Posted on 02/07/2005 3:03:09 PM PST by EveningStar
Medved on O'Reilly tonight to debate Million Dollar Baby.
Fox: 8 Easter / 5 Pacific
I understand, but I am a pretty combative person, so maybe that's part of it--I like to hear everything the other side has in its rhetorical arsenal, and then my mind goes to work countering each point. So for me to sit in a movie and be repelled by the theme would activate my combative side. I enjoy reading and seeing things which are NOT "on my side" more than I do reading stuff that just says to me "You're so right."
You are not putting a warning out - you are advocating a boycott.
"...sad to say, many prefer to believe what they believe regardless that they have failed to think through their own beliefs with any real concerted effort. Others of us, however, are in the continuous process of refining our thoughts and welcome anyone who can poke holes in our belief system. This second group of us realize that there is a war of ideas going on. And it is only through the constant refining of our beliefs and the constant development of our ability to state those beliefs plainly, that there is there a chance to win this war."
"You know what- tell it to the old couple who thought they were going to see a movie about Boxing."
What "old couple"? Or is this just another puritanical aphorism -- something akin to the battle cry "what about the children"?
And specifically what advertising are you referring to when you claim it was deceptively promoted as a "feel good movie"? I never saw any such advertising.
Heh, thank for the link. When I have time later, I might even register for Salon's 'free pass' for the day just to be able to read the rest of the review.
A movie can show a character doing something I find abhorent, but if done well it makes me feel for the character in that situation, and understand why the decision was made--that doesn't mean I condone or agree with the choice, merely that I understand why someone made that choice.
One leads to the other, if someone is so inclined.
I would have preferred to read what this movie was really about before I wasted my time and money by believing Ebert when he said MDB was "spiritual."
The "spirits" surrounding this film are not celestial.
You have a horrible attitude.
I've got an incredible script for you about Dwarf Tossing--you see, there is this great dwarf and he breaks his neck getting tossed and --wait for it-- He begs his dwarf trainer to snuff him! Isn't that great! And even though the dwarf trainer loves the dwarf--'cuz he had a dwarf once that ran away... See, he snuffs the dwarf and he loves the dwarf!
People will be lining up, man....
F'n people are idiots now.
"Million Dollar Midget."
Not true. This movie is no more about female boxing than Of Mice and Men is about farming. It's about a man who's had a great loss in the past and sees a chance for redemption, and how he has to decide whether to push for HIS idea of redemption or to sacrifice his own beliefs for what someone he cares for wants.
People will be lining up, man...."
Lol...They WOULD!
The dwarf trainer is a perfect touch. Some gruff old SOB. Only pull the ol' switch-a-roo. Cast the trainer as some old bitchy broad. A loveable witch. Like Bea Arthur.
Now the question is...should the dwarf be played by Gary Coleman, Danny DeVito, OR do we find a flaming gay "little person"?
When do we begin writing the screenplay? Hollywood will be fallen over themselves for this script!
Frankie Dunn (CLINT EASTWOOD) has trained and managed some incredible fighters during a lifetime spent in the ring. The most important lesson he teaches his boxers is the one that rules his life: above all, always protect yourself. In the wake of a painful estrangement from his daughter, Frankie has been unwilling to let himself get close to anyone for a very long time. His only friend is Scrap (MORGAN FREEMAN), an ex-boxer who looks after Frankie's gym and knows that beneath his gruff exterior is a man who has attended Mass almost every day for the past 23 years, seeking the forgiveness that somehow continues to elude him. Then Maggie Fitzgerald (HILARY SWANK) walks into his gym. Maggie's never had much, but there is one thing she does have that very few people in this world ever do: she knows what she wants and she's willing to do whatever it takes to get it. In a life of constant struggle, Maggie's gotten herself this far on raw talent, unshakable focus and a tremendous force of will. But more than anything, what she wants is for someone to believe in her. The last thing Frankie needs is that kind of responsibility - let alone that kind of risk. He tells Maggie the blunt hard truth: she's too old and he doesn't train girls. But 'no' has little meaning when you have no other choice. Unwilling or unable to give up on her life's ambition, Maggie wears herself to the bone at the gym every day, encouraged only by Scrap. Finally won over by Maggie's sheer determination, Frankie begrudgingly agrees to take her on. In turns exasperating and inspiring each other, the two come to discover that they share a common spirit that transcends the pain and loss of their pasts, and find in each other a sense of family they lost long ago. What they don't know is that soon they will both face a battle that's going to demand more heart and courage than any they've ever known.
