 years old so it's hard to believe they'd still be running a gym - much less punching the bag and the occasional young tuff that gets in the way. Then there is the Opponent in the climatic fight scene, who sneered like she was bad stuff (and was also black - and German - apparently you can't have one without the other if you want to make someone into a real bad stuff). Then, and this is true, just when I thought they had positioned her badly enough, I said to myself "wait, there is more, I bet she is a criminal or an ex-hooker. A minute later she was introduced as an ex-hooker and later proved to be a criminal when, after losing to the Million Dollar Baby, she sucker-punched her, causing a fall and a permanent breaking of her neck (confined to a bed the entire rest of the film, until she dies).

And product placement - unbelievable: at one point Morgan Freeman (the disabled but wise janitor at the gym) is asked by Clint (the owner) why he persists in using one brand of bleach cleaner to clean up with - the scene is shot from behind the bottle which takes up half the screen. The answer "because it's the best and it smells good".

So we find out Baby was raised dirt poor. They have to rub it in by saying she was a waitress from age 13 and this is her "last chance". Well, of course it's her "last chance", that's how these films work, although we never do find out why this is all she has going for her (smart, a hard worker, pretty - why?). Then we find out she is from Missouri, so just as I was saying to myself "I bet she has a hillbilly Mother and family", all of a sudden there they are. Her Mother is 312 pounds, curses like a sailor because her daughter gave her a house to live in, and of course her teenage pregnant sister with a stereotype (if being pregnant and a minor isn't stereotype enough) trash (and threatening) boyfriend. Well, by now I'm groaning and ready to throw up. At least the Family was well cast!

Oh, and by the way, Clint's character development included his interest in reading Gaelic, and his going to church every single day for 33 years (never resolved, except apparently his wife left him at some point way back then). And his priest swears at him from frustration. I can understand that part.

As I said, she dies, but I was wondering just how bad they were going to make it when I suddenly realized how she'd actually die. She is in a hospital, can't move, bed sores everywhere (graphically shown), loses a leg to gangrene that set in (unnecessary part of the plot, she was in bad enough shape already), paralyzed for good. Then I realize that Clint will kill her to put her out of her misery. That is exactly what happens. So predictable it was awful. After he kills her (unplugs the machine - predictable, and shoots her full of adrenaline - unpredicted) he goes to a restaurant and gets a slice of lemon pie for himself. Nobody saw him do the deed, so he can just leave to get a price of pie like he did once with her. Darned Clint is trying to get the tears flowing out of his audience, when all the audience wants to do is leave. Speaking of which, once we finally got there, there was no clapping and only silence.

Keep in mind here I'm not moaning over this just because she dies. I don't expect a do-good film where she becomes world champion and lives happily ever after (or even loses it all and then regains it all like Rocky Balboa). But, the film was so awfully predictable. I don't believe it was well written, I don't believe it was well directed. At one point where the rough old gravely Clint has refused to take her on as her Manager but coaches her with a couple of tips on how to throw a punch (leading to the inevitable moment when he does take her on as her Manager), he and she are both smiling (for the first and only time in the film) - and you realize they are smiling at each other's acting and that a really poor take was used.

Arrrgghhhh.... what a waste of money!!! And this darned thing had better not get any of the Oscars which Clint and Morgan have so cleverly positioned it for!

Why does the otherwise excellent Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood (both who have done so much better) feel they can pander to us to get an Oscar?

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Description of Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray]

"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.

Clint 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 spectacle and computer-generated effects extravaganzas, Eastwood turns an elegant screenplay by Paul Haggis (adapted from the book Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner by F.X. Toole, a pseudonym for veteran boxing manager Jerry Boyd) into a simple, humanitarian example of classical filmmaking, as deeply felt in its heart-wrenching emotions as it is streamlined in its character-driven storytelling. In the course of developing powerful bonds between "white-trash" Missouri waitress and aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), her grizzled, reluctant trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), and Frankie's best friend and training-gym partner Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman), 74-year-old Eastwood mines gold from each and every character, resulting in stellar work from his well-chosen cast. Containing deep reserves of love, loss, and the universal desire for something better in hard-scrabble lives, Million Dollar Baby emerged, quietly and gracefully, as one of the most acclaimed films of 2004, released just in time to earn an abundance of year-end accolades, all of them well-deserved. --Jeff Shannon

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