The Blind Side (2009)

Jack and I saw this because it was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress Oscars and, Surprise! We didn't hate it (we don't hate much). It helped that Jack has a prodigious memory for sports trivia and knew the historic football clips that open the movie and all the coaches playing themselves at the schools where they worked at the time the movie takes place. It's based on Michael Lewis' book about Michael Oher, a real professional football player, who was adopted at 17 by a rich Memphis couple, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, who already had two biological kids, Collins and Sean Jr.. Funny that both "Oher" and "Tuohy" (OWE-er and TOO-ey) are difficult to spell with their silent H's. Sandra Bullock (I wrote about her in The Proposal) plays Leigh Anne, an interior decorator with expensive blonde hair, lots of mascara, and tight clothes, who brings a large, homeless, African-American boy into her family and helps him find himself through football, a sport for which she and her family share a passion. Some have complained that it should be Mike's story and not Leigh Anne's. But that's Hollywood. It's Bullock's year, after all, and she has won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and Screen Actors Guild Best Actress awards for this movie, in which she barely cracks a smile (I wonder if Julia Roberts, had she taken the part offered to her, would have kept her famous grin under wraps). This movie also helped propel Bullock into the position of highest-grossing female box-office star of 2009. 6'9" Quintin Aaron capably plays Oher as the gentle giant (any metaphors the filmmakers want you to get are clearly identified). Country singer Tim McGraw (also acted in a few movies, including Four Christmases) plays the quietly supportive husband Sean, Jae Head (Justin Bateman and Charlize Theron's son in Hancock (2008)) is the cute pipsqueak Sean Jr. AKA S.J., and Lily Collins (daughter of musician Phil) is almost an afterthought as sister Collins (another odd coincidence of names). All the actors playing educators, especially Kathy Bates as the tutor Miss Sue and Ray McKinnon as the high school football Coach Cotton, were fine.

This is the only Best Picture Oscar nominee we saw after the nominations were announced, and, though it's not awful (did you notice? I am damning it with faint praise--don't want you to miss that--I considered calling this post "The Blind Snide"), I will not be choosing it as my favorite for that award. Its story includes redemption, fine furnishings, Architectural Digest-style homes, bitchy southern women lunching, stick-to-it-iveness, sports victories, a few laughs, a few tears. Plenty of product placement (Under-Armour and BMW, among others) rounds out this commercial success. Its two Academy Award nominations will boost the ratings of the Oscar telecast on Sunday, March 7 (5 PM Pacific, 8 PM Eastern on ABC, hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin).

Too much?