The Blind Side...of all that's good in the world

I don't know how to say this, so let me just spit it out:

Last Friday, I snuck in to watch what I soon learned was one of the most racist films to earn an Oscar nod (and tragically, most likely Oscar) since Breakfast At Tiffany's. Some may call it 'feel-good' and 'inspirational.' I call it offensive garbage.

Now I can already hear you bloodthirsty genre fans scratching your heads in confusion. "I Googled 'horror!'", you mumble, or, for those 3 viewers that seem to find this one page every month, "I just wanted a good headshot of Marc Blucas looking like an idiot ." 

I understand your pain and will now open a door for you to exit, should you choose. Feel free to return at a latter date, such as Thursday when I hope to post genital ripping praise of Lars von Trier's Antichrist or next week when the Day of the Dead remake gets its chance to thud. Allow me, however, this one pocket of cyberspace to waste on a movie that deserves none of the baffling praise it has somehow earned. 

And for the loyal readers who actually read this way too long synopsis of a way too long and unnecessary film, I threw in a reference to Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror. Don't say I don't love you.

Also of note: throughout this 'review', you may hear some electro jazz music playing in intermittent spurts. Trust me, you'll know (bwamm chicka chicka...I clearly don't know my porn music). This signifies an ideal moment for any director of feature length pornography--professional or amateur, we're all artists here--to take the otherwise uninteresting scene into X-rated territory.

Not a Quick Plot: A kindly janitor named Tony comes to a private Christian school to try to enroll his son, Stephen. In order to do this, he has to talk with the school’s basketball and football coach (Ray McKinnon, who gets to make a lot of Karrrr-azay faces in a bid to nip at Jim Carrey’s ankles) because of course, young black men are athletic and will make fine additions to any team. Turns out, Tony has ANOTHER young, potentially athletic black man under his occasional care (aka, he sometimes sleeps on Tony’s couch) named Big Mike (Quinton Aaron, who gets to...mumble and occasionally walk), and wouldn’t it be great if he could go to school too? 

Yes, that’s a fine idea, and what a nice gesture from a caring man like Tony.

Now to follow in the footsteps of the film, let us never speak of Tony again.

Big Mike walks to school and stands out, according to one source, like a fly in milk because apparently, there are no black people in Christian small towns. No black people except for Big Mike. And Tony and Stephen, but they have served the script’s purpose and seem to have evaporated into the glistening Caucasian air. Since they don’t have any nice white people to adopt them, we’re led to believe they will probably turn to drugs and die early deaths.

In the classroom, Big Mike is kind of a drag. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t seem to learn. Teachers snidely talk about his lack of ability, and Big Mike spends a few evenings hanging out at a laundromat and making hesitant eyes at the town’s only black woman (bwamm chikka chikka chikka) until one day, while walking nowhere in the rain, he crosses the street in front of the Tuohy family. Father Tuohy, played by Tim McGraw as a man comprised entirely of knowing grins, tells Big Mike he can “go on,” because apparently black people need permission to cross the street in 21st century Tennessee. Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock in what I believe to be a role she sold her soul to Satan to be considered for an Oscar for) insists Big Mike come home to the Tuohy mansion and spend the night on the couch. (bwamm chikka chikka chikka). 

The next morning, she wakes up and wonders if he stole anything.

He didn’t, of course, because he had been touched by the spirit of Caucasia. Leigh Anne drives Big Mike to his mother’s house on The Other Side of Town where a bunch of thuggish black men call her Snowflake and suggestively wink in her direction. Clearly homeless, Big Mike sheepishly returns and before long, the Tuohys (teen daughter and horrendous man-child son S.J. included) are sharing their Thanksgiving dinner with the monosyllabic new guest and Leigh Anne is buying him rugby shirts, making his futon, and attending parent teacher conferences where she learns that Michael (as he’s now known because nobody on the Streets ever knew he didn’t like being called Big Mike) tested in the 98th percentile for “protective instincts.” 

