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For anyone interested in the story behind the question in this thread, your answers will be found in a review of mine that just went online. But I might have already told you more than you want to know.

Here's a link, with the first part of the review. The rest of the review is a definite spoiler and you'll have to access the link for rest. It will spoil the "surprise" that left most critics panting over the movie. But it's also the best part of the review.

Review: Million Dollar Baby

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Dangerous Times

By Steve Drake

I don't get boxing. I don't get why people dream of being boxers. More to the point, I don't get the millions of people who enjoy watching two people punch at each other until one can't punch back any more. I'm not being judgmental; I just don't get it. I may be the only person in the country who hasn't seen either Rocky or Requiem for a Heavyweight.

That's what really bothers me about Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby: The movie pulled me in until the last half hour, in spite of the clichés and uneven acting.

For those of you have missed the hype, is the story of an aging "cut man" (Clint Eastwood) who doubles as trainer and manager for aspiring boxers. He becomes the reluctant trainer of a too-old and enthusiastic "hillbilly" named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). Morgan Freeman plays "Scrap," an ex-boxer whose last fight left him blind in one eye. The loss of vision is something Frankie feels responsible for and believes is a great tragedy (but he never bothers to ask Scrap how he feels about it).

There's a caricature of a person with cognitive disabilities in the movie, too. Played by Jay Baruchel, "Danger's" only function seems to be to show us how nice Scrap and Frankie are for tolerating his presence at Frankie's gym and how cruel the rest of the world is.

Where was I?

The plot's predictable. Even someone like me, unfamiliar with boxing movies, can figure out what's coming next. Maggie shows up at Frankie's gym and starts to train. Frankie ignores her. Scrap, impressed with her dedication, quietly gives her encouragement. Frankie rants several times about how he doesn't train "girls." Nevertheless, to no one's surprise, he slowly becomes involved in her training and ends up managing and promoting her.

Frankie finds a substitute daughter in Maggie. During a car ride, she tells Frankie about her dad's dog, who dragged his hindquarters around and how she and her brother laughed at the dog. Her dad, ill and with little time left to live, takes the dog out for one final ride, and only Dad comes back. (More on this later.)

I guess I should also mention that Frankie is a practicing Catholic who goes to church every day. It's not really clear why he does this, since mostly he yanks the chain of the priest with questions, not looking for answers, just looking to irritate.

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I will see it and write a review for a local paper (Op-Ed, letter to the editor, something).

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Sara,

Thanks for this - and the other kind words you posted. You know I now expect to see what you write after you see this, though.

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I'm having enough trouble keeping up with my already chosen advocacy tasks, so I'm just going to skip this one - and I was planning on seeing it because it looked very good. Your review will allow me to explain to others why.

Excellent review. Am I right in assuming that her decision-making process isn't even presented, rather the correctness of her decision is merely assumed?

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The movie is full of gladiatorial gore which those not favorably inclined toward blood-sports may find off-putting. However, it would be wrong to think of "Million Dollar Baby" as just another fight film. In truth, it is not as much about boxing as it is about moral wrestling within the arena of the human soul.

As for the theme of euthanasia, the film is not a polemic in favor of assisted suicide. The pain and devastation of those involved is achingly evident. However, in spite of all the soul-searching that precedes it, the deed itself is presented as an act of reluctant heroism. And given the dire circumstances, our sympathies and humane inclinations may argue in favor of such misguided compassion, but our Catholic faith prohibits us from getting around the fact that, in this case, the best-intended ends cannot justify the chosen means: the taking of a life.

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but our Catholic faith prohibits us from getting around the fact that, in this case, the best-intended ends cannot justify the chosen means: the taking of a life.

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Full disclosure: even without its ending, I would not feel kindly toward Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. It is hard for me to sit in a theater looking up at the man who continues to fight disabled people in his backyard along the Central Coast of California, teaming up with owners howling because people in wheelchairs are suing them when they find they still cannot get into their businesses.

