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‘Blind Side’ a surprisingly smart and inspiring story The Blind Side
decorator, happily married to a successful Taco Bell franchisee Rated PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and (Tim McGraw), a glammed-up woman of a certain age who is sexual references; starring used to getting her own way. Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron, And when she sees the very Tim McGraw; directed by John large, plainly poor black teen (Quinton Aaron) who seems to Lee Hancock; opens Friday at University Place 8 in Carbondale have nowhere to go, walking aimlessly in the rain, her better and Illinois Centre 8 in Marion. angel runs smack dab into her blunt, bluff style. BY ROGER MOORE As Michael Oher walks into MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE NEWS the House Beautiful two-story Sandra Bullock retrieves much that the Tuohys call home, an odyssey begins, a journey that of the career momentum that the Tuohy family take with “The Proposal” gave her and young Michael. He’s an that “All About Steve” enormous kid labeled as “slow” threatened to kill with “The Blind Side,” a surprisingly smart and dumb, but a “gentle giant,” and a guy of such size and and moving drama about a athleticism that he’s a natural at Memphis steel magnolia who a position that Leigh Anne, doesn’t truly bloom until she narrating from the Michael takes in a homeless teen and Lewis book this is based on, tells gives him a life. us is the “second most Bullock gives her best important position” in football performance in years in service — left offensive tackle. He’s the of a John Lee Hancock (“The Rookie”) film that’s about guy who protects the compassion, empathy, family quarterback from his blind side, and that old-time Southern the sacks that can cripple a guy religion — football. She stars as like Joe Theismann, as we see in Leigh Anne Tuohy, an upperthe opening credits. As the story middle class Memphis unfolds, we invest in Michael’s
STUDIO
Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, a Memphis, Tenn., steel magnolia who doesn’t truly bloom until she takes in a homeless teen and gives him a life in ‘Blindside,’ which opens Friday in Carbondale and Marion.
struggle and we watch the Tuohys invest as well. They have his back, and he’s their rock — protecting their blind side. The movie’s a pretty conventional feel-good sports drama in many ways. But Bullock and Aaron give it heart that transcends the genre. Aaron, without much dialogue, gets across that this big, quiet, seemingly dumb guy has a soul and native intelligence, even as he struggles with the game, the academics and everything else at the private school he attends.
In “The Blind Side” Bullock shows us something she hasn’t trotted out as an actress — righteous fury. Leigh Anne is a tigress defending herself and her decision to take in this kid in racially polarized Memphis, and Bullock makes her sympathetic, a Christian conservative who bristles at the suggestion that she’s doing this out of “white guilt.” McGraw gives sturdy support and has one great line, defending his broadening horizons.
“Whoever thought we’d have a black son before we knew a Democrat?” he says on meeting a tutor (Kathy Bates) hired to help the kid. It meanders and stumbles more often than one would like. But Hancock manages to turn a movie that could have been about nothing more than “white guilt” into something that surprisingly defies expectations and can be downright inspiring. Talk about being hit on your blind side.
Animated sci-fi spoof ‘Planet 51’ grounded when it comes to laughs Planet 51
A genial but generic riff on sci-fi movie history, Rated PG for sci-fi action “Planet” has barely enough and suggestive humor; slapstick to keep the kids starring the voices of interested. Children won’t Dwayne Johnson, Justin get the many sci-fi movie Long, John Cleese, Gary references, and adults probably won’t find them Oldman, Jessica Biel; that funny. directed by Jorge Blanco, But there’s an adorable with Javier Abad and Mars Rover-like robot Marcos Martinez; opens named “Rover” who wags Friday at University Place 8 his antenna and chases in Carbondale and Illinois rocks like a Jack Russell, Centre 8 in Marion. and an alien Chihuahua shaped like the beast from “Alien.” He skooches his BY ROGER MOORE butt across lawns and MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE NEWS
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carpets like a Chihuahua. But don’t ask what happens when he pees. The big joke here — given away in the movie’s trailers — is that an alien has “invaded” a provincial and paranoid suburban town. And the alien is us, a NASA astronaut who touches down, bounces out with his American flag (humming “Thus Spake Zarathustra” from “2001”), only to realize he’s interrupting an alien barbecue. Astronaut Chuck Taylor (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) has
discovered an alternate alien 1950s — with driveins, do-wop music, “duck and cover” drills and VW hover-Beetles. His first thought — “Kennedy’s gonna freak” when Mission Control hears about “sea monkeys dancin’ to the oldies.” But the “sea monkeys,” conditioned by years of “It Came from Outer Space” horror movies, are the ones who freak. Lem (Justin Long) is the odd, antennae’d E.T. Chuck talks into helping him get
back home, evade the trigger-happy Army general (Gary Oldman) and the jumpy natives who are sure that the guy in the puffy suit wants to eat their brains. This first offering from Spanish animation startup Ilion is a good-looking movie, with a lush retrofuturistic design. It’s just low on laughs. (An “American Shrek” alumnus scripted it). The superior “Monsters vs. Aliens” covered some of the same ground — references of
earlier movies, from “Alien” and “E.T.” to “2001,” “The Right Stuff” and, naturally, “Plan Nine from Outer Space.” Some of those work. But spoofs, a couple of cute neo-dogs and lots of bouncy ’50s pop on the soundtrack don’t hide the fact that, whatever the magical code is to concocting a state-of-theart kids’ computergenerated cartoon these days, Ilion (working for Sony-Tristar) hasn’t cracked it.