Now I’m not from the south, but are students really tested on this? Am I crazy, or is this something generally reserved to describe quality guard dogs? Anyway, Big Mike gets some extra help tutoring from kindly teacher Kim Dickens (bwamm chikka chikka) and starts to smile more. Also, he gets pet by S.J.

D’oh! I skipped over the amazingly poignant scene wherein the Tuoys go to a fancy restaurant for dinner, and Michael stays behind to embrace the busboy. When asked about the identity of this rare African American male not selling drugs on The Wrong Side of Town, Michael explains that he is his brother.

And like Tony and Stephen, we never see him again.

Anyway, Michael becomes such a big part of the family, he’s actually allowed to pose with the Tuoys ) for their annual Christmas portrait! Of course, Leigh Anne assures the slack-jawed McGraw that she won’t use the photo on the Christmas card but cut to--get this--the Christmas card, complete with Michael’s smiling mug in the background! You totally didn’t see that coming, did you??? 

Naturally, the questions start coming. Leigh Anne sometimes dines on $18 salads with a few girlfriends who wear really big accessories and colorful scarves, which naturally means they’re the kind of women who don’t approve of a black man sharing house space with Leigh Anne or her 16 year old daughter Collins. One of them even compares the Christmas card to a still from 1976’s King Kong, 

which is a terribly cruel insult to both black people and Jessica Lange. 

The other great thing about this scene is it gives us the opportunity to hear this line: 

“You’re changing that boy’s life.” 

To which we can all mouth in prediction at the same time Leigh Anne’s heartfelt response:

“No. He’s changing mine.” (presumably by teaching her that black people like rugby shirts)

Soon it’s time to legally adopt Michael, a surprisingly easy feat when you’re white and Southern because you can waltz into a state office, cut the line, and charm everyone around you with your own protective pluck and low cut top. Leigh Anne is also saddened by just how easy a process it is to claim a young black man as your own, so she seeks out Michael’s birth mother so that she can direct her pity somewhere else. According to a social worker, this is a woman who’s been described as having “more than a dozen” children and naturally, there’s little Leigh Anne can do to comfort her (bwamm chickka chickka).

Leigh Anne can, however, buy Michael a brand new truck and Michael can, of course, take freckly demon seed S.J. out for a spin and immediately get into a nearly fatal crash because he was distracted singing “Bust A Move” with a nine-year-old rather than watching the road. 

Sadly, S.J. survives unscathed.

Oh well, glad that unpleasantness is behind us, because now it’s FOOTBALL SEASON! Remember, this is the whole reason Michael ever had a shot at The Good Life With White People, so it’s very important that this young man prove himself on the field. Unfortunately, football is haaaaaard. Poor Michael can’t really get a grip on the logistics, but more importantly, the big guy seems positively timid when it comes to tackling other men. Coach Rubber Face can do nothing but cross his eyes and make stupid mouth gestures. Thankfully, Leigh Anne is watching eagle eyed and solves the problem: Michael doesn’t want to hurt anybody, but if he thinks of the football team as his family and the other guys as Oompah Loompahs, he’ll be amazing! 

Remember, this is the same dog--dude, I mean dude, who tested in the 98th percentile for protective instincts.

Cut to the first Big Game, where Michael is a little slow to get moving. Also, everyone in the crowd not now in love with Michael is a blazing racist because the only black people they know--if any--come from The Wrong Side of Town. This also applies to the referee, who flags Michael for no reason other than, we’re all supposed to believe, the color of his skin. Because there are no black people playing football in 21st century Tennessee. Ah well, at least this is enough to make Coach Stupid Rubber Face realize that he loves Michael like a son. Naturally. 

So now Michael is popular ‘n stuff and everyone--including football coaches and college recruiters--want a piece of him. We even get a scene where Leigh Anne watches--in between coaching cheerleading, apparently--as a huddle of white men approach Michael and eye his giant arms as if they’re primed for heavy labor on the cotton fields. 

Again, really wish I was joking.