In Eastwood's last directorial effort, Mystic River, the killer is a deaf kid, I'm told. Readers would no doubt think I'm stretching things to wonder what it is about ol' Clint and disability. But it is food for thought.

I don't like a man who continues to vow to get Congress to pass a law forbidding people to sue for access without first waiting another 90 days, even if he is a truly great movie actor and director. And forgive me for wondering how Eastwood's feelings about quadriplegics living to fight him over access might conceivably play into his directorial prowess in letting the public know how noble, how loving, how kind it is for a father figure to help a young quad end her life.

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but then I heard that Christopher Reeve essentially died of sepsis from an open sore. He HAD to have had the best care possible, and yet he got a sore that became infected and died from it (if I have the story right).

So...now my big question -- are bed sores as easy to avoid as I was led to believe when I worked at the nursing home (this was in high school), or

are bed sores an inevitability for people with severely limited mobility, or

is there really no way to answer this?

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That said, I am glad I have the information now. I certainly don't think the movie should have been made that way, and I wonder how many directorial choices were made that sacrificed the realities of disabled living for the sake of making you feel the characters'(both Maggie's and Frankie's) plight. Was there a book that this was based on? Did anybody do any research for the movie?

I think the adrenaline choice was made because it was something a "cut man" would have in in his bag. Frankie certainly wouldn't have had access to pharmaceuticals - he wasn't a doctor. I dunno - is adrenaline very easy to get?

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Frankie has a "fresh 1 oz bottle of adrenaline chloride solution
1:1000" in his refrigerator. He's been sitting in his apartment
drinking whiskey (Jameson's, I think) debating what to do.

He had an old syringe he'd used to inject procaine into crushed knuckles

He had used adrenaline "more than 100 times to stop blood from cut eyes"

"and he knew what else adrenaline chloride would do."

"There was no need to sterilize the needle"

he drew the entire bottle of adrenaline into the syringe

he put the old syringe into its case and put it into his windbreaker
pocket, making sure the needle was upright

he arrived in the parking lot at 1:50 a.m. and prayed he wouldn't be noticed

When he saw the night nurse moving to the end of the hall

He crept into the building and hid in a broom closet, leaving the
door open just a little bit

maggie's vent "... was on but she wasn't hooked to a monitor"

he expected maggie to be asleep but she wasn't

He whispers to her, she smiles then frowns as she hears the nurse pass

nurse calls out to maggie 'are you alone?'

Maggie says 'yes'

"Do you smell whiskey - funny, I thought I smelled it in the hall" says nurse

'no' says Maggie

nurse moves away (back to nursing station)

"i won't hurt you" clint says to maggie "first I'm going to put you
to sleep. Then I'll give you a shot."

'yes.' [Maggie says this, but the way it's written it's just a
separate paragraph. You know it's Maggie replying to Frankie.]

"Frankie stood behind her... firmly pressed his thumbs on both sides
of her neck, cutting off blood in cartoid....Maggie's eyes closed and
her mouth came open....oxygen from the ventilator escaped and became
part of the whirlwind inside Frankie...he stood pressing for 3
minutes... pried her mouth open..."

injected needle under tongue

even if there was an autopsy the injection left only a tiny prick and
would never be noticed

"the adrenaline -- all 30 milliliters of it -- would dissipate ..."

"He checked her pulse. It raced faster than a speed bag. Then the
stoke hit her and her face contorted, one eye sagging open...."

Frankie "closed the eye... made sure her pulse was still with his thumb"

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By James Langton in New York
(Filed: 23/01/2005)

Clint Eastwood, the Hollywood screen legend, is under fire from
disabled groups who say that his latest award-winning film is thinly
disguised propaganda for euthanasia.

