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.”