Did you or did you not like 'Million Dollar Baby'?

A few days ago, I made a little more progress in my quest to watch, in order, all of the movies that have won an Academy Award for Best Picture when I watched, for the first time, the 2004 winner, “Million Dollar Baby.”

For those of you who haven’t seen “Million Dollar Baby,” it’s a sports movie about a waitress from Missouri who talks a Los Angeles boxing gym owner into training her to become a professional female boxer.

Hollywood heavyweight Clint Eastwood had a heavy hand in the making of this movie. He not only starred in the movie, but he also directed it, produced it – and provided the musical score for the film.

Eastwood played the role of boxing gym owner and trainer, Frankie Dunn. Hilary Swank played the waitress/female boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald, and Morgan Freeman played gym employee and former boxer, Eddie “Scrap Iron” Dupree. Freeman also narrated portions of the movie.

Released in December 2004, this movie was a financial success. It raked in gross revenues of $216.8 million against a shooting budget of $30 million. Oddly enough, gross revenues in the U.S. were $100.5 million, while international gross revenues topped $116.3 million.

The movie was based on a series of short stories written by F.X. Toole, whose real name was Jerry Boyd. Boyd, a former boxing manager and cutman, died in 2002. His short stories were published in a collection called “Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner.” Director and screenwriter Paul Haggis adapted Toole’s stories for the “Million Dollar Baby” screenplay.

“Million Dollar Baby” beat out a number of very good movies to take the Oscar for Best Picture in 2004. Other nominees included “The Aviator,” “Finding Neverland,” “Ray” and “Sideways.”

In all, “Million Dollar Baby” won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It also won Oscars for Best Director (Eastwood), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Swank) and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Freeman.)

“Million Dollar Baby” was also nominated for three other Academy Awards – Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Eastwood), Best Achievement in Editing (Joel Cox) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Haggis).

In the end, I really enjoyed this movie. I’d never watched it prior to the other day, and was more than a little pleased by the overall quality of this film. From here, it’s on to the 2003 winner, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” Based on the book by fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkein, this movie starred Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen.