1 1st to say movies are gay...

2 Matt Damon!

3 Are you going to review "Precious", too? I'd like to hear your take on it...

4 What? A Hollywood film that doesn't portray a Republican character as falling neatly into their reflexive stereotype of being evil/stupid? Why, color me sufficiently blindsided*!   _{*See what I did there?}  

5 i haven't seen this movie, but i have seen a wonderful short film called "The Red Balloon" (1956) about a balloon that follows a boy around paris. did you know that the man who wrote and directed this classic also invented the board game Risk!? amazing! it's wonderful & inspiring to see what one person can accomplish, in the movies and in true life.

6 yeah- it was not too bad. It was a compromise movie for the wife and I, and it was better than many of the alternatives that she had on her list. 

7

Anyway, the Boy (my 14-year-old movie companion) enjoyed it quite a bit. I attribute that to the lack of gross sentimentality and the general liveliness of the whole movie.

 

I couldn't possibly be that Sandra Bullock is teh hawt.

8

...either because you don't like them or because you're just flat out tired of 'em.

Well in this decade it would be very easy to get tired of them. Looking at the list of the top 20 high grosing pictures of this decade all but 2 or sequels.

Hollywood is afraid to issue new movies.

 

9 Leigh Ann Tuohy will serve briefly Sarah's HHS secretary...and then dismantle it.  In high heels and a tight tight skirt.  Hawt.

10 Managed to fit in a Bush bash, so it's no go for us.

11 btw, the guy's name (who invented Risk! and made "The Red Balloon") is Albert Lamorrise. i just find that an incredible mix. can you think of any others? here's another: Jack Ryan (no, not the Tom Clancy character, but the real one who was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor) developed the Sparrow and Hawk missile system for Raytheon and then joined Mattel where he designed Barbie and later a doll called Chatty Cathy. contributions, people.

12

We just saw the movie on Dec. 26.  It was truly awesome.  I was so inspired, I bought the book by Michael Lewis (paperback) at Target on the 27th and finished it on the 28th.  The movie stays pretty true to the book (I had thought for sure that some of the scenes in the movie had to have been "Hollywoodized", like the car accident scene, but that really happened) 

Anyways, Michael Lewis was a childhood friend of Sean Tuohy but hadn't spoken to him for 25 years.  He was writing a book on their H.S. baseball coach ("Coach") so he contacted Sean for that project in 2003.  Sean told him about Michael Oher and how he was becoming a family member, but the author dismissed it.  A few months later, the author was going to do another article on the NFL for a magazine and he read an article about left tackles, and how they were being paid more than other offensive linemen.  He subsequently went out to dinner with his wife and Sean Tuohy.  After hearing Michael's story, Lewis's wife told him "I don't understand why you are writing about anything else."

It really is an amazing story, and I loved that it was big bad evil Republicans that took Michael Oher in and gave him the tools he needed to succeed.  It wasn't gubamint programs.  It kind of sounds like he might lean to the right too:

From Michael Lewis's book, "The Blindside:  Evolution of a Game"

"... Michael informed Leigh Anne that, if he indeed made it to the NFL, he intended to buy a house with 13 bedrooms so that his mother and siblings would be guaranteed shelter.  Now he wasn't so sure he wanted to do that.  'They had the same chances I had,' he said.  'They need to get off their lazy asses and work.  They need to start hearing 'no'."

I highly urge all you morons who haven't seen this movie to go out and see it.  I am going to see it again.  It was that good.

13 The movie was also pro-Christian and pro-gun.

14 I had no clue what this was about, and no intention of seeing it. I'm now really wanting to give it a shot. Thanks, moviegique. Love your reviews.

15

Hey go see Blind Side. It is a true story.  They left out some of the best parts. Leigh Anne Touhy--the real Leigh Anne Touhy is 5" 1" and 115 pounds of pure dynamite.  She was a cheer leader at Ole Miss, and  some 25 years on or so could still be a cheer leader at Ole Miss. Her daughter followed in her footsteps and was also a cheer leader at Ole Miss.  Leigh Anne Touhy  is a force of nature and she gets what she wants.   She is also very much a committed Christian--and Republican.

There are some cheap Hollywood shots in the movie---lazy clerk sitting on her fat ass in a gubmint office is chastised by Ms. Tuohy for making people sit and wait for hours while staff does nothing; Tuohy asks to see who is responsible, and lazy clerk points to a picture of Dubya on the wall. 

