Sorry, that’s a bad pun, but it’s only appropriate for a bad movie. In early January, I went to see Million Dollar Baby just before it came out locally. I hated it, in a word, and though I was in the minority, I wasn’t completely alone. Walking out at the end of the film, I couldn’t understand how legitimate critics could call it the best American movie of the year. I thought it was simple-minded, cliché-ridden, sappy, two-dimensional, and insulting. Apparently now it’s left-wing pro-euthanasia propaganda as well, but before we even got to that, I felt like it was a very mediocre movie at best, certainly a step down for Eastwood and a far cry from any kind of award-worthy material.

Aimee is on her February vacation this week, and spent today catching up on some movies she’d missed, including M$B (or should it be $MB?), which I’d gone to by myself – a sore point for awhile, but I think she’s over it now. I was totally prepared for her to love it, and would not have thought anything was strange if she had. Plenty of intelligent, thoughtful, and critical people have fallen over themselves to express their adoration for this film. So when we had dinner tonight, I was almost looking forward to hearing her positive take on the film, so I could just file my distaste away as an anomaly. But, as luck would have it, she disliked the movie almost as much as I did, and found it cheap and clich?d (“white trash” stereotypes instead of actual characters; yet another old, wise, black narrator played by Morgan Freeman). As we make our Oscar picks and head to Josh’s on Sunday for the big event, I’ll be praying that anything but Baby wins for picture, actor, and director; perhaps I can ask the stereotypical and out-of-place foul-mouthed priest character from the film for some pointers.