The Blind Side

Boy, am I feeling good tonight. I’m doing my review for The Blind Side tonight, which means that I have been on a long journey myself, and I can see the finish line just ahead. If you have been following me, then you know that this is Best Picture nominee number nine, leaving just one left for next time. But, I will talk about Up next time. This time, it’s The Blind Side.

Well, just like a lot of these Best Picture films, I’d never really heard of them and hadn’t seen trailers and watched them fresh. Precious was like that. An Education was like that. Up in the Air was like that. The Blind Side was half that. I knew of its existence. I had seen the title at the theater, but I had no idea what it was about or anything.

So, a couple of my friends have seen it, and they have said that it’s a feel good movie about football, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. You see, I really don’t care about football. It’s boring to me and I describe it as ‘an excuse for a bunch of grown men to grab each other’. But, because of my promise to you, the reader, I had to watch it since it is one of the nominees.

I went and saw it this evening and we’re given the story of a young boy named ‘Big’ Mike Oher who lives in Memphis. I’m assuming it was his foster father got him into a Christian school, but then they dumped him and thus Michael was all alone (at least that’s what I’m assuming, since it didn’t really seem to explain that part as well).

We then get to know the Tuohy family. They are a rich southern family which consists of a husband and wife and a daughter and a son. S.J. (the son) goes to school with Michael and on their way home one night, the family sees Michael walking in the freezing cold. Leigh Anne (the wife) convinces Sean (the husband) to stop and let him stay the night with them.

So, the movie snowballs from there (in a good way). Michael decides to stay and becomes a big brother to Collins and S.J. Leigh Anne teaches him several things and Michael starts to have confidence in himself and do better at school and everything. She then has him join the football team and he learns to be the ‘Left Tackle’ and is amazing at it.

Well, there are a lot of obstacles that Michael has to face and he finds it hard to feel welcome and become a part of the family until much later in the movie. It truly is a feel good movie.

So, here comes the question. Do I think it deserves to be one of the Best Picture Nominations? Well, compared to some of the other movies I’ve watched, I would say yes. I think it was very good, and it was nice to see something that wasn’t quite so artsy-fartsy up for Best Picture. Do I think it will win? No, I don’t think so, but at least the nomination is nice.

But yeah, I did like this movie. It was a breath of fresh air compared to such downers as An Education and Precious. The acting was fantastic and the plot wasn’t too bad either, apart from it being one of those stories that’s been done tons and tons and tons of times before. But, it’s based on a true story, so we’ve got to give it that.

But yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I was fun and made me laugh several times, and almost made me cry. Not quite, but almost. I give it 8 out of 10.