comment #1

ErrantElan says ...

It's a fantastic book, especially for football fans, with the melding of a truly touching story and a damn-good dissertation on why left offensive tackles are so damn important (they protect a right-handed quarterback's blind-side, hence the title).

I hope the film is good - I too really liked "The Rookie". And with Moneyball potentially being made into a film (?), I'm glad Michael Lewis is getting some well-deserved Hollywood attention.

comment #2

Eloi Manning says ...

The trailer provoked some belly laughs within the audience every time I've seen it.

The Alamo is an underrated film. It's a solid TBS type afternoon film.

comment #3

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

The book is so much better than that trailer appears to be. Peter Berg should have directed this.

comment #4

slithis says ...

Seen the trailer twice and no "belly laughs" in those audiences Manning, sorry.

And NotImpressed -- I've heard many times of faithful readers going on about how the book is better than the movies, as if the mediums compare, but you're saying the book is "better than the trailer appears to be?" What does that mean, exactly?

comment #5

jmevans says ...

Jeffrey,

When can we expect your review for "The Box"?

comment #6

LexG says ...

This is why Wells is tops in my book.

"Mountain-sized" would be funny regardless, but the casual, offhand way he uses it had me holding back gales of laughter at my desk.

comment #7

TL says ...

Based on the trailer, with it's paint-by-numbers dialog ("No -- he's changin' mine!"; "It's later."), this is just a vehicle for Sandra Bullock to be a sassy Southern gal, impressing middlebrow audiences and critics with her "range."

Good on the real-life Oher, though. I hope he doesn't end up one of the brain-damaged NFL linemen that seem to be getting a lot of press lately.

comment #8

Chase Kahn says ...

TL -- You can add the ridiculous scene where Bullock shows up at football practice and tells Oher to "think of me when you think of the quarterback"...

This is rah-rah, crocodile tears, inspirational "We Are Marshall" sports bullshit. I've had it...don't need it.

comment #9

NightWriter says ...

Even though this film looks about as paint-by-the-numbers as a script can get, I'm pretty much in tears everytime I see the trailer. Call me a pussy, I can take it :)

If it makes $75M+, Bullock gets a Best Actress nod. That's my over/under prediction.

comment #10

LexG says ...

Every time I see this trailer, all I think is:

1) Why is Sandra Bullock adopting a 34-year-old black man? (Seriously, the actor looks MIDDLE AGED, not like a high school kid.)

2) Did Bullock film this simultaneous with "All About Steve"? Or is she doing that thing Lorraine Bracco did in her lame, early '90s attempt at femme fatale leading lady where she clocked in with the same fake-blonde hair for three consecutive movies?

comment #11

dangovich says ...

Jeez. Just once, can we see a middle-class black family learn valuable life lessons from a seemingly simple-minded white kid?

I mean, whatta we got? Radio, Forrest Gump, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Green Mile...you could make a film festival out of "magic black man" movies.

comment #12

lazarus says ...

I hate to mention it, because I'm one of the film's few admirers, but you forgot The Legend of Bagger Vance.

comment #13

MilkMan says ...

Thank god for benevolent white people and the magical negroes who teach them valuable life lessons.

comment #14

BurmaShave says ...

How on earth is this kid simple, he just hard a hard life. The suggestion he is somehow some simple magic negro character is the most racist thing in play here.

comment #15

Abbey Normal says ...

What MilkMan said @13. This trailer makes me want to stab somebody...the tone of it is just unwatchably condescending.

I've noticed some movies based on real life occurences are made by people who think the story's veracity is enough. They don't bother to use casting, subtlety of tone, etc, to make it BELIEVABLE, which you must do whether the story it's based on is litererally true or not. Erin Brockovich actually managed the trick well; The Perfect Storm did not.

comment #16

ErrantElan says ...

BurmaShave is exactly right - the idiots claiming "racism" or at least trotting out the kneejerk "magic negro" canard are probably the racists, or at least just major, boring, intellectually-vapid idiots.

Especially if they haven't read the book or know the Michael Oher story. Go tell Michael Oher he's a "simple, magic negro" to his face. See what happens.

comment #17

ErrantElan says ...

And how is Sandra Bullock being a "sassy Southern woman" showing "range"?

She's not exactly "Southern", as she lived in Germany til she was 12, but she WAS born in Virginia, went to high school in Virginia, and went to college at East Carolina U. It's not exactly a stretch.

comment #18

Drew McW says ...

I compared it to "Rudy" after seeing it. Yes, this is familiar ground, but it is told well, with an admirable sensibility, and it absolutely nails the Alpha Southern mom character. I grew up in the South, my parents are both Ole Miss grads from Memphis, and there is an authenticity to the film that I found charming. It's barely a sports film, since there is no "big game," and I admired that, too. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it is a solid, heartfelt film, well-made and worth better than this reflexive hipster scorn.

comment #19

ErrantElan says ...

And in case simple-minded numbnuts like dangovich need it literally force-fed to them, the idea is class, not race. The reason you don't see many stories about middle-class black families taking in poor white kids is because it just doesn't happen that often.

Oher's life was abominable. He wasn't "simple" or "magic", he was a kid who NEEDED to get away from his abusive, crack-addled upbringing (and tons and tons of foster homes) to have a chance to succeed. There's no white or black about it.

comment #20

DeeZee says ...

Looks like a Sarah Palin pro-home schooling-themed Hallmark movie to me.

comment #21

MilkMan says ...

"The reason you don't see many stories about middle-class black families taking in poor white kids is because it just doesn't happen that often."

And how do you know that? What kind of field research have you done that would let you, with confidence, make a blanket statement like that?

I was responding to the genre, in which white people learn how to become better people through their contact with black people. It's a stale, tired genre, with stale, tired tropes.

comment #22

Chase Kahn says ...

I know shit when I see it and the trailer for "The Blind Side" is pure syrup. It's like the sports equivalent of "My Sister's Keeper".

comment #23

Tom Reagan says ...

It looks like a pretty awful film, and every time I've seen the trailer the audience laughs and boos it. What's really astonishing about it is that my friends made a fake trailer this summer for a movie about a down-on-his-luck middle class man who takes a homeless person into his family named "Pepper," even though Pepper is completely deranged and can barely speak English. When I see this trailer, all I can think of is "Pepper."

comment #24

actionman says ...

John Lee Hancock's screenplay for A Perfect World is a brilliant piece of work. I also loved The Rooke; cried my eyes out when Quaid took the mound. And yeah...The Alamo deserved better than it got.

But this looks like pure TV-movie stuff. I don't doubt any of what Drew McW said in his above post, but the film looks dull as dishwater.

comment #25

Sonny says ...

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