Since there’s still another 30 minutes let in the film, it’s time for Another Conflict. This time, Michael needs to raise his grades a bit, which is easy enough when Kathy Bates is your tutor (even if she is shhhhh! a Democrat; bwam chickka chicka). Of course, there’s one crusty old white English teacher who isn’t charmed by Michael’s poor writing skills. This is where Smiley McGraw comes in handy to recite The Charge of the Light Brigade to an otherwise possibly illiterate Michael, who then writes an essay that earns him the A he needs. 

No comment on the fact that Michael doesn’t seem to actually read the poem, providing struggling English students with a very poor example of how to earn a scholarship (i.e., have a dad like Tim McGraw).

So you thought we’re ready for the Happy Ending, right? Nooooooo. We need to EARN it! This is a Best Picture nominee, for goodness sake. See, now that Michael is the cat’s plus size pajamas, he can actually choose which university to bestow his greatness upon. Like the rest of the film, there’s no actual thought process for the character to go through. He simply mumbles in agreement after a quick montage where various men in suits wine and dine him and, more importantly, precocious little S.J. who’s far more concerned with what gee whiz bonus he gets in return for Michael’s letter of intent. 

After a lot of casual prodding, Michael decides to attend Ole Miss (which I assume is code for the University of Mississippi, but I’m not southern so I probably don’t deserve to know) but there’s Drama here because this is the alma mater of both Tuoys. Leigh Anne was even a cheerleader there! So in steps the NCAA to investigate whether the Tuoys just adopted this defensive prodigy in the hopes of improving their Division I’s roster. A black woman with a severe haircut and, most likely no happy adolescence with a nice white family is positively mean to the baffled Michael. 

Hurt and shocked at being allowed to display any sign of individuality, Michael storms off and returns to his childhood home where all the poor black people are doing drugs and drinking alcohol. I’d really like to pretend that was an exaggeration. It’s not.

Michael hesitantly parties with his new friends, (bwammm chicka chicka) but gets upset when they make sexual comments about his snowflake of a mother and white sister. I mean, Michael has shown absolutely no interest in the opposite sex the entire film, so naturally the mere thought that someone else would say such words rile his Protective Instinct (98 %, remember). Bad Black Drug Dealer pulls a gun on Michael, but since our hero is working on protective adrenaline, he easily KOs BBDD and three other villainous, non-white tutored thugs and leaves.

This brings us to the arguably Greatest Scene of All Time, and easily the reason Sandra Bullock will walk home with a quickly lessening in value Oscar in a few days. Leigh Anne has had time to think about the past year’s events and has concluded that she might not a good person. To make peace with herself, she drives back to The Wrong Side of Town to confront The Bad Black Guys, most of whom sit menacingly on a porch with their tattoos glistening with nefarious intentions under the hot sun. With her Wonder Bra beaming and southern accent chirping, Leigh Anne convinces the crowd that she’s a proud NRA member holding a gun in her designer purse. 

That’s all they need to let her go. (bwamm chick chicka)

Wow white people rule. They even intimidate black people with their sass!

Michael, meanwhile, is eventually found (not that hard because he’s the only black person on the Not Wrong Side of Town, and horizontal stripes from rugby shirts help to widen his girth even further). Leigh Anne apologizes, Michael decides Ole Miss will be his new home no matter what, and an epilogue leads them to orientation day on campus. A few attractive freshmen pass his glance, to which Leigh Anne then threatens to cut off his penis if he dares impregnate a fellow student. 

“She means it!”  says S.J. with a smile, finally confirming what I suspected from the beginning: that he is indeed a 30 year old man akin to Burial Ground’s Peter Bark, only Leigh Anne castrated him when he did indeed get someone pregnant. It explains so very much.

Real-life footage pops up over the credits as the actual Michael Oher gets drafted by the NFL, daughter Collins gets the surely equal in grandeur honor of becoming a college cheerleader, S.J. gets to walk onto the opening day football field wearing a sweater vest, and the audience around me mumbles how wonderful the last 2 hours of hell were. I consider suicide.

