The most important DVD to come out this week was Million Dollar Baby, the film that won the Oscars for 2004…all of them.  I hadn’t seen the movie until the DVD this week but I didn’t have any critical plot points spoiled for me, although I thought I had.  I heard that some religious and politically right leaning people had problems with the film on moral grounds.  So, I found myself waiting for the part where Hillary Swank’s character (Maggie Fitzgerald) engages in a lesbian action and gets married in a liberal blue state.  Unfortunately there was no such scene and I had no idea what was coming.

The film is narrated by the always likable voice of Morgan Freeman, there’s despondency to the pacing and Freeman’s voice which he does so well.  It’s easy to imagine Morgan Freeman doing some gritty Blues.  Clint Eastwood, like Sean Connery has that rare ability to carry a film single-handedly, it’s a pleasure to just watch him talk.  Of course there is considerable talent here besides Eastwood, not the least of which is the staring actress Hillary Swank an academy award winner herself from 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry. 

I won’t get into the meat of this movie because if you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything here.  Eastwood is a master director at human stories like Million Dollar Baby, he rarely misses the mark as a story teller and in no way can I bring any criticism to this film.  It’s indeed a classic that deserves any kudos it’s received.  Ostensibly the movie is about a boxer, but not about boxing per-se.  At one point in the film Freeman makes the point that many people die before their time, they’re people who sacrificed their dreams to wash dishes or driving a cab because they never got that one big chance.  The big “chance” here is the boxer (Swank) taking on the title.  But this could be anything, the underlying story is universal.  Since this one’s about boxing it’s filled with exciting boxing sequences and isn’t above Freeman’s commentary about the sport itself, love it or hate it.

DVD

There isn’t anything about the video quality that distracts from the story.  The film is comprised of generally gritty scenes in the well worn gym which look rustic.  The video quality is conveys this sufficiently without over saturating colors or presenting too much contrast.  The soundtrack is laid back, no aggressive surround effects here.  The only time I even thought about the soundtrack was during the few times we entered a large stadium experiencing the drum of the audience.  The few scenes with accompanying musical scores were memorable but blended perfectly to the story.  This isn’t the kind of DVD you’re going to pop into the player to demo your system unless, you have the time to demonstrate a systems transparency then this DVD is perfect.

Extras

I’m almost always disappointed by extras on DVDs because they almost always give you the same old production house masturbatory crap.  Million Dollar Baby is no exception.  There are two flavors to this release, the two disc or three disc.  The three disc includes the soundtrack on CD which might be interesting, the second disc of extras has little offer.  There are three documentaries on the extra DVD with one that has anything even remotely interesting.  Born to Fight takes a closer look at Lucia Rijker, the woman who played Billie 'The Blue Bear', Maggie Fitzgerald’s opponent for the title of world champion.  The documentary gives some interesting tidbits about Swank’s training and some insight into Rijker’s history and how some of her experiences parallel events in the movie.  Generally stars like Hillary Swank talking about their film preparations and training is pretty boring stuff, it’s interesting that she worked out, we can see it in the movie she did an amazing job of sculpting her body for the part.  It’s the general stroking the egos of everybody else involved I can do without.  The others are “James Lipton Takes on Three” and “Producers Round Three”.  These two are only remotely interesting if you like to see actors and producers singing the monotonous number: “happy, happy, joy, joy”.  

What would have been really interesting?  A documentary about Lucia Rijker!  How about a piece about women’s boxing in general?  These seem like no brainers to me on a so called “extras” DVD for this film.  The film delves into the culture of women’s boxing; why not feed back to it by telling us more about it?  Lucia Rijker has an interesting past as not only an actress but also a junior welterweight boxing champion of the Women’s International Boxing Federation (WIBF).  She had a record of 15-0, 14 by knockout, she really is a bad assed chick!  The documentary Born to Fight only alludes to what could have been an interesting story.