[{OF}MadD!]

I saw this movie Saturday night and immediatly afterwards there was a Q and A with Russell Crowe, Ron Howard, Renee Zellweger.

First, the movie. I would have to say I really enjoyed this movie. If you know the history of Jim Braddock, then of course you know the movie and it will be predictable. Actually, if you don't know the story, it's still somewhat predictable. The film has something for everyone. The boxing scenes were some of the best I have seen. I think the fight scenes in fact were a little much for the women watching the blood and just some of the abuse these fighters took. You almost felt the pain of these fighters. Then there is the love story and a man down on his luck trying to get by. The emotion to this movie was amazing. It was one of those feel good movies. I walked out of there with so much respect for this fighter. This is definitely something you never see today. The era was also shown in much detail. Just to see how Jim Braddock got by in the depression was actually hard to watch at times since it really just tore your heart out. I'm just glad I didn't have to live through that time. All and all, it was a great movie that will have some Oscar buzz around it.

I saw a comment earlier that it looked like Crowe lost some weight for this part. During the Q and A, he said he dropped his weight down to about 173. Didn't say what he came down from. He said the reason for the weight loss was to give him the appearance of being taller since Jim Braddock was about 6 inches taller than him.

A funny thing that came up is Russell approached Ron Howard about directing this movie while filming A Beautiful Mind. Ron turned it down saying he wasn't interested on working on a boxing film since there has been so many. About 7 months later, Ron called Russell and asked if it was still available. Ron explained when his dad was 7 years old, the family got into a truck and drove 16 miles to a hall to listen to a fight on the radio. It was the first fight his dad ever heard. They went to listen to this man that everyone looked at as the people's fighter. Of course, this was the Championship fight of Jim Braddock. That story was what got Ron interested in doing this film.