Lessons Learned

Owning 85 Taco Bells is an incredibly lucrative profession

The bigger the accessories, the bigger the racist

You’ll never love clothing nearly as much as you love it in the store

Thugs packing heat are easily intimidated by prayer group presidents

Disclaimer

Please understand, I mean no disrespect to the Tuohy family or Michael Oher. If this indeed their story, then more power to them for being kind and charitable and defeating the odds. They--but more importantly, we--simply deserve better. 

Conclusion

This film received a nomination as Best Picture of the Year. Enough of the Hollywood industry considered this to be just as good, if not better than, Inglourious Basterds. Thus far, it’s made over ten times more money than The Hurt Locker. This, a film in which every line that isn’t shockingly offensive in a did-they-really-say-that way, is anticipated by any audience member with a slight hold on the English language. A film that insists, sometimes outright, that black people suffer in the world every day but every once in a while, a loving white family can change that. A film whose central character has zero weight on anything that happens around him.

An equally long essay could be written comparing The Blind Side to Precious, a film also about an overweight, underloved African American. But see the difference, to sum up quickly, is that Precious cares about its lead. It empowers her. It allows actress Gabourey Sidibe room to create a human being that can be hurt and find her own strength to deal with that, occasionally with help from others but most importantly, from within herself. It’s not a flawless film by any means, but it is a film about characters that actually develop, for better and worse. Quinton Aaron's only direction as an actor is to quietly accept everything white people tell him. 

Although, it should be noted, Michael is often compared to an onion composed of many layers. 

Yes, just like Shrek.

The Blind Side is a McDonald’s--or, more appropriately, Taco Bell--dollar menu item. Seemingly appealing, yet less fulfilling than the gum scraped off a sidewalk. Dangerous to your health and destructive to the minds and bodies of those that consume it. It creates an imaginary fantasy world where people are either amazingly angelic, uneducated and dangerous, or blank slates willing to fall on whichever side seizes them with prettier colors. 

This film makes me embarrassed to be considered white. And alive.

Now let's forget our troubles with a cute photo of an English bulldog puppy.

Patrick Still Lives...in a different continent, body, language, and movie

Pop Quiz: What’s the best way to make a sequel?

1. Retain as much of the talent from the film’s original source and continue to develop the story in a linear and sensical fashion
2. Multiply the budget and retell your story TO THE EXTREME!!!
3. Don’t do it.
4. Sell the rights to another country and let new hands do what they want, including transforming the tale into a trashtastic good time and increasing the amount of nudity and slapping by 189% 

If you selected D, the Patrick Still Lives!* is the movie for you. 

Oh boy. Is it ever.

Quick Plot: A young man and his father are standing on the side of a quiet country road when a passing vehicle hurls a bottle(? Three rewinds and I still couldn’t confidently identify the object) out the window. While the assailant is never fully identified, I’ll assume it’s someone along the lines of Roger Clemens or Johann Santana, as this one toss sends the son (a revamped, straight-haired Patrick) into a coma.

Fast forward some unidentified amount of time later, when Patrick Hershell is under the care of his slightly mad scientist dad in a secluded private hospital with a luxury resort connected to its backyard. Papa Hershell has invited a few mystery guests to spend a few days bathing, dining, lounging in the nude, being blackmailed, and eventually, murdered.

There’s a stiff Parliamentarian and his horny wife, a single young rich fellow wonderfully named David Davis, a hairy-chested playboy and his not girlfriend played by Burial Ground ’s boob-bitten mother Mariangela Giordano (and, it should be noted, her bare breasts). Also on the grounds is a pretty young secretary, two German Shepherds, and a maid/world’s worst dog trainer and bad omen warner. Everything’s all fun and Italian until Lyndon, the asexual politician, takes a morning swim and ends up a steamed and skinned corpse.

This somehow inspires Giordano's character to drink like Margot Kidder at a wedding and crash dinner naked. If that weren’t enough, she proceeds to pick a catfight with the grieving widow, then attempt to seduce David Davis (I have no plans to stop writing out his entire name). Shocking enough, not all men dig plastered middle aged women who spend 71% of their day in the nude. Instead of sweaty Euro sex, David Davis and Giordano's breasts engage in a three minute slap fight. It’s even more incredible than I can possibly explain.

