By Rich Banbury
We saw Cinderella Man yesterday and highly recommend it to classmates. It’s the story of Jimmy Braddock, the Irish pugilist from New Jersey who became a national figure four years before most of us were born. Braddock has a compelling personal story to go along with his unlikely boxing triumphs. Relevant to the Class of 1960, Paul Giamatti turns in a near-perfect performance as Jimmy’s erstwhile manager/trainer, Joe Gould. A man with some ambivalent character traits, Joe’s intuitive nature is a necessary element of Jimmy’s surprising success. Paul’s interpretation of the character is nuanced and nicely underplayed. A real step up from Sideways. Bart would be proud. Russell Crowe’s performance as Braddock is Oscar-worthy, which will be no surprise to Peter Wells, our new class CEO, who struck up a casual acquaintance with Crowe during the filming of A Beautiful Mind, in which Peter plays a Princeton professor of all things!
Richard