The Blind Side (Movie)

Cafe Society
1

I have done several searches and to my surprise, I just can’t find a thread on this excellent movie. So I guess I’ll start one. Don’t think I’ve put in any spoilers, but be careful, because I didn’t hide anything below.

The wife and I watched it yesterday after a large Thanksgiving meal. And I have to say that while not a perfect movie, it was far better than I anticipated.

What I really liked about the movie:

  1. Sandra Bullock gives a good performance. And is easy on the eyes, too. I liked the look they gave her. (just me, you might not)
  2. Her character is a genuinely nice person. Not a Mrs. RB type, and not a bleeding heart, either. I haven’t seen too many movies with a rich lady principal character who was portrayed as just…well, nice.
  3. Big Mike’s growth, both academically and football-y, does not happen in the snap of a finger. It is a long, slow, and sometimes painful process. Quinton Aaron does a superb job of acting, going from someone who barely talks to people to someone who can put deep thoughts down on paper in a meaningful way. And all through the movie, even from the beginning, he somehow projects that there is a very nice and intelligent person in there somewhere.
  4. Loved his new kid brother, SJ. Kid’s a star, does the “What’s in it for me?” without being snarky.
  5. While I’m sure the movie is not completely true to the actual facts, it does a very good job for me in being fairly realistic in a movie kind of way. Someone must have executed “The Suits” before they could totally ruin the movie. Or maybe their limo got hit by a train before the script was finalized.
  6. Movie was not overly preachy.

Some Quibbles:

  1. Wish they’d shown a little more about Oher’s college and NFL experiences. But the movie was over when he graduated high school, I know. Still, I would have liked some more of him kicking butt in pro ball.
  2. Overall, the movie was maybe still a little too sugary, Oher’s transformation had to be harder than what they showed, didn’t it?
  3. Sandra Bullock was sure nice to look at, but I think more screen time should have been devoted to her character’s husband. I think he was a champion too, and they should have spent more time developing his character.

Guess that’s about it. I don’t usually do the movie discussion thing, but I think this one deserved some air time.

2

We just saw this movie today, and we liked it quite a lot.

3

It’s based on a real life story. Michael Oher a rookie with the Baltimore Ravens.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2009/11/14/2009-11-14_new_movie_the_blind_side.html

4

And BOY have the theaters here in the Baltimore area been crowded, as a result. The movie’s showings keep selling out.

5

when i got the book i was expecting a lot more stats/math. then i thought, yeah… this would make a decent hoop dreams-esque movie but not as a book, especially not in the way it’s currently written. it tried to juggle the pseudo-academic nonfiction aspect with the syrupy, heartwarming story and failed miserably. the movie was definitely a good call.

6

I have not seen the film, but I dismissed it as patronizing dreck. The previews make it look like another one of those guilt-driven, ‘‘white people swooping in to rescue an unfortunate black person’’ movies. And I can’t help but wonder if ‘‘the best performance of Sandra Bullocks’ career’’ was meant as a veiled insult.

So it looks like at least a few people didn’t interpret it that way. Am I completely off base? It wasn’t even a tiny bit patronizing?

7

I don’t claim to be a movie critic, and it is just my opinion, but I was actually very surprised to NOT find it patronizing. I was expecting that, too, just like you.

Not to slobber over the movie, just that I went in to appease the wife thinking it would indeed be utter patronizing, guilty-white-folks-look-how-good-WE-are!, dreck. I was very surprised.

Again, YMMV, but I thought Sandra Bullock did put in a good performance.

8

I agree - I was expecting it to be emo-porn dreck and actually thought it was quite good. I was impressed with the depth of Sandra Bullock’s character, and I even found the football scenes non-boring (and I loathe football.)

There were weaknesses, though. In particular I found the kid who played Sean Jr. to be pretty annoying. (Though others seemed to like him.) Also

the car crash

was obvious from ten miles away, and seemed utterly pointless except as a minor second-act Shocking Crisis to get through.

Also, “protective instincts?” Really? :dubious:

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Is that what it was? My theater got swamped these last couple of weekends, The other theater in town got New Moon, so we were expecting a slow couple of weeks, but The Blind Side did just as well, if not better.

10

Not at all, she’s terrific in the film, and if she does get a Best Actress nomination as some rumblings predict, she will have deserved it. She’s not all brash and sass as the trailers would have you believe. She plays a good-hearted woman who won’t take any guff from anyone, but shows caring and depth without going overboard. Strange thing, if you’ve only seen the previews, but Bullock does not overact or go over-the-top in any way. You end up really really liking her, and her family, and most of all, Michael (he hates being called “Big Mike”). And if the real Sean Tuohy is anywhere near as adorable as Tim McGraw, he must be the man. I loved that character!

I liked the film, a lot, and I don’t like football. I don’t get football, and I especially don’t get College football, but it didn’t matter.

One of the things I liked about it is that it portrays Christians acting in a way that does Christianity proud, which is refreshing in today’s climate of hate and fear-mongering. The Tuohys, evangelical Christian Republicans, as portrayed in the film made me, a die-hard uber-liberal atheist, really like them. I’d be very disappointed if I found out that, in real life, they’re tea-baggers, Palin supporters and Beckheads. I’m SO glad the movie steered away from politics, except for two very very funny lines, the second of which still makes me chuckle when I think of it.

