ugadawgguy

I am an intelligent, well-read person. I enjoy good literature, good music, and good films. I understand symbolism, and I can recognize powerful acting. I have a good feel for the ways film directors make decisions.

Still, "The Door in the Floor" left me thinking, "Huh?" Let me be clear: Basinger and Bridges were stellar. As several reviewers here have said before, they inhabit their characters masterfully. With their performances, I find no fault. With their characters, and with the overarching story arc, I am satisfied The main agent undermining this film is its uncertain, self-conscious direction. Williams seems uniformly unable to navigate Irving's idiosyncratic blend of dark, heavy melancholy and farcical comedy. Truth be told, this movie may have worked better if the director/screenwriter had simply excised Irving's "works-on-paper" episodes of bizarre comedic reprieve. As he handled them, those scenes were just plain incongruous with those surrounding them, and they destroyed the film's pacing.

I'm on the fence about the young actor (Jon Foster) who played Eddie O'Hare. On the one hand, he did a fine job of inhabiting his own body -- that of a gangly, awkward teen. But, then, is this the work of an accomplished actor, or simply a distillation of Foster's real-life persona? Ultimately, Foster was responsible for much of the odd emptiness that repeatedly derailed the film's brief stretches of momentum.

I just don't know what to make of "The Door in the Floor." I "get" this movie, and I'm not lost in its rather sparse story or its dense symbolism. But I was disappointed enough in its directorial inconsistency (and the uneven performance of one of its three main characters) to give this one only a mediocre rating.

I'll cut to the chase -- this movie is flawless.

The direction, cinematography, and writing are all significantly better than "Mystic River," with all three leads (Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman) turning in Oscar-worthy performances. "Million Dollar Baby" is an intimate triumph, and could legitimately be called an "instant classic." The specifics of the story are available everywhere, so I'll spare those details. Less often discussed is the skill with which Eastwood treads the razor-thin border between "been there, done that" and perfection.

A look at this film's basic premise might make it appear rife with potential cliché, and the finished product may have lived down to that expectation in the hands of a less insightful director. Watching Eastwood evade the unintentional humor of Hollywood's traditional "underdog-made-good" stories (and soaking up the leads' brilliant performances) comprises much of the appeal of the film's first two acts.

The third act is simply arresting. The acting is one hundred percent flawless throughout the film's last thirty minutes. The pacing remains perfect. To a man, the sold-out audience of which I was a member was utterly, silently transfixed after the beginning of the film's third stanza.

As soon as you possibly can, see this movie. There is good reason for the unilaterally glowing reviews it has received from the "big" critics: "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece.

If you're looking for gratuitous, full-frontal nudity, you've come to the right place. Other than that, this movie has nothing else to offer. This movie tries hard to be a quality B-film, but that effort in itself disqualifies the movie from consideration for that category. So, if you're into semi-attractive girls getting naked and fooling around with a wriggling, rubber optic nerve, by all means -- check this one out. If not, rent "Troll 2" instead. You'll see what I mean.