Double standards. You’ve gotta love ‘em.
 
Remember back when Denzel Washington played middleweight boxing contender Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in the 1999 film, “The Hurricane?" Remember Denzel’s performance, for which he should have won an Oscar?
 
Now recall the big stink critics made about the movie. It wasn’t historically accurate, they moaned. Carter didn’t really beat middleweight champ Joey Giardello in an early 1960s bout and get robbed by the judges (although folks in my neighborhood who saw the fight said exactly that). Other inaccuracies were noted. When Denzel didn’t win his much deserved Academy Award, some blamed the fictional lapses of the film.
 
Now fast forward to today. Ron Howard’s movie “Cinderella Man” is playing all across the country, to rave reviews from most critics. Star Russell Crowe, who plays 1930s heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, is mentioned as an odds-on favorite to win an Oscar for best actor. We don’t hear the slightest hint that there are inaccuracies and distortions in “Cinderella Man.”
 
But that doesn’t surprise you, right?
 
Critics of “The Hurricane” weren’t just movie reviewers. Radio talk show hosts on my side of the political spectrum felt compelled to get in on the act. Carter only had a mediocre record, they claimed. He really wasn’t that good.
 
Well, no one’s claimed that Braddock was one of the great heavyweights of our time either. He got lucky when he ran into an out-of-shape and undertrained Max Baer the night he won the heavyweight championship. And some -- not nearly as many as criticized “The Hurricane” -- have pointed out that Howard’s film recklessly and ruthlessly depicts Baer as a man proud that he killed two boxers in the ring and as a heel who gratuitously insults Braddock’s wife.
 
Oh, and that nasty business of Braddock and his managers demanding 10 percent of Joe Louis’ boxing earnings for 10 years as a condition of Louis getting a 1937 title shot at Braddock? Don’t look for it in “Cinderella Man.”

Braddock’s keeping his hand in Louis’ pocket for a decade is the reason I have absolutely no respect for Braddock whatsoever, his overcoming the hardships that led to him being nicknamed “the Cinderella Man” notwithstanding. Pilfering someone else’s earnings doesn’t strike me as the stuff of heroism.

And giving an untruthful depiction of a historical figure — Baer in this case — is the stuff of irresponsible filmmaking. Max Baer Jr., Baer’s son and the actor who played Jethro on “The Beverly Hillbillies,” said his father agonized over the deaths of the two men he killed and was nothing like the man portrayed in the movie.

According to news reports, a spokesman for Howard said that the film is presented from the Braddock family’s point of view. That’s nonsense. “Cinderella Man” is  biography, not autobiography. Howard’s film is a cinematic example of exactly what’s wrong with autobiographies: they tend to be heavy on the “auto” and light on the “bio.”
 
Director Spike Lee relied heavily on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” when he made his film about the black nationalist leader. But Lee knew when to put the autobiography aside and inject some biography into the movie. Lee included — whereas Malcolm left out — all of Malcolm’s comments about his “chickens coming home to roost” statement about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
 
“Chickens coming home to roost have never made me sad,” Malcolm said. “They’ve only made me glad.”
 
That injection of truth in the movie “Malcolm X” may be the best thing about the film, which had some shortcomings of its own (The main one was Lee’s omission of Malcolm’s oldest sister Ella Collins.). Don’t look for any such random acts of truth in “Cinderella Man.”
 
It would have been nice to hear Braddock’s character saying “Yes, I shamelessly robbed Joe Louis blind for 10 years, and I’m proud of it.” It would have been accurate to get some acknowledgment that great black fighters of Braddock’s era were routinely denied title shots. But in the absence of truth, I propose something better.

I’m on record as being opposed to reparations for slavery. But this is one case in which I’ll change my position.

Let’s start a movement to get Howard to give 10 percent of the money he makes for 10 years to descendants of Joe Louis.