[spoiler]The tutor confessing awkwardly “I’m a Democrat”

and

Tim McGraw’s line, about meeting the tutor “Who’ve thought we’d have a black son before we met a Democrat?” [/spoiler]

There was only one thing I didn’t like, and it made me so mad I almost walked out of the theater. When the tutor (Kathy Bates) was talking to Michael about the University of Tennessee and

tried to scare him about dead bodies and body parts being buried under the football field. First of all, she was talking about the Body Farm, a very important scientific project that has done so much to help forensics. It should be lauded, not used as a fear tactic. Second, she was outright lying to Michael about the football field, trying to scare him. Third, she was taking advantage of Michael’s innocence and trust, a horrible thing to do. Bitch should have been fired right then and there. Oh I wanted to slap the shit out of her!

A bit of interesting (to me, anyway) trivia I just read. The girl who plays the daughter named Collins Tuohy is named Lily Collins. Another bit of trivia is that Lily Collins is the daughter of Phil Collins (drummer, Genesis) which I’m sure makes him happy because he started out as a child actor before he took up drumming.

11

Reviving this thread just to say that my wife dragged me to see this movie this weekend, against my better judgement. It had been sold out the first time we went to see it (in Baltimore it was the Mike Oher effect; here in Nashville it’s the Tim McGraw effect).

I have to say I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t preachy or overly sweet. For the most part, the characters were real and not cliched (with a few exceptions - like the gang leader in Mike’s old 'hood and Sandra Bullock’s genteel, but racist society friends. In addition to the main characters I liked the science teacher, the football coach and the private school principal.

I was touched by the way Bullock’s character went to see Michael’s mother before adopting him, and how she held her hand when she started to cry. Speaking of crying, my wife did quite a bit. There was just the one scene that made me a little teary, when Leigh Anne is fixing up the guest room for Michael:

Michaell: This is mine?
Leigh Anne: Yep.
Michael: I never had one before.
Leigh Anne: A room to yourself?
Michael: A bed.

12

I saw it a few weeks ago (not really by choice, but I thought it was okay), and I’ve thought about this a little bit. What I keep coming back to is what would have happened to this young man if someone like Bullock’s character/family hadn’t stepped in like they did? From the way it was portrayed in the film, their act of taking Oher in was done out of true concern and charity, not because they wanted a pat on the back or because they thought their way was better. They had an extra bedroom and plenty of money, so they helped out someone who needed it.

13

I just saw this movie today. I don’t know how many times I teared up. I really enjoyed how they addressed the “white person guilt” and readily dismissed it. My family (white) met a young black kid that ended up spending great deals of time at our home. His family was a wreck and his mother didn’t care as long as he wasn’t under her feet. We tried to adopt him when he was taken away from his family, at the time, inter-racial adoptions were quite rare. He was ultimately adopted by a black family, ended up playing football and being a generally great kid. I’ve lost contact with him, but I saw a lot of him in Michael Oher.

We got the same type of flack and we felt very much the same way. So I did bawl quite a bit. :slight_smile:

Can I also say how nice I thought it was that a Southerner was portrayed as not being a racist pig. I also liked that he ended up calling Lee Anne “Mom” even though he was far older than most kids who would make that transition. I loved the Christmas card and I loved the real pics of the people in the movie at the end.

It really happened. That made me very happy.

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I saw it, and loved it!

Unlike Avatar, this isn’t a “white people save the day” movie. This is a true story of how one family made a difference in a child’s life.

If we all could do that, there would be a lot more Michael Ohers that would blossom into wonderful people.

15

I don’t know where this bizarre meme came from (pushed, strangely enough, by right-wingers), but in Avatar, the white people did NOT save the day.

Ewya saves the day.

I really liked The Blind Side, and I hope it gets Oscar nominations for Picture and Bullock, but there’s no need to trash another movie to build it up, especially when the trash isn’t true.

16

I saw this movie as well, expecting it to be pretty sappy. I did roll my eyes at “protective instincts” swince I don’t recall ever being tested on those, but otherwise I thought it was all around pretty good.

It was interesting to see that Sean Tuohy (the real one) wasn’t nearly the looker that Tim McGraw is, but I think Sandra nailed Lee Anne, and in one of those rare hollywood turnabouts, it doesnt look like she was way hotter than the actual person.

17

I can’t even imagine how a standardized test would evaluate someone for “protective instincts”. I figured for sure that either the IMDB page or the Wikipedia article would say that this was a bit of artistic license. But neither did. So what gives? Are there really tests out there which can really measure that?

18

Only went to see it as there was nothing else that weekend, and we almost always go see a film every week.
Figured I would hate it:
Sports, football - don’t care.
Bullock - last few films were horrible.
Texas - one word - Dubya.

Surprise, surprise - we liked it a lot!

It was FAR better than we expected, and I have to admit, I think Bullock and Streep are both the front runners for Oscar this year, and would be happy to see either win - that is how good the film was.

19

I just watched it, and had a lot of problems with it. The biggest was the previously mentioned “protective instincts” section of his aptitude test. Also, what an incompetent yet conniving idiot the HS football coach was. The sappiness of how she had to teach the coach how to teach Michael how to play. The teacher who was incredulous that a test could be given orally.

The first game incorporated every cliche done in football movies. The ridiculously biased referee who allowed a blatant kick to a downed players head, but flagged the coach for complaining. The racist fan/father in the stands who was shut up by our hero’s performance. There was an exaggerated version of the cliche about how a football player starts off horribly (eg. Friday Night Lights), but becomes an expert an just a few series. And then, after a horrible start, he turned into a superstar and they won the game in a huge blowout.

I can’t blame the real-life coaches for their over-acting. I’m sure they just shook their heads back and forth and said “wow” and popped out their eyeballs as directed.

On her voice-over at the end, where she’s talking about the kid who was killed and how that could have been Michael, all I could hear was her saying “I saved him! It was me who saved him!” (But maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it’s because I was screaming that at the TV.)

Of course, YMMV.

20

I have not seen the movie but I read the book. Isn’t the film set in Tennessee, not Texas?