But all in all, Hollywood treated white Southern Christians like human beings for once.  That alone makes the movie worth seeing.  And as for Michael Oher, the black kid in the movie?  Well he graduated from Ole Miss, and got taken in the first round of the NFL draft last spring.  He's #74 and he is the starting right tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.  You can see him on the tube when they play.

 

16 Heh.  "The Last Samurai" is like every movie with Morgan Freeman (AKA, "Please Mr. Magic Negro, Teach Us Po' White Folk How to Be Better People!"), except with a pasty, white dude.

17

Oh, I also wanted to say that the casting was spot on (Sandra Bullock was great and physically resembled Lee Anne Tuohy).  (Although, the husband is nowhere in the same zip code of approaching Tim McGraw!) 

Also that scene in where they were in the DHSS office (I think) where the lazy assed clerk pointed to George Bush's picture when Lee Ann Tuohy asked the woman who her boss was did not offend me (and I love GWB!)  It's just endemic of that whole bureacratic mindset that the individual worker isn't responsible for anything; the typical stereotypical gubamint drone.  But they will abuse what little power they do have if they feel like taking you down a peg.

18 Oher is just a rookie, but will be a beast in the league.  He played LT this week, btw.

19 My wife and I went to see the movie the weekend that it opened.  We both loved it.  I laughed my ass off when Kathy Bates' character (the tutor they hired to work with Michael) has to inform Lee Anne of her one great character flaw: "I'm a Democrat".  It was very refreshing to see a Hollywood production that treated the characters as real human beings instead of vacuous stereotypes; I suspect we'll be waiting quite a while for anything like it.

20 19  He's done that in a couple of games this season.  He's gotten quite an education in the prime-time games that I've caught, from some of the best pass rushers ever spawned.  I hope he has a long and prosperous career.

21

Big Detroit Lions' fan, here.

I desperately wanted the Lions to draft him at pick 21, but, of course, they f**ked up and took a tight end. 

Bad for Lions' fans - great for Michael Oher.  I'm glad he could escape the vortex of human suffering that is the D. 

22 Hey, stickety. Me too. On all of that. *sigh*

23 Glad you saw it, remember posting on thanksgiving weekend that this was one incredible film and for everyone to go see it right away.

24 I read the book last year and have been recommending it to friends ever since.  Glad to hear that the movie stays pretty true to the book - I look forward to seeing it on the screen.

(I have never watched the movie versions of Bonfire of the Vanities or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because I hate to see my favorite books destroyed.  Nice to know it hasn't happened to this one.)

25 Zimriel, I hadn't planned to see "Precious", since it so appears to fit so squarely into the whole "wallowing" thing.

26 I couldn't possibly be that Sandra Bullock is teh hawt. It's not impossible or anything, but I couldn't talk him into seeing Transformers 2, despite Megan Fox. Are modern 14-year-olds really going to give a movie much titl because of a good-looking 45-year-old (who dresses attractively, but conservatively)? I mean, he is aware of the Internet.

27 Polynikes, Yeah, "You've Got Mail" is a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's far superior "Shop Around The Corner", which was also remade as "In The Good Old Summertime" in one of Judy Garland's last feel-good musicals. It's educative to watch all three to see exactly how the narrative of male-female relationships has changed.

28 I absolutely LOVED this movie and have been recommending it to everyone.  So nice to see a 'Hollywood' movie not turn Christians (evangelical Christians, even, oooo) into hateful/ignorant/illiterate/insert random insult here and actually showed them to be good people who *gasp* practice what they preach and who, despite having money, aren't greedy pigs that crap on everyone with a bank account smaller than their own.

Totally buying this when it hits the shelves.

29 The high school featured in this movie is my alma mater! In the movie they moved the school to Atlanta, but the real school is in Memphis. And I believe that Fred Smith's (FedEx) daughter is the one who either directed or produced this film...

30

I've flatly refused to see this movie for precisely the reasons you intitially hesitated. I hate HATE to be manipulated in such a way as to suggest I'm too stupid to know better. (You know. Like that stupid ass Tim McGraw song from a few years ago where he did his best to rip a tear from our eye. WTH was the name of that song?)

Now, I might give it a shot.

My daughter and I saw It's Complicated on Christmas night. The entire audience, men and women, young and old, were all roaring. Very adult, very funny, with very few cheap tricks. And, it didn't go out of it's way to make the cheating male a cliche'. Things are rarely black and white and the movie tried to show that. (Although, personally, I'm kind of a black and white kind of girl. Cheating is just wrong!)

