A while back there was a travelling meme that asked one to name five things that everyone around one was wild about but to which one was rather cool. I never participated because it strained my brain to think of five things. But here's two:
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks.
Ron Howard hasn't produced a thing since EdTV that even remotely interested me. And he goes on to produce progressively less interesting things with each new film. A Simple Mind (as I call it) had me turned off about six minutes into the film. Meeting the protagonist was such an agony of unpleasantness, that I decided I could do without the rest of the film (much to my wife's dismay). So too, I've already decided to forego the elusive pleasures of Cinderella Man. However, I can tell you that two women whose opinion I trust on these matters (while I may not necessarily agree) have both enthusiastically recommended it.
So if watching two people bash each other bloody is your cup of tea, it would seem the Cinderella Man is your tea-party in heaven.
On another front--Russell Crowe--an actor whom I can enjoy at times--is in a very long lull for me. The last two films I really enjoyed were Virtuosity and L. A. Confidential, both horrendously violent. Of recent date we have The Insider (ho hum), Gladiator (repulsive from the very first scene--so ahistorical as to cause an immediate gut-level reaction resulting in the set being turned off), A Simple Mind aka A Beautiful Mind yawn-fest extraordinaire dealing with an unpleasant man's unpleasant life, Master and Commander, which I typified by a dark and soggy Ivory/Merchant wannabe--I found both main characters unattractive and it is only on Talmida's enthusiastic recommendation that I retain any scrap of desire to actually read the books (and Talmida's recommendation is not to be underestimated as she liked both Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds and Mary Doria Russell's magnificent Children of God and (I assume) The Sparrow), and now Cinderella Man. Now, my opinion of these is not to reflect at all upon their worth as films. A great many have enjoyed them tremendously, and I derive from that that they are good, well-made films into which I simply haven't been invited. That's all right--I don't need to be as there is a great deal out in the world of cinema to see. But I do find it something of a trial that I cannot enjoy the opus of an actor whose work I really do like. (Personally, I find the man not in the least admirable. Things like this just add to my opinion of him. But he has legions of devoted fans who turn themselves into pretzels (my wife among them) explaining how the news didn't REALLY report what REALLY REALLY happened and he isn't REALLY all that bad at all, and besides he's misunderstood. I've learned to tune this stream of things out--consistent reportage reveals that the man has serious issues that need to be dealt with long-term. Let us hope that his family does not suffer with them as well.)
My wife loved A Beautiful Mind, and seems to think I did, too. But I had read the book, and I wasn't prepared to regard John Nash as a tormented hero.
Gladiator was well-crafted, but a dud of a story. "No, see, if we make Caesar a creepy lunatic, we don't need to make his actions credible."