I went and saw Million Dollar Baby on Friday. One of the main reasons I made it a priority was spoilers. I HATE HATE HATE spoilers. I hate when a movie reviewer tells you "I don't want to give anything away but ... the ending will SURPRISE AND AMAZE YOU" or whatever. I knew about The Crying Game because someone let it slip. I knew about The Sixth Sense because a reviewer referred to it as an homage to another movie where the protagonist was in a similar condition. (I'm being purposefully vague in case you haven't seen it.)

I started to see items on Million Dollar Baby that were giving something away and I didn't read them so I didn't know exactly what would happen or what characters were involved. Some people can't resist a secret. What is it? An ego thing? A power thing? An "ooh look how special and important I am" thing?

So as soon as the movie went wide I dropped everything to go see it. I'm not a huge Clint Eastwood fan. I find his directing cold. I didn't think Unforgiven was worthy of nomination much less an Oscar and Mystic River didn't impress me either. But I liked this movie. Way more than I expected. You can see the formula showing through but it's a good story and I think Hillary Swank makes the whole thing. Clint and Morgan Freeman are great too, but Swank makes the picture. It's worth seeing.

I'll also mention that I am totally opposed to women boxing. I think it's a crime against nature for women to be violent for competition. But let me tell you, I LOVED watching Maggie (Swank's character) kick the living crap out of her opponents. I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.