Bengals... & Million Dollar Baby

I really think God hates us. First off, there're 15 years between playoff games for the Bengals. And then, in his first playoff pass (a beautiful long bomb), he tears his ACL and might not be ready for training camp next year. And then Jon Kitna remembers that he's Jon Kitna in the second half and screws up everything. Damnit.

Million Dollar Baby was well-made, but it pretty much just reminded me of Mystic River, in that it was well-made, but there just seemed something off in it. I can't entirely put my finger on it, except that it seemed like a mixture of other movies. A little bit of Mystic River, a little Girlfight, and a whole big heaping of every single movie where Morgan Freeman is the old grizzled veteran being an influence (especially on a younger white person). It just made me think of The Shawshank Redemption a hell of a lot. Maybe its Oscar was something to make up for the lack of Oscars for that. Or maybe it was all about the big plot twist. That it was spoiled for me makes me not entirely the best person to judge whether it was earned. I think that it was clearly the right decision in this case, but I think that the movie made it feel a little too easy for her to get to the highest part of female boxing. I certainly think that you could have gotten rid of Jay Baruchel's character entirely and then make the movie more about how much Maggie loves her life. I don't think that was effective enough. A little too much depressing, not enough happy. Plus, we really don't have any idea of how much money she's making as a boxer, I mean, we have that shot of her checkbook, and then she somehow buys the house, and then boxes around Europe, and then boxes for 500k? These niggling problems just knock a little off my enjoyment of an otherwise good movie. The bits with the priest, however, were my favorite parts of the movie.