The Blind Side
 

So... isn't this kind of early to release the story of Michael Oher, who is a rookie with the Baltimore Ravens currently? Is it just me?

Book came out in 2006 Mike.

Well that's news to me, thanks. So he was just starting college/university when his story was already released??

Right, which also means the story was obviously written as he was being recruited.

Michael Lewis is the guy who wrote Moneyball (some misinformed people seem to think that was a Billy Beane autobiography) and Liar's Poker.

Ah ok, I liked Moneyball, had no idea Lewis wrote some Oher book.

I teach Blindside to my seniors and it has been a tremendously popular and eye-opening book for those that chose to read it (we do independent reading). I highly recommend it. In fact, the biggest complaint about the book I've heard from jocks and non-jocks alike is he delves a bit too much into stats and football, they just love Michael's personal story so much more (even the kids that picked it because it sounded like it was about football).

I see what you did there.

Good book. Too bad it looks like the movie is going to blow.

You're not excited to see Sandra Bullock do her best Varsity Blues accent?

Yep, book was great and I don't think that they will be able to fully capture the story in a movie.

Yeah, pretty good book. The best part was how LT basically revolutionized the game. He forced teams to find freakish athletes to play left tackle basically so he wouldn't kill their QB, Joe Montana in particular.

I agree with this 100% I loved the book, but can't see a movie in it.

Of course, writing about Oher now seems completely brilliant that he's been a great OL at Ole Miss and now is doing well in Baltimore.

I still did like the evolution of the position and the salaries part of the book, but Oher's story was great.

Just the part in the trailer where Sandra Bullock calls Nick Saban handsome is enough to make me not want to see this.

You think that's bad...they have already green-lit the sequel. Blind Side 2: The Ravening

The book was really disappointing. The Oher portion could have been covered in one chapter. As brilliant and succinct as MoneyBall was, I felt like The Blind Side was a meandering unfocused dishonest mess.

The movie looks appropriately bad.

I like the movie, it's pretty faithful to Oher's story as presented in the book with only a few scenes that I thought were Hollywooded up, the most obnoxious one was very close to the ending. Although it had a brief bit about Theismann and Taylor at the very beginning it didn't go into much detail about the left tackle position or any of the other football stuff in the book. The actors and actresses were a lot like how I imagined the characters while reading the book, Bullock was good and the kid who played the youngest child was very funny. One thing I got a kick out of were how many of the coaches that came over to recruit Oher were wearing attire from schools that no longer employed them (Saban for LSU, Tuberville for Auburn, Holtz for South Carolina, Fulmer for Tennessee, and Nutt for Arkansas). I enjoyed the book and I was kind of worried before seeing the movie due to the previews but it turned out pretty good.

Subby,

I think you would be absolutely shocked to find out that the adoptive parents are THRILLED with the movie.

I read the book. It started decently but, near the end, I just got bored.

The start was interesting in terms of the explanation of the LT position and the human element re Oher's life was ok to follow. However, near the end, when it became about recruitment, how great he was, blah blah blah... it just got to be a little too much for me and I just skimmed the last 50 pages or so.

I would so kick Jesse James' ass to have a shot at Sandra Bullock

This is like putting a positive spin on dog fighting. I have not read the book, nor do Iplan to see the movie, but I did play college football with a lot of these players who were recruited/sold by their parents out of Junior High and Grade school to these white upper class religious schools and they all have horror stories to tell about either themselves or friends they grew up with.

Basically these kids are sold into slavery by their parents to the upper class High schools and then live in terror of getting kicked out of their new homes, because they lose their starting positions, or worse yet get hurt.

Really sad and dark side for America's parents, both for the buyers and sellers of these children. Did this side of these stories make it into the Book? I think Spike Lee did a documentary about some of these kids once.

I read the book, and Oher's story is nothing like that.

Wife and I watched it today, was a good flick. Haven't read the book. Sandra Bullock is never hard to look @.

Fantastic movie. Lots of humor and an overall good story. I'd recommend it to just about everyone.

I think they had to do the film while Sandra Bullock is still young enough to play a believable mother.

Of course they are, the movie is basically about them. Was looking forward to this since the book is so good. But Oher was an afterthought in it. Movie seemed to revolve around Bullock's character when it should have been more about Oher. It was cheesey and played up every bad cliche in these kind of movies. I wanted to like it, but I think the story was about Michael Oher, not how great of a person she is.

Loved the movie, and read most of the book today while home with sick wife / child and am thoroughly enjoying it as well.

I think it's hard to read between the lines to see how much was honesty and how much was boosterism, but the one image I'll keep was some of the family photos at the end of the movie, where it's pretty clear they were a family. Or much better actors than the movie had. One or the other. But the pictures sure LOOKED like they were a close family.

