77. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Plot Intro

Ageing boxing trainer, Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) loses his protegee because he is too reticent in pushing the aspiring boxer towards higher-level matches. To make up for this, he is persuaded by his best friend Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman) to train an impoverished but passionate woman named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). But as she starts to achieve great success, tragedy strikes…

Paul says...

It’s 2004! Facebook is launched. Lost and Desperate Housewives first appeared on TV. Justin Timberlake accidentally exposed Janet Jackson’s boob. But meanwhile, in Hollywood, Clint Eastwood is continuing his consistently-successful six-decade career with a critically acclaimed sports movie that defeated The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray and Sideways to win Best Picture.

Eastwood is an excellent filmmaker because he’s unpredictable. He has the perennial media image of the ultimate “tough guy”, equivalent to John Wayne and Bruce Lee. But it’s surprising how frequently he dissects this image of masculinity and shows layers of sensitivity and humanity underneath. He did this in Unforgiven (our last encounter with his film-making in 1992), and in Gran Torino, an outstanding 2008 film about a grumpy, xenophobic old miser coming to the aid of a Korean community on his street. 

Million Dollar Baby is no exception. It is a film ultimately about strength, with the motif of boxing being the stereotypical, macho image of winning through physical prowess and disciplined aggression. The common types of “strength” abound. Maggie herself is stoically optimistic despite her horrendous upbringing and Frankie’s resistance to being her boxing guru; the younger, more able boxers mock and overpower a character called Danger, a young man with learning difficulties who cannot box to save his life but lives in the belief that he will one day be the next Rocky; Frankie is frequently preached to by his Catholic pastor who urges him to endure suffering and maintain faith in God.

But true strength, as Eastwood demonstrates, sometimes manifests in the most unlikely of ways. Scrap’s defence of Danger, and allowing the young disabled man to essentially be a resident of a boxing gym, shows strength in honour. Frankie teaches Maggie that boxing is not just about how hard you punch but requires greater skills in agility, strategy and quick decision-making. Frankie eventually rejects the usual Catholic teachings of strength through suffering to commit his final act of “sin”, proving that sometimes true strength comes in knowing when to give up and move on. 

These philosophical musings ooze out of the story slowly and steadily, so that the film begins as a pretty conventional rags-to-riches sports movie before developing in surprising and unexpected ways into something truly deep and emotional. It is helped by the fact that both Eastwood and Swank are awesome. They play off each other beautifully and Swank especially shows nuance and multiple emotions even when she is motionless and bed-bound. They are easily the best male-female pairing in our projects since Hopkins and Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. 

Like most Eastwood offerings, this is a beautiful film, skilfully lulling its audience into thinking they know exactly how things will pan out, and proving them wrong. Maybe it doesn’t have a huge socio-political statement to make (although you could make an argument for the film’s final scene), but its thoughtful, exciting and sweet-natured. Even at 89 years old, Eastwood is able to stay relevant in Hollywood. 

Highlight

The scene in which Scrap defends Danger against a group of bullies trying to demonstrate their physical superiority is a lovely sub-plot.

Lowlight

Nothing at all- this is a tender, well-paced and beautifully-constructed piece.

Mark

10/10

Doug says...

It’s quite odd how we’ve now had two boxing-related films (Rocky and Million Dollar Baby) and while I’ve been prepared to heartily dislike them owing to my avid dislike of sports, I’ve actually ended up really enjoying and being sucked in by both. 

Million Dollar Baby is depressing. Let’s get that out the way. It’s bleak and by the end everything is wretched and miserable. But somehow it’s gripping and Swank is so utterly believable as someone who discounts herself as ‘trash’ but then also has a drive and a ferociousness that ensures she must succeed. I understand why people have attacked the ending and wished for something more optimistic, but having spent the film with these characters, every choice and desire they show feels accurate for these specific people. 

I’ve discovered a real respect for Clint Eastwood with the handful of films I’ve seen from his portfolio. They’re beautifully shot, with a surprising amount of tenderness underneath the displays of masculinity. It’s present in the way everyone responds to the lone woman in the boxing gym, and in the way Frankie wrestles with the final challenge laid out to him by Maggie. I loved how the film threads everything together, even down to Scrap (a superb Morgan Freeman) getting his 110th fight and Frankie’s antagonistic relationship with the priest. It all comes together in a way that feels organic and unforced, and even ends on a note of ambiguity - are we actually seeing Frankie in the diner, or do we just wish that we do? 

