ANALYSIS TIME!

MOVIE ANALYSIS

"Million Dollar Baby" directed by Clint Eastwood in 2004 is a Drama/Sports movie that follows a women boxer that wants to train to be a professional boxer. The opening starts with the Warner Bros logo and the logo for Lakeshore Entertainment. The opening cuts abruptly to two men fighting in the rink. This introduces the older cut man "Frankie" and a fighter Big Willie fighting in the ring. Then it cuts to Maggie the main character. This establishes the characters With the help of her new trainer Frankie and the narration of Scraps (Morgan Freeman) the story the rookie boxer begins. The first half of the movie is about her training and her becoming more and more successful. They dive into the story of her past and how bad her family life is. This creates a stronger bond between Frankie and her because they both had tragedies in their life but are using this to move forward. The second part of the movie has a much gloomier tone since in the final boxing match she breaks her neck and is paralyzed from the neck down. This movie doesn't follow the generic drama sports genre. Instead of the main character having a winning ending, she loses the fight and gets paralyzed. And in the end, she dies by choice. The director makes a smart move by making the audience connect with hr and story and take all away at the end.

"Miracle" directed by Gavin O'Conner in 2004 follows a young USA team in their strive to win the Olympics. The opening scene starts with a display of the Disney logo sign, and the first image is protesters outside of congress, there is a filter over all of the images of blue, white, and red to act like a patriotic sign. Then its proceeds to play videos of President Nixon giving multiple speeches, bombings in Cambodia, Anti-War protesters, and women rights activist. Then it shows different Olympics events hinting at Russia winning most of them. But then it shows America being successful on the Moon. The opening also showed social aspects like disco fever and the release of the Cone-head movies and the death of Elvis. Finally, it shows President Carter giving a speech that brings the timeline to 79. This introduction starts with the bigger meaning of the movie which is how one sport can unite a Nation since the US was in war with Russia. The coach Herb is the main source of motivation for the team. The audience connects to the players as a team by seeing all of the physical pain they went through just to stay on the team.  By connecting it to the real-life events that were happening with Russia in the late 70s the story also shows a lot of patriotism. During the Cold War, the US was fighting with Russia on everything they did and by making the core of the movie about beating Russia and representing their country it allows the audience to be more engaged in the story. The relationship between the teammates and coaches pulls the story up.

"McFarland USA" directed by Niki Caro in 2015 is the story of the low-income town and how a rookie cross country team unites the town. The beginning scene starts with the coach and his family in the car. They are all Caucasian. In the car, the radio is playing with Mexican "Ranchera"  music. They start passing fields of fruit and poor homes. The director is establishing the setting of the movie that is the town of McFarland (which is known when they pass the sign). They pass many Mexican-American people who watch them since it is rare that a white family moves into the town. The coach's daughter also watches shocked at the people who live there. The story focuses on cross country teams in which every runner is Mexican-American. They live in a town where it is inhabited by mostly all Mexican families. Until a white coach moves to this town to become a PE coach and sees a lot of fast runners and decides he wants to form a cross country. Things start off shaky but slowly they start improving. Meanwhile, the movie shows you the struggle of having to work in unsafe and unfair jobs that illegal immigrants have to do (like picking food from fields). By focusing on the stories of these families the audience connects with the lives of the boys and how little opportunity they have. The coach's storyline is important since he goes to realize the dangers of living a McFarland but instead of Running away from the problems he tries to fix them. What finally ends up happening is on the final race they win states but more importantly, they have united their town. This movie uses diversity as a tool to connect with the audience.