Get Religion has a interesting piece at Blind Sided, yet again. The College Football movies about the player at Ole (Myth). An interesting tidbit. If Nick Saban had not left LSU to go to the Miami Dolphins the family said LSU was the place he was going.
It quotes a newspaper story that says in part:
"Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side kept the No. 2 spot and actually saw its gross rise 17% to $40.1 million. … Kilday said The Blind Side is “kind of outside expectations, which probably suggests it’s a movie that connected with the heartland when the two coasts weren’t paying too much attention to it.”
I found it odd that the "coasts" were not paying attention to it. The Blind Side was a terrific recent book that was written by established journalist Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis among other things had a nice run at the Liberal magazine New Republic where he wrote some great pieces. Besides other well known books he is contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Further this book got a lot of press and good reviews on both coasts just a couple of years ago. I mean it even showed up on a C- Span book thing for goodness sake. So there was quite a bit of buzz.
Also I know perhaps college football is not big in the New York market but goodness it has some popularity on the West Coast.
Michael Lewis has the wonderful fortune of having this story fall into his lap because he grew up with one one of the "parents" of the adopted football player the movie is based on Michael Ohe.
The director of the movie was also blessed because the Tuohy family is so well connected in the College football world. One of their friends is the infamous Jimmy Sexton that represents it seems at times half the Coaches in the SEC. Thus the Coaches appear in the movie themselves playing themselves and the Coach at the school they were at at the time.
I am anxious to see the movie. The book was great and I suspect that this is the kind of movie that reading the book will provide even more richer context.
One thing I want to see is how big the Christian themes are in the movie. Needless to say it is essential part of how the very interesting Tuohy family see the world.
The Tuohy family are in some ways a combination of devout evangelical belief and the eccentric families that make the South so fun.
They are white , went to Ole Miss, but seem do not seem to have some of the hangups over "race". In fact they all appear to have a innocent naivete about it that does cause some problems they have to work through. There is a tension at times as they work out relating to their new son and he to them.
In the book the mother was one of the more interesting characters I thought. A sort of Full Speed Ahead Damn the Torpedos kind of Christian. As she puts it God gives money to people to see how they would handle it and my gosh she was not going to fail that test. In a funny part of the book we see an example of this. She had not informed her totally white family that they had adopted a 300 pound inner city black kid from the worse streets of Memphis whose birth mother was addicted to crack. So it was full steam ahead and poof he was in the family Christmas card photo. One Cousin called her and said "Ok I have 3 beers now what is up with the black kid in the photo".
The book had a lot of side angles. Again it was horrifying to see that some kids in this country have almost no basic understanding of how the world worked. That is how in the inner city some kids despite just being miles away from education and culture could be living in North Korea for their understanding of how the world operates.
It quotes a newspaper story that says in part:
"Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side kept the No. 2 spot and actually saw its gross rise 17% to $40.1 million. … Kilday said The Blind Side is “kind of outside expectations, which probably suggests it’s a movie that connected with the heartland when the two coasts weren’t paying too much attention to it.”
I found it odd that the "coasts" were not paying attention to it. The Blind Side was a terrific recent book that was written by established journalist Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis among other things had a nice run at the Liberal magazine New Republic where he wrote some great pieces. Besides other well known books he is contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Further this book got a lot of press and good reviews on both coasts just a couple of years ago. I mean it even showed up on a C- Span book thing for goodness sake. So there was quite a bit of buzz.
Also I know perhaps college football is not big in the New York market but goodness it has some popularity on the West Coast.
Michael Lewis has the wonderful fortune of having this story fall into his lap because he grew up with one one of the "parents" of the adopted football player the movie is based on Michael Ohe.
The director of the movie was also blessed because the Tuohy family is so well connected in the College football world. One of their friends is the infamous Jimmy Sexton that represents it seems at times half the Coaches in the SEC. Thus the Coaches appear in the movie themselves playing themselves and the Coach at the school they were at at the time.
I am anxious to see the movie. The book was great and I suspect that this is the kind of movie that reading the book will provide even more richer context.
One thing I want to see is how big the Christian themes are in the movie. Needless to say it is essential part of how the very interesting Tuohy family see the world.
The Tuohy family are in some ways a combination of devout evangelical belief and the eccentric families that make the South so fun.
They are white , went to Ole Miss, but seem do not seem to have some of the hangups over "race". In fact they all appear to have a innocent naivete about it that does cause some problems they have to work through. There is a tension at times as they work out relating to their new son and he to them.
In the book the mother was one of the more interesting characters I thought. A sort of Full Speed Ahead Damn the Torpedos kind of Christian. As she puts it God gives money to people to see how they would handle it and my gosh she was not going to fail that test. In a funny part of the book we see an example of this. She had not informed her totally white family that they had adopted a 300 pound inner city black kid from the worse streets of Memphis whose birth mother was addicted to crack. So it was full steam ahead and poof he was in the family Christmas card photo. One Cousin called her and said "Ok I have 3 beers now what is up with the black kid in the photo".
The book had a lot of side angles. Again it was horrifying to see that some kids in this country have almost no basic understanding of how the world worked. That is how in the inner city some kids despite just being miles away from education and culture could be living in North Korea for their understanding of how the world operates.
Of course Michael Oher himself the star of the movie is well beyond the stereotype. For a inner city kid raised(in reality on his own for most of his life) he is not angry at all. In fact so not angry the Coaches at the mostly white private school see him as a mystery. He is so passive he really has no interest in hitting anybody which is sort of a problem in football. He was different from the other inner city kids they coaches that focused their rage and angeron the football field.
There is of course another theme here and that is the interesting insight into college sports and recruiting.
But returning to the theme of this post why was this movie being such a success such a shock to so many people? Perhaps it is because there is no political red meat in the story. RED versus blue as they say. Perhaps it is because it portrays the reality that southern evangelicals are not raving hating intolerant theocrats. That is you can't put them in a box. No wonder it is a hit. People enjoy seeing movies that portray people with similar belief systems as not some threat to the Republic.
In many ways it is like the very intelligent Christian themed movie the Apostle that was also a huge hit.
I am looking forward to this movie.
But returning to the theme of this post why was this movie being such a success such a shock to so many people? Perhaps it is because there is no political red meat in the story. RED versus blue as they say. Perhaps it is because it portrays the reality that southern evangelicals are not raving hating intolerant theocrats. That is you can't put them in a box. No wonder it is a hit. People enjoy seeing movies that portray people with similar belief systems as not some threat to the Republic.
In many ways it is like the very intelligent Christian themed movie the Apostle that was also a huge hit.
I am looking forward to this movie.
2 comments:
The Blind Side
Superb and Mind-Blowing sports movie.
It's storyline is more than enough to take your breath away, it’s got some magnetic force that captivates you with immediate effect. If I was asked to rate this movie, I would have given 10 out of 10 to this movie. So lift your leisure, download The Blind Side movie, and rejoice the entertainment.
sandra bullock again do a nice job in this movie, watch this movie from http://www.pzack.com/
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