Eastwood and Freeman are on top form, and I’m actually surprised Eastwood didn’t get a nod for Best Supporting Actor. However this really is Swank’s film, and she launches herself with gusto at it. She lights up with joy constantly, captivating everyone around her, and then in the final third of the film, when we see her incapacitated, Swank brings in a sudden slowness and monotony to her performance, an underlying feeling of depression and hopelessness, fading to the background of scenes as Frankie becomes desperate in trying to save her. In the end, there’s a sense of no one winning - except for ‘Danger’ Dillard who comes back to the gym to try - against all the odds - to carry on training under Scrap’s protection. It’s a little note of kindness that shines a dim light in what is otherwise an oppressively dark ending. 

Highlight

Swank’s performance throughout - particularly in the torturous moments when she deals with her horrendous mother (a stellar, dowdy performance from Margo Martindale).

Lowlight

The final third of the film is slower on purpose but there are moments when it does begin to drag.

Mark

9/10

Foreign Language Film 9: Daisies (Czechoslovakia, 1966)

Plot Intro

Two sisters (Jitka Cerhova and Ivana Karbonova) decide that they are bored and unhappy with the world. So they launch themselves into a spree of bizarre and rebellious antics to spice up their lives.

Doug says...

Selecting a rather obscure surrealist film made in 1966’s Czechoslovakia, featuring two young women rolling around eating food and saying nonsensical things seems like an odd move. And truth be told, it was. I chose this film from a list of ‘Great European Comedies’ because I was sick of tragic dramas. 

A normal comedy it is not. This is deep. So deep in fact that I’m pretty sure I only got about three layers in and yet felt like I’d missed everything. It’s not a chronological or indeed narrative-focused film, with flashes of colour and jaunty angles creating a whirlwind of movement and motion. It’s hard to write about what it’s saying or indeed even showing - because the whole thing is so random and fractured. 

What I can write about though is the effect. The scene when the two women burst into a nightclub and drink and dance excessively, drawing the disapproval of the entire room - including the two professional dancers - feels wordlessly powerful. They are giddy with freedom (this film came two years before the country attempted to move against the communism that held it tight) but the other diners are trapped in pretending they aren’t there, and the two dancers are performing, their smiles ever-fixed but their eyes and movement showing unease and difficulty. 

It’s moments like this in which director Věra Chytilová makes her mark. There’s constant waste, scenes where the women bite into apples and then discard the rest sit alongside others where they drink and plough through desserts on the account of rich would-be suitors who they later abandon on trains, laughing as they run away. Dialogue throughout is fractured and often meaningless. As a film it’s disturbing but captivating. 

In the big climactic scene, they find a room laid for a state banquet and demolish it, breaking the glasses and plates as they munch through everything. There’s a feeling of boredom and restrictions breaking loose, leading them to wreak destruction on everything. Despite no links being made to reality, this feels intensely political, and without a greater understanding of the Czechoslovakian background, I can’t say that I got it. But I ended up thinking about it more and more over the following days.  

Highlight 

The scene when the two women launch into their complete free attack on the state banquet is extraordinary, with them literally swinging from the chandelier in uninhibited and destructive glee. 

Lowlight

It takes more than a short time to get used to the fractured, disjointed style, but then this isn’t a regular movie. 

Mark 

I’m going to abstain. This is a piece of art not a film so I can’t judge it in comparison. 

Paul says...

Yes, this is an odd little film. As Doug says, it’s a piece of art. It’s probably more at home in the Tate Modern (the sort of thing you skim past to get to Tracey Emin’s 'My Bed' before trotting off to the pub to congratulate yourself on how cultured you are. Oh yes, we’ve done that). The deliberately robotic acting, erratic changes in colour and pace, shots of train tracks and World War Two bombings interspersed at seemingly random times. All of these show that this is a film with a Point to it. And what that Point is has been a source of great debate amongst film students.

The film is associated with a cinematic movement of the time called the Czechoslovak New Wave. Very experimental styles of directing were employed, as well as amateur actors, to tackle controversial or at least hitherto untouched themes that censors would usually have attacked vehemently. Director Vera Chytilova is a major contributor to this movement, particularly in her contribution of the female perspective. She dispensed with lucid narrative and characterisation, and styled the film in such a disjointed, frantic manner in order to ensure her audience concentrated on the themes, rather than getting lost in the story. A very Brecht thing to do.

