Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man is so great to watch. I really like everything about it. The words, "Based on a True Story" can either be the best or the worst words ever to appear in a movie trailer. The words "Starring Harrison Ford" and "Directed by Michael Bay" come in a close second and third.

I've always liked boxing movies. The affair for every guy starts with Rocky. You're about 8, you walk into the living room and your dad's watching Rocky. You sit down. And you love it. I feel like that story's pretty standard. Cinderella Man is very little like Rocky. In Rocky, the conflict is man v. self. But in Cinderella Man, the conflict is both man v. world and man v. man. Let's take the second on, man v. man. Max Baer, played by some guy named Craig Bierko who, since this movie came out in 2005, has had the prestigious honor of being in Scary Movie 4, a couple episodes of Boston Legal, one episode of Nip/Tuck, and Superhero Movie, is a true villains villain. He's mean, narcissistic, and you really hate him. Apparently, Baer's descendants were really upset by his portrayal in this movie and insisted that he was torn up by two men he killed in the ring and considered never fighting again as a result. Nevertheless, you're really really happy when Russell Crowe beats him.

The man v. world aspect of this movie is what really makes it I think. Everyone who made it through 7th grade social studies knows about the Depression, but it takes a good movie to make it real sometimes. Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger do some of their best work as the struggling, but obviously madly in love, Braddock couple. Both of them do great Jersey accents and look the part. There was a great Chris Rock bit from some awards show he hosted a few years ago. He was talking about Crowe and how good he is in period movies and he said something to the effect of, "If you hire Russell Crowe to play a guy from last Tuesday you'll watch the movie and say, 'Damn man! That looks like last Tuesday!'" And he's really right. Although not really a method actor, Crowe always looks and sounds the part. Except in Gladiator where the gave him a British accent. But for that I blame Hollywood for assuming that Americans want everyone who's not from America to have a British accent if they're a good guy and a Russian accent if they're a bad guy.

Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors. He's not a Denzel type of actor who plays only a few types of roles and has never made a bad movie though. He's more of a De Niro type of actor who's not afraid to be in some comedies, some kids movies, some horror movies, some dramas, and out of all of that he's not worried about a couple stinkers. I was so glad that he won Best Supporting Actor for this movie. He really was fantastic.

I love the way this movie's shot too. It has that Gangs of New York, Band of Brothers, feel that seems very old. One of my favorite scenes is where Renee Zellweger is washing a pan in their apartment and Russell Crowe is teaching his son how to box. You start hearing the scraping of the spatula against the pan along with exaggerated sounds of a small boy's fist hitting his father's hand with flashbacks of the funeral of their friend who was killed in Hooverville. You can see the stress boiling up in Zellweger's eyes and the incessant sounds aren't helping. When she snaps you get one of those emotionally stirring moments that director Ron Howard does so flawlessly.

After I saw this movie in the theater for the first time, my buddies and I immediately went and boxed in one of our friend's front yards. And just today when I sat down to watch it, everyone new who walked in and asked what we were watching said, "Good movie" and sat down upon hearing that Cinderella Man was in the DVD player. It's just that kind of movie. It's inspiring, visually stimulating, and a perfect good guy story. For the first time on this blog I'm going to snob out and drop the f-bomb. I really loved this film.