Oscar wins: 4- Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Swank), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Freeman)
Nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Eastwood), Best Adapted Screenplay (Haggis), Best Editing
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Paul Haggis based short stories by F.X. Toole
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman
Length: 132 minutes
Budget: $30 million
My sixth film-- and my favorite so far-- is Million Dollar Baby, a film directed by my favorite director (Clint Eastwood), and starring my favorite actress (Hilary Swank). Both do amazing work in this touching tale about a female boxer. Also, it was Paul Haggis's first Academy Award nomination of three (he would go on to do Crash, last post's winner!, and also another one of my favorites by Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima).
Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) is an aspiring female boxer, who goes to the local gym of Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) and convinces him to train her. Dunn, meanwhile, struggles with his own problems, and an incredible bond develops between these two, despite his original feelings. Throw in ex-fighter and gym worker "Scrap" (Freeman), and you get an excellent mix of sports, drama, and even the occasional humor.
Whenever I try to get anyone to watch this film, their response is always the same: why would I want to watch a movie about boxing? What they don't realize, though, is that boxing is only the backdrop for this film, and the real story lies within the characters and their relationships. Eastwood does an incredible job shooting this film and sets an amazing scene, and then all of the actors hold their own and pull it together. It is, for sure, one of my favorite movies of all time.
At the 77th Academy Awards, the film with the most nominations was The Aviator (with 11), and Million Dollar Baby came in with (only?) 7. The Aviator also won the most awards, with 5. It is an excellent film, about the life of Howard Hughes, and it is amazing on a technical level-- editing, cinematography, and the acting of Cate Blanchett and Leonardo DiCaprio is REMARKABLE.
These Oscars featured three (Swank, Blanchett, and DiCaprio) of my favorite performances of all time, and even though Jamie Foxx (in Ray) wasn't my favorite, it was still a terrific piece of acting. This was also the first year I really got into watching the Oscars, and I have been a huge fan ever since.
So, another film is down. Next is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and their amazing double digit sweep at the 76th Awards.
Rankings:
1. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
2. The Departed (2006)
3. No Country for Old Men (2007)
4. The Hurt Locker (2009)
5. Crash (2005)
6. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
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