I don't know where your mind is, but the last line is the only one that eludes to some "battle" and I know that I would never have thought that is what their "battle"would be about. It is a boxing movie for God's sake from their presentation, who would have surmised from that little snippet that it is actually about euthanasia. The advertising is deceptive, pure and simple, the debate is really to the why it is deceptive--inept marketers or keen ones who knew the movie would be rejected if that topic were marketed as the focus?
Oh and I just gave it another look for the sake of this discussion and watched the trailer on the website. there is not one bit of indication that this young lady even gets sick, no bed scene, no scene of her frail and ill, nothing to warn anyone of what is in it. They seem to market it in that trailer as a man who has a past with a daughter he lost and kind of finds that bond again with a girl fighting her way to boxing glory, a girl who herself is kind of hopeless. Nothing at all that eludes to what will come, nothing. It is deceptive marketing. Without arguing the merits or lack of them to euthanasia, it is a deceptive movie and one has to consider that it was purposely deceptive because those that marketed it knew it would not generate the kind of viewership they would have hoped for if it had actually been marketed based on its center theme.
The Judeo-Christian ethos has always maintained taking another person's life, outside of battle, is a grievous sin against God. It certainly doesn't result in redemption. Just the opposite.
MDB was maudlin propaganda disguised as drama.
Your first point contradicts your second. If each of us has to determine what redemption means, you can't say something "certainly doesn't result in redemption".
You're also misreading my point. I clearly stated that what one person's idea of it was contradicted the other's, not that this movie said "suicide is the way to his redemption".
No contradiction. I can say that sentence all I want according to how I define redemption, which is the correct definition, IMO.
You and others have their own definitions, which are correct according to your definitions.
But ultimately, there is only one correct definition, only one correct understanding of how a person is redeemed and who does the redeeming. Ultimately, either a person can be redeemed by willfully taking another person's life, or he can't. It's fairly basic black-and-white stuff here.
God is not inscrutable on these things, try as some might to confuse the issue.
<< Because I listen to RUSH ..... >>
That's a scary thought .....
About as closely in touch with good common sense as might be listening to and taking direction from The Phantom -- or Spiderman -- or Mandrake the Magician -- or Spanky the Clown -- or any other fictional and/or comic book character.
But then, I used to listen to Mr Limbaugh, too, until the week Kurt Cobain died and the self-admitted "former"-pot-smoking, then 350-plus-pound, chain-cigar-smoking-in-his-"formerly"-nicotine-stained-fingers, Mr Limbaugh, spent the whole week excoriating Mr Corbain and calling his still warm corpse "just another dead doper."
I knew then and know now Mr Limbaugh -- whose personal relationships' track record and mindlessly-self-indulgent, Public-Record criminal drug purchases and usage may very well talk to his own very serious and un-dealt-with defects of character -- never had a son -- let alone a rock-star son.
[And I warned Mr Limbaugh at the time where that kind of obscenity-of-mind would take him and have remained sufficiently indifferent enough since as it did take him there -- and continues to -- to not bother to tell him "I told you so."]
"Consequences" is more than a Really Great word -- and electrons on the ether do not a Real Man make!
Yeah, I know just how he feels... I feel like that every time I snuff a paraplegic. Good euse of euphemisms, though...
?
You, my man, could have a career in Hollywood. Imagine her as she leans over the little paralyzed guy to choke the living sh&t out of him. So sweet....
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