Oh wait! But where did Patrick go? Not very far, since he’s comatose and only able to communicate via typewriter (the budget has clearly increased; note that this time, the keys move themselves) and once again, harnessing a crush on the attractive clinic employee. It’s a tad hard to even remember the title character amongst the sleazy joy of our soon-to-be victims, but in case you hadn’t figured it out, this is a sequel in name only. The concept remains while the tone and essentially, the genre get a turn of the decade makeover. Patrick keeps his telekinetic homicidal tendencies to kill his way through the (possibly responsible for his condition) party guests but that almost seems secondary to watching amusingly unlikable rich Italians embarrass themselves. It’s certainly more fun than Patrick, albeit a whole lot less classy. 

Depending on your mood, that can be a wonderful thing.

High Points

One death-by-car-window is pretty damn memorable and makes Rose McGowan’s garage door demise in Scream look a little less impressive

I’m not normally one to recommend a film based on its abundance of female nudity and women being slapped silly, but the ridiculousness of how both are featured in every other scene is rather amusing in itself

Low Points

At around 100 minutes, the running time isn’t unreasonable, but with such poorly paced and drawn out “chase” scenes, Patrick Still Lives (!) drags like a paraplegic learning how to walk

The death by dogs is possibly the tamest animal attack put on film since pipe cleaner spiders and drugged up toads were placed atop people pretending to be actors in Frogs

Lessons Learned

Italian women really don’t like to wear clothes or undergarments. Similarly, everybody in Europe sleeps buck naked

If a very menacing sharp object is aimed your way, it’s probably wise to close your legs

Denying your wife sex for months at at time may cause her to develop a serious case of nymphomania 

Syphilis can be transmitted through catfighting

Googly eyes floating over a green tinted set may resemble some of the baddies in Super Mario World, but they are also quite difficult to survive

Winning Line

“His death was due to a fatality.”

Is it me, or is this like saying a puppy is due to a baby dog?

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you loved the slow buildup and haunting atmosphere of Patrick, you may very well despise this film. HOWEVER, if exploitation is your cheese, melt this movie over nachos and feast like you’re the dude from Stephen King’s Thinner. This is the kind of film where the lead female, after discovering a second dead body, flees the scene shrieking, stops at a fountain to splash some water over her conveniently thin white dress, and resumes her escape. It’s a blast, but only if your definition of party involves ‘70s style Eurotrash. The DVD includes interviews with a producer and title star Gianni Dei, which are informative in a casual we-knew-what-we-were-making kind of way. I don't really see myself rewatching Patrick Still Lives(!) anytime soon, but it sure did brighten my evening.

*Since these filmmakers took liberties with the story of Patrick, I give myself the permission to adjust the title. There is no exclamation point, but doesn’t it sound better with one?

Mamma Mia! Thatsa Hungry Baby

Few things possess more potential terror than newborns. Babies are tiny. They weigh less than a greek omelette breakfast plate and seem more fragile than a fine fabrege egg. People tell you to loosen up when you hold one in your arms, yet one drop of your elbows and seasoned relatives are leaping towards you with looks of disgust previously reserved for brussel sprouts and Uwe Boll movies.

I don’t mean to make light out of parenthood in any way. I may indeed one day birth my own deadly dollette, but at this point in life, the idea of being the body and soul responsible in full for a helpless creature is truly terrifying. Grace, first time writer/director Paul Solet’s chilly new thriller, is not a perfect film in any way but does manage to capture the inherent horror and inevitable power natural to my understanding of motherhood.

Quick Plot: Jordan Ladd plays Madeleine, a happily married enough vegan expecting her first child following two miscarriages and three years of fertility treatments. In case you don’t get it, she really wants a baby.

