Lotus666
06-08-09, 09:11 PM
As posted originally by Rockjock in 2005...
Without obvious pandering to the Academy Awards people, this film is released in June instead of a cheap ploy like The Aviator (released on Christmas Day, so it stays fresh in the Academy members' minds). Since this is obviously one such movie intended for Oscar nomination, Cinderella Man already gets a few points for not insulting our intelligence.
James Braddock (Russell Crowe) starts off as a fighter who is in his glory days in the late 1920s. His loving wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) doesn't seem so at odds with Jim boxing when he's scoring wads of cash. As soon as he's fighting for fifty dollar purses, all of a sudden she starts to regret him ever setting foot in the ring. Jim's manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) has the surficial appearance of being a typical ten-percenter, but you see later on how much he cares for both Jim's health and his financial well-being. It wasn't as if Joe couldn't have simply found another boxer and managed him. Joe protects his friends, not his investments.
Probably the real reason Jim started to slide was that he became old hat. No one is interested in a boxer who suddenly grinds to a halt. They have to stay interesting to the fans, or they won't go to see you fight. I mean, Mike Tyson was originally put in the papers because he was the youngest super heavyweight boxing champ at 23, but he stays in the papers because he is such an embarrassment that Jesse Jackson can't even plead a case for him. Would people still pay $49.95 to see him fight on Pay-Per-View?
Fast forward to the Dirty Thirties, and Jim and his family have hit hard times. Director Ron Howard doesn't present the Depression era in the same sort of documentarian style as you saw in Seabiscuit, which makes it more palatable. People living in shantytowns in Central Park, for exapmle, which most of the supposedly caring individuals of Manhattan would pooh-pooh today. Howard does manage to manipulate you in one scene in such an extreme manner I was a bit outraged: Jim is walking into Manhattan when two kids with giant lollipops jump into a limo in front of him, followed by a woman who had been shopping all day and the guy from the Monopoly cards. Then of course you do sympathize with Jim, a guy who is working the docks every day and hoping to get a chance to get punched in the face repeatedly just to get enough money so his family can afford milk.
Jim's luck turns around after he panhandles the promoters who once used him for their own financial gain. Promoter Jim Johnson (Bruce McGill) is reluctant to let Jim Braddock box again, but Joe Gould pleads his case and arranges a one-time deal to box in Madison Square Garden against the heavied favourite Corn Griffin. It was an exercise in "good dog bad dog"--you get punished for trying to get back in the ring when everyone thinks you're a bum. That word also starts to resonate in Jim's mind once he has to cut off the electricity and go on public assistance.
Oh, and that's another thing--some other critics have decided to chide us saps of today because an otherwise proud man had to take public assistance for a short time to feed his family, and yet when Jim gets back on his feet and starts earning some real money again, what does he do? HE PAYS IT BACK! People around me were cheering when Jim landed decisive blows in his opponents' faces, but that, my friends, was the act that made me want to stand up and cheer. Not only did he provide for his family, but he left no one owing. The title is Cinderella Man, not that most film critics are supposed to know what that means.
Jim is given some money by Joe to get back into training, assured he can get a title fight. Unfortunately, this is where Zellweger turns into Talia Shire. As if Art Lasky couldn't have killed her husband just as easily. No problems getting the money then! It's only after seeing what Joe did to his lavish apartment to pay for Jim's training does she realize how badly both Jim and Joe want the title fight to happen.
The villain in the film was Max Baer (Craig Bierko), who had the habit of giving cheap shots to the point that people were dying around him. Hey, I could see it if he accidentally dislocated the brain oof one boxer, but in the words of Chris Rock: "It would be like another dead white woman showing up at OJ's house." The hint was that both of Max's blows were shots to the temple instead of the face, which I suppose would be prone to causing more brain damage. His spectre is slowly introduced as Jim climbs the ranks of boxing, but eventually Jim is given his title shot against Max.
It's pretty incredible how so villified Baer is and how lauded Jim is in the film. Jim is a family man, but Baer is a womanizer. Jim fights to keep his kids off the streets, Max does it because he enjoys hurting people. They didn't really explore in the film the incentive for Baer to not want to fight Braddock--he cannot afford to take a chance of losing to someone much older, a bit smaller, and who was washed up at one point. Baer blays on about Jim not being worthy of fighting him, but it was those outside minute chances that he could lose that had Baer frightened.
The backdrop of the Depression does tend to oversimplify (no one had jobs because no one had money...or something), and people who have no real grasp of the situation around the world at that time are the only ones heard from. "FDR...Hoover...they're all the same!" (I'm so glad that type of argument isn't used today.) If filmmakers wish to delve deeper into the real causes to the Great Depression, by all means, but it's not really enough to make it an event that just seemed to come out of nowhere like a meteorite. Fortunately this is a boxing movie, and the boxing is far more integral.
Rated Five "Verrazano Brideges Don't Build Themselves"es out of five.
Watch for it again during the Academy Awards if some punk movie starring a 30-year-old man who looks like a 12-year-old girl doesn't upstage them.