It's kind of interesting to read how many people thought this movie was going to be terrible, yet it ended up being a good movie.

It was terrible. I'm amazed at how many people think it's good.

The worst part was the first football game with the stereotypical redneck team and the one father who looked like Charlie Daniels. But the movie was filled with that. Cartoonish supporting characters. Simplistic solutions. (One speech to turn him into an All World LT! Wow!) It was just really lazy screenwriting.

lol

It was a 2 hour movie focusing on far more than how they turned him into an LT (and in fact the movie screws that part up, although a key part of his story WAS what it took to turn him from a freakish athlete into a football player). But it was still a really great feel-good story. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Most of the "cartoon characters" were invented ones there to represent whole groups of people.

And Sandra Bullock didn't deserve the Oscar.

(im serious)

The Tuohy's took him for one reason only. He could play football. They knew he was going to be one of the best players in his class and they wanted to recruit him for Ole Miss.

Funny that this got bumped, I just saw the movie for the first time last night.

It wasn’t my cup of tea; I can’t say it was a bad movie, because it succeeded at being exactly what it wanted to be, a Lifetime movie with better production value.

I read the book several years ago so I don’t remember many details, but I seem to remember Big Tony and his son, playing a lot bigger role once he was in school. I hope that part got dropped for brevity, and not because it didn’t fit the theme of white benevolence.

Turns out you didn't even need to.

Curious if you've read the whole book or are just basing this off the film?

It's based in Memphis. It's GE. It's not hard to figure out his slant :)

I've read the entire book (haven't seen the movie), and I agree with GE. If Oher was a 5'8'', 150 lb guy, I'm convinced the Tuohy's wouldn't have looked at him twice.

Just watched the movie.

If this is what passes for award winning actressing, then Kristen Stewart will win for the next installment of Twilight.

But anyways, meh movie. Like someone said, a Lifetime movie with a bigger budget.

I have never seen the film, but I think the movie acts like just found him on the street. That is not the case at all.

They adopted him after his freshman year in high school. It was already established he was going to be a heck of a football player.

I am going to keep thinking that the real parents decided to adopt him NOT just for football and they really were doing a good thing. I'd really like to believe that, ya know so its not like they didnt give a fuck and only wanted the footballness, some people have a heart right? so yes I'm going to believe these people did.

Well, sort of. They didn't actually adopt him until late in the NCAA recruiting process, since they had already given him tons of "gifts". The movie does "gloss" (kind word) over the fact that he was already a football player and already on All-American lists, but the fact was at the time he was NOT a very good football player. He was a freakish athlete, so he was being drooled over, but knew very little about football itself. It took a LOT of work to turn him into one.

The movie does also essentially remove Sean Tuohy's role in all this, since he was the first to start helping Michael out with free lunches, something he was also doing for the other handful of poor black kids attending the school. Was he directing all of them to Ole Miss as well?

Granted there is lots of room to be cynical over the whole thing, and maybe everyone and the NCAA are right about it. But there's also a ring of just trying to help someone who really looks like a good kid and just needed some help. The book pulls very few punches over the NCAA, Coach Freeze, Big Tony, and the rest, and certainly broaches the subject. I'd recommend the book highly, it's an interesting read to me, not just on Michael Oher, but for all the other football bits in there.

He was named lineman of the year after the 2003 season and was named by the recruiting services as a five start player. He didn't move in with the Tuohy's until 2004. I think he was already living with another student at Briarcrest. He was not going to be homeless if the Tuohy's didn't take him in.

The other handful black kids were attending the school for athletic purposes only. To the best of my knowledge, the Tuohy's have not adopted anymore poor black kids.

I can see why there arent more people who care about anything in the world

I really liked the book but thought the movie was "eh". Just seemed they created stereotype characters and everything was one big cliche. I guess I can see why people liked it (it's a feel-good movie for the masses).

How many more top football prospects have the Touhys adopted?

And all of that was on his POTENTIAL, not his actual production.


He was bouncing around homes at the time, not staying with anyone in particular very long. When he finally moved in, they had to pick up clothes and whatnot from a handful of places (I'd have to go back and check the book section to get an exact number).


Sean Tuohy was paying quite a bit for those kids to attend, though (lunch accounts and tuition).

Just watched this tonight...haven't read the book...but I'd like to think that family did what they did for the right reasons. I'm not saying they did or didn't, just that I hope there are people like that living among us.

OK, so I finally did see the movie and I have one big question.

Could he read or write?

On one hand, you have the teacher who pulls out a poem that he supposedly wrote from the trash, but on the other hand, he is having to take all his tests orally, and when they do give him a written test he just draws a picture on the back.