The Blind Side

From 2009 to the present day, I wrote off The Blind Side like it was nothing. I've never been a big football fan even though it is the most popular sport in the United States and I just got tired of all the praise that this film got. As with any film though, The Blind Side can't be judged until it's watched. It offers like a dozen things that seems to come out of nowhere and it's very likable indeed. An overall great film.

Based on a true story, The Blind Side follows around homeless teen Micheal Orr (Quinton Aaron) who never grew up with parents who were there for him and who's really got nothing going for him. Like a billet family, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and her husband Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) take Micheal in and raise him in a proper home that he never had. They show him the ways of life and Michael ends up turning into a football star through it all.

It sounds exactly like a football film but it also has the elements of family, how to do well in school and also how to channel violence in the right way. Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw play perfect parents and Bullock's work here won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar Award in 2010. Collins (Lily Collins) and S.J. (Jae Head) play the kids of the family and both come off as unexpectedly good and add fun and humor to the film.

Another reason this cannot be considered just a full football film is the racial issues touched on here. This part of the story is of a African-American teenager trying to live in the South where we know it can be hard and the film tries to deliver the message that everybody is the same regardless of  the color of your skin. I think this is one of the important messages in this world today and it is always nice when a film touches on this.

Once we get to the football scenes, we can't stay it's bad either. It's typical in the sense that it shows  the character Michael Orr developing a toughness that wasn't there before. It also adds a football flavor to an already packed film and it is fun to watch cameos from college football coaches Nick Saban to Lou Holtz. Don't expect any good acting from these coaches but that is to be expected and the quality of the acting by the cameos is kind of beside the point anyway.

The Blind Side is a majestic, heartfelt and insightful film that would work perfectly for the Relationship classes that are now taught in High School and College. The film is mostly for teenagers but also for the whole family too. Expect a tearjerker though.

4.5/5

Gravity

In this day and age, when it comes to films about space, there are some very different kind of films. On one end, there are truly low budget horror films like Jason X , Critters 4 and Leprechaun 4: In Space. There are also some decent small, indie films about space like the popular 2009 Moon and Europa Report from 2013.

That said, Gravity breaks all traditions regarding space films. Gravity has a well known director in Alfonso Cuaron, two big name actors, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in the leads and is trying very hard to appeal to a mainstream audience. When you put it all together, Gravity is one solid space movie but not perfect.

With the exception of the very last scene, space is the setting as we follow medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney ). During a standard spacewalk to the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew learn from Mission Control in Houston that debris is drifting towards them from a dead satellite destroyed by the Russians. As the debris damages the Shuttle and eventually disengages them from the ship, Ryan and Matt find themselves stranded in space with no communication with earth and oxygen running low.

I do not know why big name actors were needed in this film. Some of the small space films I mentioned earlier were just fine without a big name cast and in some ways very popular actors can be a distraction to an original film with the interesting subject like space. None the less, these leads are accountable, and do some very fine acting with some well established characters. Ryan is kind of a loner with a rough past and has lost a young child and is still very much recovering from that and trying to find herself.  Ryan's lost daughter is her main source of motivation and support for her. The leads do have some chemistry and both are quite likable and this is good.

The plot is not complex and very simple and this lends itself to a short running time for this movie. One main focus of this movie is to simply show space. Through excellent design and cinematography, it makes space look spectacular and strangely claustrophobic and it really stands out. There are some highlights to the plot but it is still too thin. At times, I felt a little bored and it felt like there just was not enough to this movie. If there was just a little more to it, this film could have been something else.

 As credits roll, one question I had was, "What is the meaning of the film?". Frankly, there doesn't seem to be one. Without it, you could question why should I care about this. The film doesn't even touch this. Why not? It's a beautiful movie but so what?

Gravity is a good film and I guess I wouldn't call it overrated but you might say it's something of an unfinished movie. That said, this is a film that will be most important more on a second or third viewing.

4/5