Eastwood is the director of Million Dollar Baby, a drama about
a female boxer described as "Rocky in a sports bra," in which
he also stars alongside Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

The film went on general release in the United States earlier this
month and critics identified it as a leading contender for an
Academy Award after Swank and Eastwood won Golden Globes
for Best Actress and Best Director.

Ostensibly, the film is about a young boxer who turns to an elderly
trainer to take her to the top. Yet audiences have been astonished
by an unheralded plot twist in which a leading character becomes
crippled in a serious accident and begs to be put to death.

The film's detractors accuse Warner Brothers, the studio that made
it, of deliberately concealing the grim ending. A number of religious
right-to-life groups are also upset because Eastwood's character is
a devout Roman Catholic who attends mass every day.

Debbie Schlussel, a conservative television and radio commentator,
described the film as a "million dollar lie" and a "cover story to
suck moviegoers in for a nefarious message." She said that the film
supported "killing the handicapped, literally putting their lights out".

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association, one of America's most
respected organisations for disabled people, accused Eastwood
of a "disability vendetta," describing the last scene of the film as
a "brilliantly executed attack on life after a spinal cord injury."

Eastwood clashed previously with the charity when he spent
$600,000 (£319,500) fighting a legal order to make his Mission
Ranch Hotel in Carmel, California, accessible to handicapped people.

Marcia Roth, the association's chief executive, said the star was
using the "power of fame and film to perpetuate his view that the
lives of people with disabilities are not worth living."

Last week, film critics attending their annual awards ceremony
in Chicago were confronted by protesters from Not Dead Yet,
an organisation that fights assisted suicide laws. The group was
angry about the glowing reviews Million Dollar Baby had received,
saying that critics were ignoring the film's underlying message
which, it said, "promotes the killing of disabled people as the
solution to the `problem' of disability."

Steven Drake, a researcher for Not Dead Yet, said that the film
"plays out killing as a romantic fantasy and gives emotional life
to the `better dead than disabled' mindset." The film's release
comes as the right-to-die debate is hotting up in the US. A new
law being considered in California – Eastwood's home state – would
allow doctor-assisted suicide.

President Bush has made clear his opposition to euthanasia. Last
year, his brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida, intervened in the case
of Terry Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose parents are
fighting her husband's wish to take her off life support.

Marketing for the film in the US has concentrated exclusively on its
boxing theme and Eastwood's initial reluctance to take on Swank's
character, telling her "tough ain't enough". Few reviews even hint
that the film's climax is an assisted suicide.

Another conservative commentator and film critic, Michael Medved,
said: "Warner Brothers never tells you the truth about a key plot
twist that turns this pedestrian boxing movie into an insufferable
manipulative right-to-die movie."

While promoting the film, Eastwood has avoided talking about
the issue of euthanasia. In his only comment so far, he told an
interviewer: "How people feel about that is up to them. I'm not
a pro-euthanasia person and this is a story about a giant dilemma
and how one person had to face that."

Eastwood, who has been married twice and has eight children
by five women, rarely talks about his own religious beliefs in public.

Unexpected support for the film has come from the Catholic News
Service, which reviews all new films from the point of view of the
Catholic Church in America.

The reviewer, David DiCerto, said: "The movie's morally problematic
end may leave many Catholic viewers feeling emotionally against
the ropes."

But he added: "The film is not a polemic in favour of assisted
suicide," and, "Given the dire circumstances, our sympathies
and humane inclinations may argue in favour of such misguided
compassion."

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Not making their day
Advocates for disabled upset by Eastwood movie's ending

Published January 23, 2005

LOOP -- If you haven't yet seen Clint Eastwood's new movie,
"Million Dollar Baby," you may want to stop reading here. If you
read on, you will find out about the surprise ending, so fair warning.

The movie has gotten rave reviews, but it has enraged some
advocates for the disabled. A group called Not Dead Yet was so
angered by the film's ending that it organized a demonstration last
week outside the Union League Club, where the Chicago Film
Critics Association was meeting to honor director Robert Altman.

