million $ baby
Last night I saw a nearly-perfect sports movie: Million $ Baby. Its also a great LIFE movie.
My head is still throbbing this morning from all the stifled crying I did in the movie theater. Clint Eastwood captured on film what is nearly impossible to express … the single most important factor needed to acheive athletic greatness … desire. Maggie Fitzgerald’s desire in this movie teetered on the sheer edge of desperation. She regained her balance again and again, with each ice pick jab to the punching bag. And Frankie’s desire, to teach her and to love her into greatness, was King Lear-like in its profound, tragic groping. I ached for these people.
If you are an athlete or a coach (or, simply, a person), this movie will make you want to BE better. This movie will make you want to try and try and try - and fight to the death.
Go see it.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
[...] When I grew up to become a runner and a coach, I watched movies-with-jocks like some junkie needing an inspiration drug. I rented any video I could find that had the struggling-athlete theme: Bang the Drum Slowly, Running Brave (of course, another Robbie Benson gem!), Breaking Away, Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams, Chariots of Fire, On the Waterfront, a Carolina Women’s Soccer documentary, all the Pre movies, Bud Greenspan Olympic films, The Arthur Ashe story, A Sebastian Coe training video (I played the scene with his road 800’s, with his father/coach following in the car - “Are you ready, Seb?!” - over and over and over), Children of Nature, Endurance, Bull Durham, The Natural, and - recently - Million Dollar Baby, etc.! [...]
Pingback by songs of experience » “Saint Ralph” … love and guts. — 1/13/2006 @ 11:21 am