The Worst "Best Picture" I Can Recall

Rating: 3/10 (30 January 2006)

"Million Dollar Baby" is, quite simply, the worst movie in memory to win an Oscar for Best Picture. The movie only became interesting following Maggie's having been injured. The gym scenes are ludicrous. Clint Eastwood should be embarrassed for his putting such silly crud onto film. Maggie's been train for how long and she cannot hit a speed bag? And was Danger retarded? If so, the portrayal of someone who is retarded by Jay Baruchel was ridiculous, if not retarded in itself. Then, the gym tough guy gets his lights punched out by an old man, former fighter Morgan Freeman? What a joke. That would be akin to Joe Montana, at age 50, engineering the winning drive in the Super Bowl. It ain't gonna happen. Then, could the white trash family of Maggie have been anymore stereotypical? Screenplay writer Paul Haggis' work is, to me, a joke. During Maggie's title bout, she is repeatedly and flagrantly fouled by her opponent . . . yet the referee does nothing? What a joke! Even the gruff voices of Eastwood and Freeman characters are ripoffs of the trainer of Rocky, played by Burgess Merideth. And could the dialogue between Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) and the priest have been any more corny? While people have said, "This is not a boxing movie", it is a movie in which boxing was used as a vehicle for a message. The problem is, the boxing portion of the movie is horrendous. I am a huge fan of boxing. Given how Eastwood and Haggis portrayed boxing, they should have used cheerleading as a way of getting Maggie injured. That way, they could have used something they might have more easily understood. As it was, they made it abundantly clear that their understanding of boxing is abysmal, at best.