Posts tagged Kathy Bates
“The Blind Side” Watch Your Blind Side
Nov 25th
Watch Your Blind Side
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE BLIND SIDE tells the true-life story of how Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher was a homeless teenager who was taken in by a wealthy Memphis family and helped to get into college.
Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, the woman who was the driving force behind this remarkable story, and she gives a performance worthy of an Academy Award nomination and could just as easily win next year for Best Actress.
Tim McGraw plays Sean Tuohy, Leigh Anne’s husband, and one night the family is out driving in the rain when they spot Michael walking along the road. Leigh Anne’s two children know who he is, because he attends the same school they do, and so Leigh Anne makes Sean stop, and she gets out to ask Michael if he has a place to stay that night, adding, “Don’t you lie to me.”
As Sean and his son and daughter watch, Sean says, “I’ve seen that look many times. She’s about to get her way.”
So, the Tuohys take “Big Mike,” as he is called at school, home with them and let him sleep overnight on the couch, which leads to a much longer relationship and the basis for this heartwarming, inspirational, and tearful movie.
Because of Big Mike’s size, he is a natural to try out for the school’s football team, but he is not a natural at playing the game, and some of the humor in the story comes from the scenes of coaching and working with the Tuohy’s son, Sean Jr., who knows the game, but is too small himself to play.
However, it is Leigh Anne who teaches Michael the fundamental reason for playing left offensive tackle, which is the basis for the title of the film. She says that Michael has to protect the quarterback’s blind side from an onrushing defensive player and that he should think of the quarterback as he does his new family: When he is protecting the quarterback, he is protecting them.
Everybody in the family pitches in to help Michael with his grades, too, so that he can remain eligible to play, and Leigh Anne even hires a tutor for him to help him get a scholarship for college.
THE BLIND SIDE is so good that you will need to watch your own emotional blind side.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Blind Side – Movie Trailer
Nov 20th
Taken in by a well-to-do family and offered a second chance at life, a homeless teen grows to become the star athlete projected to be the first pick at the NFL draft in this sports-themed comedy drama inspired by author Michael Lewis’ best-seller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Michael Oher was living on the streets when he was welcomed into the home of a conservative suburban family, but over time he matured into a talented athlete. As the NFL draft approaches, fans and sports radio personalities alike speculate that Oher will be the hottest pick of the year. Sandra Bullock stars in a film written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Alamo).
“Revolutionary Road” Death of the American Dream
Feb 19th
Death of the American Dream
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD has admirable qualities, but it is also a disappointment in many more ways than one.
Admirable, of course, is that it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, it was directed by Winslet’s husband, Sam Mendes, and it is based on the acclaimed 1961 novel by Richard Yates.
One of the disappointments is built into the story, which takes place in 1955 and is about what was known as “the American Dream.”
According to BREWER’S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE, the American Dream is “a phrase epitomizing the democratic ideals and aspirations on which America had been founded, the American way of life at its best,” and back then that included a happy marriage, two children, a house in the suburbs, and a fulfilling job that is rewarding.
When the film opens, we see Frank and April meet at a party in New York City. Frank is a veteran of World War II, and April is studying to be an actress.
We skip ahead to when they are already married and April is appearing in a community-theater production with disappointing, humiliating results. Frank says to April, “Well, I guess it wasn’t exactly a triumph or anything, was it?”
On the way home, they get into an argument, Frank stops the car, he calls her “sick,” and she calls him “disgusting.”
Then we see a flashback to when they bought their house in Connecticut on Revolutionary Road.
Frank commutes to his boring job in New York City, and on his 30th birthday he does something that we hope is out of character.
April believes that Frank is the most interesting person she has ever met, and she tells him her idea that will change their lives forever. She wants to sell their house and everything else they have, move the family to Paris, and she will work to support the family while Frank will have all the time he needs to figure out what he wants to do.
Frank agrees, because their whole existence is that they are different from everyone else and that they are “special.”
However, they aren’t really special; they just think they are and have deluded themselves into believing that, especially when something happens at work that makes Frank get cold feet about Paris.
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is the death of the American Dream with many false endings.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”