Million Dollar Baby is about an aging boxing trainer Frank Dunn (Clint Eastwood) who reluctantly starts traing a girl Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). Maggie is a girl from a small town who works as a waitress to make ends meet but her dream has always been to become a boxer. She seeks out the best trainer she can find and that is Frank. Frank is haunted by demons of his past recently had a boxer fire him for a more aggressive manager. Seeing as Maggie will not give and is constantly coming into the gym Frank decides to help her out. She becomes a world wide phenomenon and finally gets her chance at the title shot. The two develop a father-daughter relationship as Maggis father died when she was young and Frank has not talked to his daughter in a long time. About halfway through the movie turns from a boxing movie to a medical drama with an ending I didn't see coming.
It is hard to talk about this movie without talking about the ending, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I am glad I saw the movie when I did because it was when it first came out and I had no idea what it was about. But not only does it turn into a medical drama but also has a moral dilema at the very end. When Award season first came around I had not heard of this movie and was one of the last movies to get a wide release in early 2005. As Clint Eastwood proved the previous year with Mystic River he has a way of getting great performances out of his actors. Hillary Swank won Best Actress and Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor. Clint Eastwood was nominated himself as Best Actor but lost to Jamie Foxx for Ray. I love how this movie took me by suprise. I went in not expecting much and just your typical boxing movie but left feeling like I saw one of the few movies that makes you question your beliefs. Great thought provoking ending.
The one movie that I thought should have got more attention come award season was Hotel Rwanda. While it did have two nominations for Best Actor (Don Cheadle) and Best Supporting Actress (Sophie Okonedo) it should have been nominated for Best Picture. A really moving story about the Rwandan genocide. Also, the biggest upset for me was the fact that Super Size Me lot Best Documentary. It remains one of my favorite documentaries to this day and is the first documentary I saw in the theatre.
Not really a big suprise in my opinion but one of the biggest stories to surround the Oscars this year was that Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ didn't get nominated for any big awards. The fact that Michael Moore wanted Fahrenheit 9/11 nominated for Best Picture and not Best Documentary means it had not chance of being nominated. It was just pure propaganda. The Passion of the Christ while one of the biggest movies of the year had a chance to get nominated but just a small chance since it was not in English and very rarely does a movie in a foreign language get nominated.
Interesting many of the Best Actor and Supporting Actor nominees got there start on TV shows.
Best Actors: Clint Eastwood-Rawhide, Jamie Foxx-In Living Color, Johnny Depp-21 Jumpstreet, Don Cheadle-Picket Fences
Best Supporting Actors: Alan Alda-M.A.S.H., Thomas Hayden Church-Wings, Morgan Freeman-The Electric Company and Jamie Foxx again.
Also of note Leonardo Dicaprio was nominated for Best Actor and did have a small role on Growing Pains right before it was cancelled.
Oscar Trivia
For the third time Martin Scorsese lost Best Director to a former Actor (1980 to Robert Redford and 1990 to Kevin Costner)
Hilary Swank beat Annette Benning for the second time after upsetting her in 1999. Swank an unknown that year was a suprise upset for Boys Dont Cry over the heavily favorited Benning for American Beauty. This year Swank was the favorite but Benning was unable to upset her.
Million Dollar Baby was the last movie to date to be nominated for the Top 5 Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay) winning 4 out of the 5 awards.
Best 2004 movies according to IMDB Top 250
Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind-64 (one of the most original moves of the year and very glad it won Best Original Screenplay. Most movies this unusual do not get recognized by the Academy.)
Hotel Rwanda-127
Million Dollar Baby-153
The Incredibles-219
Kill Bill Vol. 2-236
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