I am very dedicated to not contributing one red cent to a film that contains soapbox actors (FU Sean Penn, who I won't even watch on cable.) but, for the life of me, I can't quite kick the Alec Baldwin habit.

Damn you Alec Baldwin and all you're comedic talent!!

31

#28...

You want to see change...

Check out the old and new (newer) versions of Sabrina. The scene where Bogey/Ford meets with Hepburn/Ormond at the tennis court/solarium is painful to watch. In the newer version, Ormond slaps the piss out of Ford when he gets out of hand. Hepburn, not so much.

32 Great movie, great book. Less football in the movie. Ironic thing is there's no way the Tuohys didn't know any Democrats, Memphis is the Dem haven of Tennessee. All the talk about how this is a conservative movie is accurate. Aside from the out of nowhere slap at Dubya (John Nolte at Big Hollywood explains why this was necessary), this movie is about how government failed Michael Oher and his family at every turn, and it wasn't until he got taken in by a private (Christian!) school and adopted by a wealthy family who felt like they had a duty to help a fellow human being, that he became a productive member of society. For football fans, the book has an extended discussion of the evolution of the left tackle position in the NFL, and how there are only a small percentage of the human population with the physical qualities necessary to play that position. The business of college recruiting is fleshed out as well. I heard an interview with Leigh Ann Tuohy on Hugh Hewitt, and she hates the NCAA with a white hot passion, she thinks the filmmakers let them off easy, and they're not portrayed very sympathetically as it is. Definitely check it out. I saw three other movies in the last week, and this was the best.

33 #31 Just saw your post. It's Complicated was one of the three movies I saw last week (Up in the Air and Sherlock Holmes were the others) and even though I saw it because my wife wanted to see it, it was better than I thought it was going to be. As a date movie, you could do worse. The audience I saw it with absolutely roared like yours did. The laptop scene they show in the previews will probably become an iconic comedy movie moment like Meg Ryan's (highly overrated) fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. I think it is an interesting discussion as to whether there are conservative themes in that movie. Certainly, the protagonists fit the bill of the familiar California upper class liberals so common to these kind of movies, but the theme that Alec Baldwin regrets cheating on his first wife and mother of his children, finds that the younger trophy wife is no picnic, and now longs to return to his nuclear family is a conservative's cautionary tale, even though he is technically cheating on his new wife while he does it. However, while I don't want to give away the ending, the resolution sorted of tacked away from what I had been hoping for as the movie progressed. I keep waiting for Big Hollywood to review this one to see their take on it.

34 This was a chick-flick white-guilt fest. It was overall a good movie, but they had to ruin it with half a dozen "message" moments. Sigh...

35 "What? A Hollywood film that doesn't portray a Republican character as falling neatly into their reflexive stereotype of being evil/stupid?"

Not quite. All her Republican friends and associates are racist, selfish, dishonest scum.

"Good" Republicans apparently take homeless, mildly-retarded black boys into their home without asking too many questions. All other Republicans are bigoted filth.

36 "Managed to fit in a Bush bash, so it's no go for us."

Yup. Apparently Dubya runs the DMV. And the DMV was a well-oiled machine before Dubya took office. *rolls eyes*

37 "The movie was also pro-Christian"

Not really. The Sandra Bullock character goes on a rant about how "real Christians" would be filling their (expensive, private) school with charity cases from the 'hood. The "Christian" football coach is a self-interested putz. Sandra Bullock's character denounces the school for being "too white." Most of the Christian students at the school shun Michael Oher, apparently out of irrational racist fear. Most of the Christian teachers treat Michael Oher like dirt at first.

38 "Heh.  "The Last Samurai" is like every movie with Morgan Freeman (AKA, "Please Mr. Magic Negro, Teach Us Po' White Folk How to Be Better People!"), except with a pasty, white dude."

I love Morgan Freeman. But pretty much all the characters he plays lately are either God, President, or "magic negro" types. He's become typecast, which is unfortunate, because he's a real talent.

39 I laughed my ass off when Kathy Bates' character (the tutor they hired to work with Michael) has to inform Lee Anne of her one great character flaw: "I'm a Democrat".