A tragic car accident (because films involving pregnant women feature no other type) widows Madeleine and stops the heartbeat of her now nearly 7 month old fetus. Madeleine decides to carry out her pregnancy, delivering what seems to be a stillborn in the home clinic of her midwife/ex college girlfriend. In a heart-wrenching scene, the new mother cradles her lifeless daughter when, to everyone’s surprise, baby Grace lets out a cry. 

She’s alive. Maybe.

Madeleine brings Grace home and picks up her life doing the typical new mom activities, like singing lullabies and warding off a nosy mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose). Then other things happen. Instead of popping in the latest Baby Einstein, Madeleine finds herself having to seal off the crib with homemade fly netting when a swarm of insects take a liking to the infant. A gentle bath takes a turn when Grace lets out a primal scream and seems to develop an instant rash. Why does she have a rotten smell and, perhaps most pressing of all, where the hell did this kid learn how to breast feed, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror?

Grace is rich in potential and, for its first 45 minutes, is a genuinely unnerving film. Solet creates a sort of Rosemary’s Baby-esque mood with a little more maternal warmth. Ladd’s Madeleine is tragically sympathetic and we want the best for this newly created (and broken) family. Her in-laws, meanwhile, are a creepily fascinating side story of their own. Unfortunately, Solet never finds the right story to comfortably unite the two. I’ve heard some reviewers describe Grace as being a great idea for a short story or piece of an anthology film (it began life as an 8 minute short), but I think its premise could easily have been a better feature with a tighter storyline. It’s riveting to watch a near catatonic Madeleine go through the motions of motherhood knowing that something is terribly wrong, especially with such somberly creative artistic choices in lighting and sound. I won’t go into spoilers here (check out my previous post at Pop Syndicate for more explicit ramblings), but what begins as a quietly chilling tale of broken mothers doing what they think is best has absolutely no reason to turn into a lights-off violent showdown between unrealistically violent characters. 

High Points

Several excellent performances fill Grace. Ladd easily holds the film and shows a depth and command past roles never even hinted at, while Gabrielle Rose and Serge Houde make a realistically sad older couple disturbingly content in not being happy

The first fly scene is wonderfully creepy and makes me wish I had seen it one week before writing about great fly moments in horror 

Plenty of small touches--like Dr. Sohn (which happens to be the same name of my beloved childhood pediatrician)’s Cronenberg-ish breast pump and Vivian’s intimacy style with her long-suffering husband--help to create a strong underlying sense of wrongness to the world of Grace

Low Points

The coldness in Madeleine and Michael’s marriage is quite an intriguing choice, but it never gets enough attention to let us know how she actually feels now that he’s gone

Despite some excellent staging and a lot of suspense, I fell out of Grace by the time the third act kicked in. Not every horror film (if you even want to give Grace that label) needs to climax in an act of violence, but it seems like Solet painted himself into a corner by not setting up a strong enough plot to allow a more emotional or intelligent ending

Lessons Learned

As long as your nipples get enough attention, you can nurse after menopause

Karl’s cows have no antibiotics or synthetic hormones

Anemia is best cured with a little milking from a rusted brass breast pump

Always stay in touch with your obsessive college hookups, particularly if they’re well-versed in the art of birthing babies, negotiating the price of a used RV, and wig shopping

Rent/Bury/Buy

If it seems like I’m being hard on Grace, it’s mostly because Paul Solet is clearly a gifted and promising filmmaker with more complete works ahead of him. The atmosphere of the film is haunting and distinct, and clearly the man can pull great performances out of a range of actors. This is a good film and a great alternative to more formulaic mainstream horror; it’s just not the near perfect thriller I was hoping for. The DVD, however, is bursting with extras and is probably a must for anyone with a serious interest in how to make and market a low budget film, from its infancy to a Sundance premiere. This isn’t a true classic, but it will leave you sad and scared for most of its running time. Plus, it provides us all with a great question for the old would-you-rather party game: would you rather have a mammary obsessed mother-in-law or a carnivorous baby? Drink a meat & vitamin shake or a post-menopausal woman’s breast milk? And so on...