So I went to pick up my copy of Million Dollar Baby on DVD and just sitting there was the Special Edition DVD of Rocky.  What’s a guy to do?  So I ended up spending a night with two boxing films that took home the Oscar for Best Picture.  So let’s get ready for some boxin’!  In this corner we have the champion of boxing movies, the eternal underdog who makes good on his one shot, the Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa.  And in the other corner we have the challenger, a woman from humble trailer park beginnings, trained by Dirty Harry, Mo Cuishle, Maggie Fitzgerald.  So which is the better DVD, it’s a close call, and sure to go the distance.  Read on dear viewer, read on.

Rocky and Million Dollar Baby
4 & 1/2 Stars

So I went to pick up my copy of Million Dollar Baby on DVD and just sitting there was the Special Edition DVD of Rocky.  What’s a guy to do?  So I ended up spending a night with two boxing films that took home the Oscar for Best Picture.  So let’s get ready for some boxin’!  In this corner we have the champion of boxing movies, the eternal underdog who makes good on his one shot, the Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa.  And in the other corner we have the challenger, a woman from humble trailer park beginnings, trained by Dirty Harry, Mo Cuishle, Maggie Fitzgerald.  So which is the better DVD, it’s a close call, and sure to go the distance.  Read on dear viewer, read on.

Always protect yourself

Million Dollar Baby
Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) was one of the best cut men in the boxing game.  Now he owns a gym with the help of his old-time friend Scrap (Morgan Freeman).  Frankie’s life is not a happy one.  He has an estranged daughter who he writes every week, but whose letters are always returned unopened.  He attends Catholic mass every day without fail as he is haunted by some past sin.  And he has lost his boxer to another manager who can guarantee him a title shot.  Into his life walks a thirty-one year old woman named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank) who wants Frankie to train her and won’t take no for an answer.  Frankie isn’t interested in training a girl, but Maggie slowly starts to wear down his resolve.  Finally Frankie agrees and Maggie starts to live her dream in the ring. 

The movie is never about what you think its about.  It travels a winding road of subtle and abrupt turns, much like life.  This was by far the best of theatrical releases of 2004.  Besides Best Picture it won Eastwood a Best Director Oscar, Swank a Best Actress Oscar, and Freeman a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.  The films performances are just unbelievable, and Eastwood’s direction shows a style that doesn’t mind not showing or telling the audience everything, something I wish other current directors would learn from.  The world of Frankie and Maggie is filled with many odd and interesting stories that would be cut out of a lesser film.  The best of these are Danger (Jay Baruchel), a young man with absolutely no boxing talent who punches air around the gym and is constantly yelling out a challenge to fight Thomas “Hitman” Hearns, and Father Horvak (Brian F. O’Byrne) a preacher who Frankie torments on a daily basis with questions like “So is Jesus a Demigod?”  The films many plot turns and multiple stories are held together by Freeman’s low key narration which tells us as much about our characters as the sport of boxing.  Freeman effortlessly finds just the right notes for each scene and brings us fully into this world.

The two disc collection ($29.95) has some nice extras.  We are given two different documentaries, one on the producers and the production aspect of the film and a second documentary on the making of the film.  Both are well done.  The other extra is a short interview with Eastwood, Swank, and Freeman talking with James Lipton.  I have to admit being disappointed with this extra.  Lipton spends most of the interview plugging his own show and shamelessly kissing up to the actors; not much new stuff here especially if you have already seen Lipton interview these actors separately.  The movie’s trailer is also included.  The glaring oversight here is the lack of even a single commentary track, especially for a movie of this caliber in terms of acting, action sequences, and how the film is lit and shot.

Yo, Adrian!

Rocky
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a man with few positives in his life.  His boxing career is going nowhere, he’s got a dead-end job as a leg breaker for a small time mobster, his best friend Paulie (Burt Young) is a loudmouthed drunk whose sister Adrian (Talia Shire) won’t give him the time of day, and he’s just lost his locker at the local gym run by Mickey (Burgess Meredith).  Rocky is given his one shot at greatness when the opponent for the heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) backs out only five weeks before the fight leaving an opening for a no-name contender.  Rocky accepts Mickey as his manager, tries to win Adrian’s heart,  and trains for what will be his one chance to prove himself that he is more than just a bum.

The movie is less a story about a man’s chance at greatness than about a man proving his worth to himself.  Rocky never really considers he has a chance to win.  For him the victory is the chance to finish the fight still standing, to do what no one has been able to do and take Creed the distance.  Although there are several wonderful pieces here (directing, acting, cinema photography, score, fight sequences) this is Stallone’s shining moment.  The fact that he wrote this screenplay and held onto it until a studio was willing to let him play the lead role is a great Hollywood story.  The supporting cast is just terrific, and the fight sequences are as well filmed as anything you would see today.  You also get a strong feel for the town of Philadelphia which would be played on further in the sequels.

The Special Edition ($14.95) is chocked full of goodies.  First, we get a commentary track that includes director John G Avildsen, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, and actors Talia Shire, Burt Young, and Carl Weathers.  The only one missing here is Stallone himself.  There is also a short “video commentary” with Stallone that is really more of an interview with intercut scenes, but is still very good.  Aside from the commentary we get a short documentary from the director which goes into detail of how the fight scenes were shot and actually takes a look at some of the original 8mm footage that was used, trailers and television spots, a short tribute to Burgess Meredith, and a short tribute to the cinema photographer James Crabe.  Really stocked full of great stuff here for just a one disc DVD.