At roughly the same time (the mid to late '60s), in Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia, there was a period called the Prague Spring during which the Head of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, Alexander Dubcek produced a series of liberalisation reforms to ensure greater citizens’ rights and democratic processes. It is no wonder, then, that Czech cinema was also becoming more liberal, experimental and confrontational. Unfortunately, the movement collapsed suddenly in 1968 when a conglomeration of European Communist countries, called the Warsaw Pact, invaded Czechoslovakia, forced Dubcek to resign and maintained communism in the country until the early '90s. Vera Chytilova, as a result, struggled to find work and it seems she had to spend much of her life and career battling hard just to make her next film.

Bearing this in mind, I’ve formulated a vague interpretation of the film but I still have questions. The sisters’ adventures are, as Doug explains, peppered with symbols of food, especially food wastage. To me, they represent youth’s disenfranchisement due to a vague idea of the world being “bad”, and these feelings drive them towards a hedonistic lifestyle where they are amused and motivated by the irritation and fury of older, more powerful men. In almost all of these scenes, they consume vast amounts of food. But the wastage of the food seems to represent the carnage and damage that is left behind if youth were to lead such a lifestyle. The sisters seem to meet their comeuppance when they go too far whilst destroying a magnificent banquet, and they attempt to gain redemption by cleaning up their mess, muttering to themselves about working hard and therefore being “good”. Unfortunately, the plates they are reassembling are already broken- the damage has been done.

Is Chytilova presenting a stark warning to Czechoslovakian liberals about the perils of luxury, hedonism and self-absorption? Or is she warning the traditional communists about what will happen should they provide nothing for young, aspirational youths? I’m not really sure, but I think this is what the film is all related to. There are many other images, symbols, motifs and layers to dissect but I only have 500 words to work with here. Rest assured, Daisies is a cerebral 75 minutes that was hard-going in viewing, but fun to reflect on afterwards.

Highlight

The final scene does, indeed, complete the film, which is a relief because it’s so bizarre and hard to watch that some payout was definitely needed.

Lowlight

The first scenes are the hardest, because the film launches right into its modernist and distractingly fractured tone.

Mark

Unlike Doug, I am going to mark it. And I give it 6/10. It’s not accessible for everyone (avoid like the plague if you’d rather gouge your eyes out with plastic spoons than visit a modern art gallery), but it’s thought-provoking and can provide insight into a segment of history that is not often taught in UK schools. 

76. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

Plot Intro

So, there’s this ring, right. And it’s, like, an evil, powerful ring belonging to the Dark Lord Sauron who wants to conquer all of Middle Earth and enslave, like, everyone. But the ring only really seems to turn people invisible, which I guess is kind of cool. Anyway, the ring is in the hands of some Hobbits who are like small, simple-minded village people who smoke and drink and eat a lot. But Sauron’s awaking from a 3000-year coma or something and wants the ring back, so the Hobbits, along with a wizard, an elf, a dwarf, various human armies, and some talking trees have to fight off Sauron’s forces and throw the ring into a huge mountain/volcano in order to destroy all evil once and for all. Got it?

Doug says...

I have never seen Lord of the Rings before, and to be honest I’m not a massive fantasy fan. I often find it too steeped in virginal religion with token roles for women that rarely pass the Bechdel Test. Paul insisted I watch the first two films before we watch the final one that actually nabbed the trophy and I found them a slog - particularly the second one. 

However I was pleased to find that I didn’t hate the final installment. There’s less stilted monologues about honour (it all feels a teensy bit false and incel-y to me, so I get very turned off) and some great set-pieces, including a nobleman going demented and nearly burning his own son alive. Ian McKellan’s having a lot of fun beating people up with a stick while rocking a giant beard and Andy Serkis trundles through the film as the mad obsessive thing Gollum. 

The acting is shoddy, with lead Elijah Wood being particularly terrible. McKellan’s probably the only one being convincing, but I find myself forgiving it. What Peter Jackson is focusing on here is the scale of it. There’s scenes with giant elephant warriors, mountain top battles and Cate Blanchett even turns up as a Token Woman to deliver a line about something or other at the end. It’s old school fantasy done very well, and while Game of Thrones far surpasses it in terms of better characters, more realistic plotlines and stronger women, it’s clear how this was a step on the road to getting there. 

There’s some gaping problems. Saruman apparently dies but we don’t see it. Apparently the scene is included in the extended edition but it makes for quite confusing viewing in the cinema cut. The film also doesn’t know how to end with about five too many surplus scenes. One gets the feeling that Peter Jackson might not know how to land a plane - I’ve also heard there’s three alternate endings. 

