Sunday, December 6, 2009

EXCESSIVE BLOCKING: The Blind Side is definitely a well-made movie and tells its story well, but loses something important from the book--distance. The lengthy discussion in the book of how and why the left tackle position became so important in condensed to a brief voiceover from Sandra Bullock at the start of the film, over the film of the Lawrence Taylor-Joe Theisman incident. Likewise, the film loses the skepticism and uncertainty Lewis brings into the book at first--even though Sean Tuohy was a childhood friend of his, at least at first, Lewis is not uncertain that their aims are entirely altrustic and above-board.

There's also a couple of really lame "ghetto" scenes near the end of the film that pull you out of the film, and a few minor continuity errors, largely due to them filming in Georgia, rather than Memphis. For instance, even though there's a brief discussion of how the Tuohys don't know any Democrats, before that, we see in their son's room what I immediately recognized as a Harold Ford, Jr. for Congress poster. But that said, you can't deny that it's moving, and the theatre I was in sat, no one leaving, even through the credits, when we see pictures of the real Michael Oher and the Tuohys--that says something.

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