They handed out leaflets expressing their dissatisfaction with the
surprise ending, which many critics have praised. They object to
the final scenes in which Hilary Swank's character, a female boxer
who has become a quadriplegic, is euthanized by Eastwood's
character, her trainer. He disconnects her breathing tube, telling
her that it will be a peaceful death.

"That's going to make her gasp like a fish on the shore," said
Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet, which opposes assisted suicide.

Another complaint, Drake said, is the lack of consideration for
unsuspecting disabled people who might see the movie. "That's
some nice surprise they set you up for."

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association sent out a press
release last week saying that Eastwood's message was "better
dead than disabled," and calling the movie "a brilliantly executed
attack on people with spinal cord injury."

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All Maggie has to do to die is to ask. No kidding. Court rulings in the 90s say that a person who uses a vent can request the vent be shut off, and the staff will give them a sedative and shut the vent off just as they start to lose consciousness.

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I have long been under the impression that it wasn't, but I'm assuming in this case (the case in the movie) it is?

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I have long been under the impression that it wasn't, but I'm assuming in this case (the case in the movie) it is?

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I mentioned earlier that the Australian newspaper "The Age" edited out NDY and other stuff. What they did was mild compared to a really malicious piece that came out over the weekend in "USA Today.":

'Million Dollar' Mystery by Susan Wloszczyna

The movie is an attempt at a discussion of the "spoilage" surrounding "MLB." But pay careful attention in who she is willing to name and who she isn't. I've italicized a certain sentence in order to be helpful.

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However, there exists even a more seductive incentive to spoil Baby. Unlike The Usual Suspects or Fight Club, where the narrative jolts were merely an extension of the plot, Baby is being used by political pundits and special-interest groups with causes to advance. One organization, whose name would be a form of a spoiler itself, issued a statement last week decrying what they see as a "vendetta" executed by Eastwood and his film.

In an attack on her Web site (debbieschlussel.com), conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel at least offers readers the courtesy of a spoiler alert after proclaiming Baby as "Hollywood's best political propaganda of the year, more effective than Fahrenheit 9/11" and "a left-wing diatribe." She then pummels its premise as well as the understated ad campaign, spilling every pertinent detail in the bargain.

Fellow conservative and culture critic Michael Medved has verbally spanked Baby and its makers via multiple media forums, from his nationally syndicated Seattle-based radio show to such TV outlets as the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and The 700 Club on CBN.

"The movie is wildly overrated in part because of an enduring affection for Eastwood, which I share," says Medved, a former host of PBS' Sneak Previews. But, "I hated this movie, and hate is not too strong a word. It's hackneyed and clumsy, like a flatfooted fighter who would be knocked out in the first four seconds of the first round."

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"Well, I'd take you to my resort, but I haven't made any of the
guest rooms accessible yet as a matter of principle. Maybe I could
order us some take-out."

The cynic in me says that maybe the most accurate label we can put on
this movie is "Clint Eastwood's Revenge." Hey, if we kill 'em, we
don't have to make our resorts accessible!

This movie is a corny, melodramatic assault on people with
disabilities. It plays out killing as a romantic fantasy and gives
emotional life to the "better dead than disabled" mindset lurking in
the heart of the typical (read: nondisabled) audience member.

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I've never said the movie was "immoral" - I don't mind
defending myself, but at least stick with what I said.

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You indicate that, in your imagination, you've bent over
backwards to imagine that Maggie must have had the best of everything.
That's just Eastwood and the scriptwriter playing on your
ignorance

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All she ever wanted to be was a boxer and she got that. She had fans; she was on the covers of magazines. She doesn't want to get to the point where she can't even remember living her dream any more.

As I listened to this drivel, I wondered how Muhammed Ali, whose speech and ability to move are significantly limited by Parkinson's, might react to this.

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You say he "struggled a lot"? What, it took him a whole day to make up his mind?

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