| Product Summary | | Publisher: Warner | | Format: HD DVD | | UPC: 00012569809376 | | Buy.com Sku: 202475188 | | Item#: V2D3UE | | Category Keywords: Theatrical Release | Rating:  |
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| | | "4 Academy Awards, Including Best Piucture, Best Director, Best Actress & Best Supporting Actor."
Features: HD DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, French, Spanish Subtitled
"I Don't Train Girls", trainer Frankie Dunn growls. But something's different about the spirited boxing hopeful who shows up daily at Dunn's gym. All she wants is a fighting chance.Clint Eastwood plays Dunn and directs, produces and composes music for this acclaimed, multi-award-winning tale of heart, hope and family. Hilary Swank plays resilient Maggie, determined not to abandon her one dream. And Morgan Freeman is Scrap, gym caretaker and counterpoint to Dunn's crustiness. Grab your dreams and come out swinging. Million Dollar Baby is an absolute knockout.
"The best movie released by a major Hollywood studio this year. A work of utter mastery." A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Clint Eastwood is doing the best, most assured work of his career." David Ansen, NewsWeek
"A spare, exquisitely realized masterpiece about faith, redemption and boxing..." Lou Lumenick, New York Post
"...[Eastwood's] stripped-down performance -- as powerful as anything he's ever done -- has a rugged, haunting beauty." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"...Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby." Todd McCarthy, Variety
Editor's Note
Released a little over a year after the grand success of his Oscar-winning feature MYSTIC RIVER, Clint Eastwood returns to the director's chair for MILLION DOLLAR BABY. Eastwood also stars, in the role of Frankie Dunn, a down-on-his-luck former boxing manager who spends the twilight years of his life running a small, dilapidated gym in downtown Los Angeles. Frankie's previous career was blighted by an injury to one of his prize fighters, Scrap (Morgan Freeman), who lost the sight in his right eye during a particularly brutal bout; Scrap now wiles away the hours working as a cleaner in Frankie's gym. Wary of similar occurrences being inflicted on the prestigious young talent that passes before him, Frankie lets a succession of great boxers slip through his fingers. But when the brash, confident young boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) strides into the gym, Frankie's life is irretrievably altered. Initially refusing to train Maggie due to her gender and age, Frankie relents when faced with her tenacity, spirit, and burning ambition. The combination of Maggie's talent and Frankie's tutelage paves the way for the adroit fighter to rise steadily through the ranks of women's boxing, with the unlikely coupling forming a genuinely touching bond in the process. Clint Eastwood has crafted a boxing film fit to stand alongside classics such as RAGING BULL and ROCKY with MILLION DOLLAR BABY. The scenes between Eastwood and Freeman are a delight to watch, with the two old hands pulling off masterfully understated performances as a couple of men teetering on the brink of failure. Likewise, Swank puts in a powerful turn as Maggie, further emphasizing her penchant for unusual roles, and perhaps even bettering her incredible, Oscar-winning showing as Teena Brandon in BOYS DON'T CRY.
| Features | Born To Fight: A Discussion With Real-Life Boxer/Actress Lucia Rijker | | James Lipton Takes On Three: Roundtable With Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman & Moderator James Lipton | | Audio: English, French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French | | Featurette: Producers Round 15 - Behind The Scenes | | Interactive Menus | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | This Is An HD-DVD Made For HD-DVD Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 4/18/2006 |
| Running Time: 132 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: 80937 | | UPC: 00012569809376 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (2005) | | | Golden Globe, Clint Eastwood, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, Hilary Swank, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama | | | Image Award, Morgan Freeman, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture | | | Oscar, Clint Eastwood, et. al., Best Motion Picture of the Year | | | Oscar, Clint Eastwood, Best Achievement in Directing | | | Oscar, Hilary Swank, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | | | Oscar, Morgan Freeman, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | |
Nominee (2005) | | | Oscar, Clint Eastwood, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | |
Winner (2005) | | | Screen Actors Guild, Hilary Swank, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | | | Screen Actors Guild, Morgan Freeman, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"[T]he best movie released by a major Hollywood studio this year....It is a quiet, intimately scaled three-person drama directed in a patient, easygoing style..." 12/15/2004 p.E1Los Angeles Times
"[T]he director's most touching, most elegiac work yet....It's got some of the emotional daring of the great melodramas of Hollywood's golden age..." 12/15/2004 p.E1 USA Today
"[A] grim knockout of a boxing movie with multiple jolts....Eastwood directs and stars in one of his top performances..." 12/15/2004 p.1D Entertainment Weekly
"The chemistry between Eastwood and Swank is touching and spiky and true. It is also gently, unstatedly romantic." 12/24/2004 p.50-1 Rolling Stone
"[A] stunningly drawn map of the human heart disguised as a boxing yarn....[Eastwood's] stripped -down performance -- as powerful as anything he's ever done -- has a rugged, haunting beauty. The same goes for the movie." 12/30/2004 p.170-1 Premiere
"[A] remarkably appealing success story full of heart and humor and poignancy, with Swank as winning as she's ever been." 02/01/2005 p.46-8 Uncut
"When this heroic underdog fable turns really dark, its grip strengthens yet further, Noble, savage and brave." 02/01/2005 p.103 Sight and Sound
"The washed-out colour photography, the seedy urban locations, the peripheral low-life characters all give the film a pleasingly noir feel." 03/01/2005 p.67-8 Uncut
Ranked #4 in Uncut's Best Films Of 2005 -- "[A] powerful and provocative boxing movie which deservedly won the main prizes at this year's Oscars." 01/01/2006 p.82-83 Widescreen Review
"The Tom Stern cinematography captures striking shots, some of which are highly contrasted or in silhouette, and heighten the emotion during pivotal moments throughout the film." 06/01/2006 p.64 ReelViews 9 of 10
What a marvelous return to form Clint Eastwood has made following the disaster of Blood Work. In fact, one could argue that his two most recent films, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, have ushered in the most dramatically compelling phase of Eastwood's long career in front of and behind the camera...I deem a movie to be worthwhile if I need time to recover after seeing it. Million Dollar Baby is such a film. It does not easily release the viewer, and it demands a time of reflection and contemplation afterwards. It is a rich and challenging motion picture that both affirms life and emphasizes its fragility. Eastwood touches our hearts and energizes our minds without resorting to overt manipulation. Million Dollar Baby is refreshingly free of the kind of tear-wringing melodrama that has become seemingly obligatory for this kind of story. You don't have to be a boxing fan to appreciate what Eastwood has wrought. This is a movie with the ability to win over all comers. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true. It tells the story of an aging fight trainer and a hillbilly girl who thinks she can be a boxer. It is narrated by a former boxer who is the trainer's best friend. But it's not a boxing movie. It is a movie about a boxer. What else it is, all it is, how deep it goes, what emotional power it contains, I cannot suggest in this review, because I will not spoil the experience of following this story into the deepest secrets of life and death. This is the best film of the year...Hilary Swank is astonishing as Maggie. Every note is true. She reduces Maggie to a fierce intensity...Eastwood is attentive to supporting characters, who make the surrounding world seem more real...Movies are so often made of effects and sensation these days. This one is made of three people and how their actions grow out of who they are and why. Nothing else. But isn't that everything? - Roger Ebert
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