Reviews

After hearing all the hype of this movie, the awards it's won, etc., I finally took a moment to sit down and watch it, expecting a beyond wonderful flick. Afterall, Eastwood's previous "The Bridges of Madison County" hadn't been that bad.

The movie starts off, explaining boxing through the eyes of an ex-boxer, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (the marvelous Morgan Freeman) who now works for Eastwood's character, Frankie Dunn, as a janitor in his gym. After Eastwood gets dumped by his current boxing protégé, he reluctantly ends up coaching Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) in women's boxing.

The girl seemingly has every odd against her from age to her trailer trash background. However, she rises up the ranks with Frankie behind her. A father-daughter bond forming. Everything is going well for Maggie, until a bad fight, in which Maggie becomes completely paralyzed save for movement of her face (can't even breath on her own).

It's at this point in the movie that the plot seems to become one huge advertisement for assisted suicide. Maggie states that she can't go on living because she's seen the world, won fights, heard people chant her name. This is aside from the fact that Eastwood's character is even hinting that perhaps she could get a special wheelchair and go back to school. It seems seriously odd that this woman comes from nothing into something, but the moment she has a serious set back she's ready to die.

Hello Maggie! Ever heard of Professor Stephen W. Hawking? A genius despite the odds against him. Or what about Christopher Reeve? He didn't just roll over and die! He lived life to its fullest until the day he died, with a determined smile on his face! I think in the end I found her attitude really offensive. And when Dunn refuses to help Fitzgerald die, she attempts suicide on her own by biting her tongue and bleeding to death which fails.

In the end, Eastwood helps Swank's character die. And I'm wondering the whole time where the hell the nurses were when she flat-lined? And Eastwood walks off to Ira's for a piece of lemon pie while Morgan Freeman's character writes Eastwood's real daughter explaining what kind of guy he was.

So the movie started off promising, but plummets to hades very quickly at the end. The only fighting you even see the character do is she finally tells off her hillbilly family who wants her money.

At times funny, others endearing and almost tear worthy, but the ending makes you pretty angry overall. I gave it a 7 out of 10.

This is one of my favorites since childhood. Definitely a unique type of love story.

We begin with Phillipe Gaston played by Matthew Broderick, I think one of his better acting jobs, an escapee from the Prison of Aquila, something that has never happened before. However, in his zealous celebration, Phillipe finds himself facing Aquilan guards in the name of the Bishop. He is saved by Captain Etienne Navarre, a former Capt. of the guard for Aquila.

His rescue doesn't come without a price though, Phillipe is told that he will get Navarre back into Aquila in order to kill the Bishop in revenge. Phillipe has little choice but to agree to the task. In his traveling with Navarre, Phillipe discovers an entrancing young woman who always shows up after the sun sets and Navarre disappears.

Phillipe eventually discovers that her name is Isabeau d'Anjou, Navarre's love, and that because of the curse she is Navarre's hawk companion by day and that Navarre turns into a black wolf by night, a punishment put upon them by the Bishop of Aquila because Isabeau did not return his affections.

With the help of Imperius, the monk who betrayed the lovers secret to the Bishop in a fit of drunkenness, Phillipe discovers that a solar eclipse will allow the lovers to confront the Bishop together as man and woman and break the spell forever. They encounter Navarre's stubbornness to the plan and must think of a clever way to help the two lovers.

The story is beautiful, Rutger Hauer & Michelle Pfeiffer put in terrific acting jobs. A terrific story of love conquers all with a twist. The bits of humor thrown in make the characters endearing. Would recommend it any day, but perhaps I'm bias by now. 10/10.

Probably my favorite of Jack Black's movies to date. Taking on the phrase "beauty is only skin deep" with heart.

Hal is a guy who due to his father's last words under drugs, seeks out women with great outsides, who are typically out of his league. Upon meeting Tony Robinson, the self help guru, he gets hypnotized & Hal suddenly starts seeing women's inner beauty reflected on their outer appearance and believes himself to be irresistible to women.

It's through these rose colored beer goggles Hal meets Rosie, a 400 lb woman with a heart of gold, and falls head over heels for her, not realizing she's largely obese in reality. Hal finally learns what it's like to fall in love with a woman's soul, but just before happiness is reached his reality is called back in by Mauricio, his shallow best friend who takes off the hypnotism out of selfishness. It's up to Hal to decide whether to look past Rosie's outer appearance & be happy, or to go back to his old life lonely bachelorhood.

This movie manages to tackle the issue with terrific humor, most of which comes from Hal's "shallow" friend played by Jason Alexander (I can't stand this guy, but he was actually able to put his being a jerk to good use here and pull it off well). Cankles? An overall feel good movie, laugh, learn, & love it. 9/10 is what I give it.

I finally got to see this movie again after years. I remember it from childhood, a favorite of my mother.

This movie is a wonderful example of the Human Spirit despite adversity. David's brother Marcus visits home for the first time in years. Their father died of a brain aneurysm and Marcus was outraged at his mothers behavior during the time. David a bit more sympathetic to his mother knowing she just couldn't deal with it. It's on this visit that Mrs. Sommers expresses concerns that she thinks David has the same disease. Marcus takes David back to Madison, WI where he lives and works, to run some tests on him.

Despite Marcus and David being on decent terms you can see a clashing of heads when it comes to certain issues, mostly from lack of understanding of one another. Marcus pushes David to try harder out of love, of course David doesn't see it as such. We find out that David is actually free of the disease that killed his father, however, an overheard conversation between Marcus and a friend at the testing center leads David to believe that he's a time bomb waiting to go off. He decides he can deal with death, and takes up Marcus' offer to do the "Hell of the West" cycling race with him in Colorado.

Along the way David finds love, a courage and strength within himself he didn't know was there, and new understanding for his brother. It's the crashing news that Marcus is actually the one who's ill, and the disease begins kicking in during the cycling race that finally pushes David into being all he can be.

A bit sad and intense at times it's still a terrific and inspiring movie to watch. It also gives a new outlook on the world of Bicycle racing that most people will never know or see first hand. I give it a 9/10.