Without obvious pandering to the Academy Awards people, this film is released in June instead of a cheap ploy like The Aviator (released on Christmas Day, so it stays fresh in the Academy members' minds). Since this is obviously one such movie intended for Oscar nomination, Cinderella Man already gets a few points for not insulting our intelligence.
James Braddock (Russell Crowe) starts off as a fighter who is in his glory days in the late 1920s. His loving wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) doesn't seem so at odds with Jim boxing when he's scoring wads of cash. As soon as he's fighting for fifty dollar purses, all of a sudden she starts to regret him ever setting foot in the ring. Jim's manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) has the surficial appearance of being a typical ten-percenter, but you see later on how much he cares for both Jim's health and his financial well-being. It wasn't as if Joe couldn't have simply found another boxer and managed him. Joe protects his friends, not his investments.
Probably the real reason Jim started to slide was that he became old hat. No one is interested in a boxer who suddenly grinds to a halt. They have to stay interesting to the fans, or they won't go to see you fight. I mean, Mike Tyson was originally put in the papers because he was the youngest super heavyweight boxing champ at 23, but he stays in the papers because he is such an embarrassment that Jesse Jackson can't even plead a case for him. Would people still pay $49.95 to see him fight on Pay-Per-View?
Fast forward to the Dirty Thirties, and Jim and his family have hit hard times. Director Ron Howard doesn't present the Depression era in the same sort of documentarian style as you saw in Seabiscuit, which makes it more palatable. People living in shantytowns in Central Park, for exapmle, which most of the supposedly caring individuals of Manhattan would pooh-pooh today. Howard does manage to manipulate you in one scene in such an extreme manner I was a bit outraged: Jim is walking into Manhattan when two kids with giant lollipops jump into a limo in front of him, followed by a woman who had been shopping all day and the guy from the Monopoly cards. Then of course you do sympathize with Jim, a guy who is working the docks every day and hoping to get a chance to get punched in the face repeatedly just to get enough money so his family can afford milk.
Jim's luck turns around after he panhandles the promoters who once used him for their own financial gain. Promoter Jim Johnson (Bruce McGill) is reluctant to let Jim Braddock box again, but Joe Gould pleads his case and arranges a one-time deal to box in Madison Square Garden against the heavied favourite Corn Griffin. It was an exercise in "good dog bad dog"--you get punished for trying to get back in the ring when everyone thinks you're a bum. That word also starts to resonate in Jim's mind once he has to cut off the electricity and go on public assistance.
Oh, and that's another thing--some other critics have decided to chide us saps of today because an otherwise proud man had to take public assistance for a short time to feed his family, and yet when Jim gets back on his feet and starts earning some real money again, what does he do? HE PAYS IT BACK! People around me were cheering when Jim landed decisive blows in his opponents' faces, but that, my friends, was the act that made me want to stand up and cheer. Not only did he provide for his family, but he left no one owing. The title is Cinderella Man, not that most film critics are supposed to know what that means.
Jim is given some money by Joe to get back into training, assured he can get a title fight. Unfortunately, this is where Zellweger turns into Talia Shire. As if Art Lasky couldn't have killed her husband just as easily. No problems getting the money then! It's only after seeing what Joe did to his lavish apartment to pay for Jim's training does she realize how badly both Jim and Joe want the title fight to happen.
The villain in the film was Max Baer (Craig Bierko), who had the habit of giving cheap shots to the point that people were dying around him. Hey, I could see it if he accidentally dislocated the brain oof one boxer, but in the words of Chris Rock: "It would be like another dead white woman showing up at OJ's house." The hint was that both of Max's blows were shots to the temple instead of the face, which I suppose would be prone to causing more brain damage. His spectre is slowly introduced as Jim climbs the ranks of boxing, but eventually Jim is given his title shot against Max.
It's pretty incredible how so villified Baer is and how lauded Jim is in the film. Jim is a family man, but Baer is a womanizer. Jim fights to keep his kids off the streets, Max does it because he enjoys hurting people. They didn't really explore in the film the incentive for Baer to not want to fight Braddock--he cannot afford to take a chance of losing to someone much older, a bit smaller, and who was washed up at one point. Baer blays on about Jim not being worthy of fighting him, but it was those outside minute chances that he could lose that had Baer frightened.
The backdrop of the Depression does tend to oversimplify (no one had jobs because no one had money...or something), and people who have no real grasp of the situation around the world at that time are the only ones heard from. "FDR...Hoover...they're all the same!" (I'm so glad that type of argument isn't used today.) If filmmakers wish to delve deeper into the real causes to the Great Depression, by all means, but it's not really enough to make it an event that just seemed to come out of nowhere like a meteorite. Fortunately this is a boxing movie, and the boxing is far more integral.
Rated Five "Verrazano Brideges Don't Build Themselves"es out of five.
Watch for it again during the Academy Awards if some punk movie starring a 30-year-old man who looks like a 12-year-old girl doesn't upstage them.