'Baby' DVD a knockout

"Million Dollar Baby" won the 2005 Oscar for Best Picture and it won the old fashion way: by actually being the best picture the year that it was released. Wow, how refreshing. \n"Million Dollar Baby" is the story of boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood), who, after a good deal of coercion, takes on a 31-year-old female boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). The movie pulls in wonderful performances from both Swank and Eastwood, as well as from Morgan Freeman for his role as boxer-turned-janitor Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris who narrates the film. Freeman and Swank both won Oscars for their performances (Swank's second), and Eastwood won the Oscar for Best Director (his second as well).\nThis raises an interesting question. When did Clint Eastwood go from being a niche actor to being one of the most important filmmakers in Hollywood? If somebody back in the 70's would have said Dirty Harry would win two Oscars for his directing prowess, the response would have been, "Yeah right and I suppose the red-head kid from 'Happy Days' will win one too?"\nThe DVD comes with two discs, one for the movie and one for the special features. I am not really sure why they needed two discs though, since all that is on the special features disc is two 15-minute featurettes and an episode of "Inside the Actor's Studio" featuring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank (which incidentally is worth watching for the James Lipton ass-kissing if for no other reason). The first disc doesn't have any special features, not even a commentary track. There really doesn't seem to be any reason whatsoever that they couldn't fit the special features onto the first disc.\nThen again, this movie is so great that it doesn't even need special features to justify buying the DVD. Every aspect of this film from the script to the acting is almost perfect. And with this film, Clint Eastwood firmly establishes himself as one of the most important directors in Hollywood.