But what was the message there? The message was that she was afraid to tell them that because most Republicans are bigoted scumbags who refuse to even associate with a Democrat. Which, of course, is complete and utter bullshit. But that was the subtle message.

40 #22:

QFT.

41 According to this movie, the "good" Republican husband, apparently, is completely submissive and just does whatever his dominant wife wants. Including spending his money to buy clothes and a car for a homeless kid off the streets.

42 "So nice to see a 'Hollywood' movie not turn Christians (evangelical Christians, even, oooo) into hateful/ignorant/illiterate/insert random insult here and actually showed them to be good people who *gasp* practice what they preach and who, despite having money, aren't greedy pigs that crap on everyone with a bank account smaller than their own."

- - -

Yabut, here's the thing: Pretty much EVERY Christian/rich person/Republican in the movie is portrayed as hateful/ignorant EXCEPT the protagonist's family. (Also, the word "redneck" is used at least three times.)

The message was: Most Republicans/Christians are basically selfish slime; the rare "good" Republican is the type who adopts a random black child off the streets and dedicates their lives to them, in order to "learn" from him.

43 Although I loved Ken Watanabe in it, out-acting Tom Cruise isn't exactly hard (since he plays himself in everything he's in), and the basic message of The Last Samurai is the most one-dimensional cliched Hollywood/academia tripe about modernity and the West being evil.  It's a celebration of an ultra-stratified feudal society because "it's their culture." *gag*

44 BTW, the Michael Oher character is pretty much a quasi verion of the "magic negro" stock character. Saves a white child from suffering serious injuries in a car accident with his bare hands! Fights off a house full of armed thugs to defend his white "mother's" honor!

Yeah, yeah, the movie was "based on a true story." Awesome. So was Oliver Stone's "Nixon" and "JFK."

This wasn't a documentary; it was a "message movie" - Everyone is just a "product of their environment," and all white women should be more like Madonna and Angelina Jolie.

45

Wow! A lot of conservative hate here!

The problem with going into a movie with preconceived notions about the film makers (whether true or not) is that you can end up interpreting things the way you think they want you to, rather than just looking at what's there.

Best example I can think of is Frost/Nixon.

I don't blame y'all for being a bit sensitive, but suggesting that the DMV scene is a slap at Bush is a tad hypersensitive. Nobody really thinks of the DMV as a product of Bush, but it makes being a lazy-ass bum a convenient excuse.

As the movie makes clear—and the real life interviews bear out—Leigh Ann Tuohy is a force. This has nothing to do with her husband being wimpy.

Sometimes you just have to go to a movie not seeing it as a "message" meant to convey broad types, but a unique story about unique people.

I mean, if you're going to go to the movies. Which, of course, no one has to.

46 I liked Blind Side. Sandra Bullock had a great performance.

47 30 The high school featured in this movie is my alma mater! In the movie they moved the school to Atlanta, but the real school is in Memphis. And I believe that Fred Smith's (FedEx) daughter is the one who either directed or produced this film... I went to BCS (Towering Oaks, technically, but BCS took it over while I was there) for grade school. CBHS for high school (I was Catholic until my late teens). Believe me, any racism among BCS students depicted in the film had a basis in reality. That place was an acid bath. Can I say how much I HATE it when Memphis film settings (or shooting locations) are moved to Atlanta?

48 I have 2 teenaged daughters and a 48 y/o wife who is trying her damndest to be a teenager. I say all that to say this: I've been dragged to  a shitload of movies that they swore I'd love........and I slept through them almost from wire to wire. They drug me to see The Blind Side and I liked it. A lot. For most of the reasons that you noted. The ghetto  scum that Micheal escaped from are not portrayed as victims of society, but rather as ghetto scum. I appreciated that. You feel for the kids who don't have a Leigh Ann Touhey to help them escape their ghetto oppressors.

49 I just read through the other comments and......RJ, I doubt that there'll ever be a movie made that you'll like. I don't hardly see how there's ever been a movie made in the past that you liked. You seem to be able to find massive amounts of turds in even the cleanest of punch bowls. I'd give it up if I were you. And this is coming from someone who is half a hundred and rarely finds a satisfying movie experience any more.

50 Wow! A lot of conservative hate here!

It's just one guy... Jeez RJ rant away on your OWN blog and you may want to fix that HUGE chip on your shoulder.

51 Hey, my apologizes for slurring everyone with the same brush. Er...well, you know what I mean.

52 Thanks for sharing this! Bishop Jordan Personal Growth