No knockout here folks, so we have to go to the ref’s scorecards for the decision.  I think both of these are worthy DVDs to add to any collection, but if you had to pick one only….well that’s a tough one.  For half the cost and more extras including commentary I’m inclined to go with Rocky rather than Million Dollar Baby, although I honestly don’t think you could go wrong either way.  Both are boxing movies, but neither is solely about boxing.  The main characters in each are searching for their place in the world and in the ring, and they both are given a shot late in the life of their careers to succeed when no one thinks they can.  These are stories about people whose lives have threatened to pass them by and are given one chance to prove that they can succeed and prove their worth.

Performance artist Miranda July writes and directs her first feature film
Christine (Miranda July), part-time video artist, part-time elder care driver takes one of her clients shopping for shoes and spies the love of her life, the wide-eyed, newly separated, shoe salesman, Richard (John Hawkes, Deadwood). She knows nothing about his life, but, she is in love and determined in her quest of him, almost to the point of seeming like a stalker, a benign stalker.

Richard, still healing from many wounds, one self-inflicted (he purposely pours lighter fluid on his hand, lights it on fire and seems surprised that he is burning) and his emotional wounds. He is trying to start a new life without his wife, in a cramped apartment, with two sons, preteen Peter (Miles Thompson) and grade school age, Bobby (Brandon Radcliffe), both of whom are like strangers to him. They are silent in their anger and have shut him out of their lives. They prefer to connect and communicate with strangers in online chat rooms, playing the game of not being themselves, online, just like adults.
Young neighbor and school mate of Peter, Slyvie (the excellent Carlie Westerman) is obsessed with order and buying household items for her dowry. Her happiness comes from connecting with neatly ironed towel sets and the latest kitchen gadget, dreaming of her perfect future. She has connected with her soul mate and doesn’t know it.
Two, much too adult, fourteen year old neighbor girls, Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend) find their connections by teasing Richard’s co-worker, Andrew (busy character actor Brad William Henke) to the point of where he leaves them explicit messages, taped to his living room window. In their quest to find out which one on them is better at fellatio, they capture and use a strangely detached Peter for their own version of a double-blind study. No doubt this scene will make some uncomfortable in its frank look at the activities of today’s sexually aware, but still naïve, youth.
All of these different narratives and more mix, match and intersect to tell an off-beat love story.

…

Me and You and Everyone We Know Is MagicalRead More »

Funny, Funny, Funny. And stupid. But funny.

I think I should just lighten up.
Big dumb comedies have been back in fashion for the last few years and I have been very resistant to them. American Pie, There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Old School, Anchorman, and Dodgeball are just a few that seem to wallow in extreme slapstick, vulgar sex jokes, and totally unbelievable situations. Sure, I laughed a lot when I saw American Pie in the theater but I later felt a little dirty about it.
This is where my friends tell me that I should lighten the hell up, and after seeing Wedding Crashers, I think they’re right. Here’s the deal: Wedding Crashers is stupid, dirty, far-fetched, and terribly predictable, but I laughed my ass off while watching it. It was thoroughly entertaining, even though it did make me feel a little dirty for liking it.
Here’s the story: John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Klein (Vince Vaughn) are divorce lawyers who work together and have been best friends since adolescence. When they’re not hearing the horrendous details of people’s marriages breaking up, they’re pursuing their main hobby, which as the title of the movie suggests, is crashing weddings. They come up with elaborate schemes to get into weddings, party with the families at the receptions, and most of all, pick up chicks and go to bed with them.
After a particularly busy wedding season, the two decide to crash the biggest one of the year: that of Treasury Secretary William Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) daughter. John is immediately taken by the bride’s sister Claire (Rachel McAdams) and proceeds to woo her. Meanwhile, Jeremy sets his sights on the other sister, Gloria (Ilsa Fisher), who just happens to be insane. Wackiness ensues as the two join the family in a post-wedding weekend celebration at the Secretary’s house and John tries to get Claire away from her psycho-jock boyfriend.
I went into this movie with extremely low expectations because although I really like Owen Wilson, I have had a big problem with Vince Vaughn. Maybe it was that ultra-crappy remake of Psycho that literally turned my TV into a toilet bowl when I watched it or his performance in Dodgeball that was even too wooden for a stupid comedy. Well, Vince really does quite a good job in this flick at playing the rough but loveable guy that ends up being the film’s comedic punching bag. He has a variety of violent things happen to him and gets the most psychotic abuse from members of the Secretary’s wacko family. I actually liked him by the midpoint of this film. Way to go, Vince!
Owen Wilson is great, as always, and does a good job of making this tremendously stupid movie work. I may even go out on a tiny limb and say that it’s the stars’ charisma that elevates this movie above the other horny, schlocky, comedies that seem to be popping out by the dozen these days. And of course Christopher Walken is great in this movie doing his requisite “creepy man” thing that he naturally does; he manages to be funny and creepy at the same time.
I laughed often and loudly in the theater when I saw this. You can’t really argue with that. I guess after being bludgeoned for two hours with the crazed sledgehammer of a movie that was Oldboy, I needed to watch a movie where I could just shut my brain off and enjoy it. So I suggest that you do just that: go to your local theater, stop thinking, and revel in the cinematic retardation that is Wedding Crashers.