» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Best Motion Picture

jelewis8 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:35:48 +0000

Winner for Best Motion Picture.
- My pick: Million Dollar Baby
- Oscar pick: Million Dollar Baby
Dustin Hoffman is either plastered or had a stroke. What the heck is wrong with him, he apparently can’t speak English as well as Salma Hayek.
I’m amazed. Clint Eastwood scores again, and it’s a top choice. Marty’s gotta be pissed. Nice Ah-nold joke by the old-school gangster-voiced fellow. Good speech, good choice by the Academy for a final award.
I’m pleased. I hope you’ve had a good time keeping up with the Oscars and this liveblog exercise. See you next year!

Best Director

jelewis8 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:32:09 +0000

Winner for Best Director.
- My pick: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby
- Oscar pick: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby
I called it and damn if I didn’t think the Academy would give it instead to Marty. Clint Eastwood is the best choice, and I’m pleased as punch about it.
I feel badly for Marty, but he just didn’t deserve it. Nice speech by Eastwood, and I notice they haven’t shown Marty yet. Has he exploded yet?

Million Dollar Baby

jelewis8 — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:58:09 +0000

I almost wish I could say the critics are wrong about this one. Every so often, a few films come along that are so well-received by everyone and their mothers, it almost becomes annoying to have to write one more praise for it. Yet when the gold is weighed and measured and counted, what really does count at the end is how pure it is.
What has come out of the dross of the Hollywood studio system is a film crafted in subtlety, grace, and style. Clint Eastwood, who helmed, produced, stars in, and even composed music for Million Dollar Baby, is to be credited (as he is by other critics) for the rich pacing, the muted palette of blues and greens that bathe each shot with the duality of light and shadow, and tweaking the mesmerizing performances out of Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. Paul Haggis’ script, based on a collection of short boxing stories entitled “Rope Burns” by F.X. Toole, is a marvelous creation in its own right, weaving characters who live and die a reality few films ever achieve. Eastwood himself turns in a performance of grizzled perfection, providing the film’s moral and conflicted center.
Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is a fight trainer who has lived his years as a man too afraid of hurting his fighter to ever give them a chance. He runs a fitness gym with the help of Eddie “Scrap” Dupris (Freeman), an old fighter who reached his boxing limit at fight number 109.
When white-trash waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) shows up one day and asks Frankie to train her, he’s disgusted. “I don’t train girls!” he snarls, and she replies, “I’m tough, Mr. Dunn. Tougher than I look.”
“Girly, tough…ain’t enough.” he retorts.
It’s a refrain that echoes shades of Frankie’s own life. His estrangement with his daughter finds him attending church nearly every day, asking his priest (Brian F. O’Byrne) questions of faith that simply have no answer grounded in the real, everyday world in which he lives. His life, so tough and burled with time and loss, is empty with dreams of a world that has since passed him by.
Maggie never gives up, never surrenders to a future of waiting tables in nasty dives. She keeps coming back to Frankie’s gym. Scrap encourages Maggie to continue training, teaching her what little he knows of boxing practice techniques, and she learns quickly. Frankie keeps his eye on her; horrified by her abuse of technique, he steps in and agrees to train her until she can find a good manager.
It’s a good match. Frankie is as tender as he is tough, and his love, like a father, for Maggie grows, whilst her abilities increase with practice and his firm, guiding hand. The inevitability of love puts Frankie into the manager’s seat once more, and he finds himself arranging fights for Maggie. Fewer fights, though, as her one punch knockouts estrange them both from getting the good fights. Frankie battles Maggie’s strong will in and out of the ring, but her ability is undeniable.
Yet this is not a movie about a scrappy fighter who rises through the ranks to take home the championship. Though elements of that play here, they merely serve the greater story of the triad of people lonely and caught up in a broken world. Their connection is more than transitory, however. Eastwood is subtle enough not to bandy about metaphors about boxing and life. Instead, the conflict that builds character, and the tragedy of love taken to its highest peaks of perfection and beauty, are the focus of the camera and the story.
Here, redemption is not found at the end of a championship run, but in the heart of a surrogate daughter. Swank is a wonder to watch. Her eyes glow with intensity and fierce love of boxing, and her sculpted body, honed by months of pre-training, looks the part of a woman who pays dearly in pursuit of a dream. Freeman, often overutilized as the wizened but wise aged friend, is the film’s narrator and experiences his own redemption in a subplot that is as rich and nuanced as the main storyline.
The film takes turns that will leave you hurting. Eastwood spares nothing in his pursuit of a conclusion that, in a way, could only have been achieved through pain. But there are also moments of light, and baths of innocence amid the dark grittiness of the world. And there is beauty, even at the end. What Eastwood has wrought should stand every test of time and leave viewers with a deeper knowledge of the beauty and conflict of love.
Fringe Rating: out of 5

You Feel Lucky?

jelewis8 — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 03:28:56 +0000

Clint Eastwood gave Michael Moore a warning he’ll be hardpressed to ignore.

“Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common – we both appreciate living in a country where there’s free expression. But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera – I’ll kill you.”

All in good fun, of course. Where politics ends entertainment begins, and Moore showed he took the comments in the spirit they were intended.
Which makes me think that perhaps this is a new tactic for Moore, whose recent personal revolution in the hygiene department has sparked accusations that the rebel “documentarionist” (it’s like “fictition” for the masses!) may be forgetting his roots as an obese liberal circus entertainer and taking on the more pleasant characteristics of 1950′s beat icon Buddy Holly (joke courtesty of Greg Piper, who also alerted me to this story), sans the thin physique and with devilishly sculpted facial hair.
Or perhaps this is just the bizarro-world Michael Moore, an evil twin only South Park fans can adore. Who’s to say? Clearly, though, the real story is Eastwood, who at 74, is Hollywood’s most rugged frontman, tougher than Heston and more gnarled than Haggard. He’s also the man who has defied the odds and history to produce and direct some of the past couple years’ most insightful, darkest human dramas, including 2003′s Mystic River and this year’s Million Dollar Baby, a film that could have Annette Bening sweating again this Oscar night around if critics like Hilary Swank’s tough-to-beat performance.
If Eastwood threatens me, I’d take it with a grain of salt. But not too big a grain. You just never know what he’s hiding behind those steely eyes.