Guest Blogger: Taylyr W2

Blindside
I recently went to see the new movie The Blindside and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The movie is a nonfiction-based film that tells the trying yet remarkable and successful life of Michael Oher. Michael Oher started out from absolutely nothing, living in the ghetto of Tennessee, surrounded by drugs and violence, very neglected, and never receiving an acceptable education. When his neighbor brought him to the other side of Tennessee to a private school to try to convince the school to take in his son and Michael, that’s when his fate began to turn. After the coach observed Michael shooting some hoops and his remarkable stature, he then convinced the school to take Michael in regardless of his academic abilities. Everyone includeing the teachers doubted him and had no hope for him. After his first day of school we see Michael take his bookbag (which is a plastic grocery bag) to the Laundromat to wash his only other pair of shorts in someone elses machine. Then he begins to walk alone the road, and that’s when Leigh Anne Touhy and her family drive past him (another family whose kids attend the school, very well-off) she wont take no for an answer that she takes him in. Well after that he ends up staying with them all the way throughout his highschool year, then football season begins. Everyone expects Michael to be very good at football and very dominating due to his size and strength but at first he is standoff ish. It then takes Leigh Anne to talk to him to tell him the team is like his family the Touhys and he needs to protect them like he does the Touhys, that’s when he begins dominating the field. After a pivitol game, many college scouts wanted him. At the very end of the movie they show the real pictures of Michael and the Touhy family, it really adds to the movie and really shows how the movie was so accurate. Quinton Aaron played the part of Michael Oher to the T; he depicts the sadness and the part of a kid who just wants a real family so well. I don’t think anyone else could have filled that part. Sandra Bullock surprised me and played the part of a southern belle very well, and I loved how honest she was throughout the movie. Michael Oher tended to be very shy and empty at first. He never asked for much, and always protected his new family. He was never influenced by the drugs and violience that surrounded him his whole life even in his lowest points. I like how Leigh Anne never questioned taking care of Michael no matter what everyone else thought or by his race. I think the audience will take away the power of kindness, and selflessness. And that even though you might have so many things going against you that you can pull out of it, and to take the help from others willing. Well the reviewer from nytimes seems to think that it didn’t have enough suspense and drama, but I disagree I think it had an even balance. I defiantly had enough drama. But Overall I highly recommend this film. It is completely worth your money, you’ll leave the theatre feeling like there is hope even under all the hate in the world.