It’s beautifully shot and a clear predecessor to the better things we have access to now, but overall I couldn’t escape that it was (once again) a bunch of white men standing around and talking about honour before embracing each other in a manly fashion. There’s no harm in it, but it doesn’t particularly pique my interest. 

Highlight 

I enjoyed the storyline where Denethor is hell-bent on burning himself and his supposedly dead son alive, then gets saved by Gandalf, only to actually set on fire and then run off a cliff into the sea. It may not have been purposeful but it had great comic timing. 

Lowlight

Still too many speeches about Honour and Dignity. They come across as silly rather than powerful, particularly when compared to more realistic dialogue in more modern shows. 

Mark 

6/10

Paul says...

Oscar winners don’t come more expansive and expensive than this. The Lord of the Rings blasted world records on budget, scale and special effects. It even equalised the record for most Oscars won, a record already set by Ben-Hur and Titanic, although it notably won for every category it was nominated for. It’s also the only time that a “threequel” has won, but it can be argued that, like the novel, it’s simply the third volume of a 9-hour epic, so it can be argued this Best Picture award was for the three films as a whole package rather than the final instalment alone.

I have fond memories of The Lord of the Rings being released. Having never read the turgid work beyond page 100, and preferring it’s prequel, The Hobbit, which is half the length and ten times the action, I remember being swept up in the lavishness and attention to detail that went into these astonishing works. Middle-Earth was already a fantasy world popular amongst readers, but Peter Jackson and his creative team go all out to recreate it visually on screen. The architecture, art work, landscapes, cityscapes, armour, costumes, even the handwriting has intense influences of Anglo-Saxon England (just like the novels) but with various subtle differences to remind us that this is far from a period drama. 

In fact, that’s one of the biggest selling points of the whole trilogy- the look of the thing. Just when you think Jackson can’t surpass himself, out comes an army of giant elephants, or a monstrous spider, or a Ring Wraith wearing a pointy metal helmet riding a sort of lizardy-dragony thing in front of his green-lit sinister palace. On the big screen, it was jaw-dropping because something on this scale had never been achieved. And with Marvel and DC starting to release their new wave of superhero recreations at the same time, and Harry Potter topping the profit charts, the summer blockbuster was starting to have a standard much higher than expected.

It’s true, when it comes to character and acting, these are not the most supreme examples. No acting awards were won for it, and only Ian McKellan was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the first instalment. You see this film for the spectacle, not for Meryl Streep-style tour de forces. Admittedly, I’ve always loved Andy Serkis who flits skilfully between the more humane but corruptible Smeagol, and the diabolical Gollum. It’s a superbly realised character and he really does steal it (not hard to do when paired up with Elijah “try-hard” Wood). 

The other amusing aspects (I hesitate to call them “faults”) are noticeable now that George Martin’s Game of Thrones has become the titan of epic fantasy. Compared to the sex-and-violence-ridden HBO series, Lord of the Rings feels suffocatingly chaste. Both Martin and Ian McKellan bemoaned the fact that you never really see anyone washing, or stepping out from behind a tree having taken a much needed piss. The most we come to any kind of sexual reference is a well-rehearsed snog between Aragorn and Arwen, and surely someone, somewhere in Middle Earth knows what a swear word is?! 

The result is a story where the characters are so perfect it’s sometimes difficult to care about them. There were a few moments where I could’t help pining for the flawed nature of Jaime Lannister, or the incredible character arc of Sansa Stark. 

But I shouldn’t be too harsh because re-watching this whole trilogy was a wonderfully nostalgic experience. The action sequences still have the power to make you cheer and gasp, and special effects remain convincing for the most part, and I was never bored. The Lord of the Rings is a rigid cornerstone of blockbuster film-making, setting a new standard for the amount of effort required from film-makers if they want to make a profit, and it will retain a special place in my heart for many years to come.

One last thing, why are there only two wizards in all of Middle-Earth?!

Highlight

I’d forgotten about the scene in which Faramir, working on the orders of his delusional father, leads a suicidal attack on a town that has been seized by Orcs. Their attack, which we know is doomed, is interspersed with Merry singing a mournful song and Faramir’s father stuffing his face in the comfort of his throne room. It’s an unexpectedly tragic and moving moment.

Lowlight

Yes, there are about 100 final scenes. I think Peter Jackson couldn’t decide where to stop the camera rolling. But seeing as this is a pretty big passion-project of his, it’s easy to understand why.

Mark

8/10