Author Archives: Susan

The football movie “The Blind Side” continues to rake in at the box office. At last look, it had passed the $225 million mark and was still going strong, long since its Nov. 20, 2009 release. It’s quite the small-movie phenom of the year, fueled by its amazing and true rags-to-riches story and its evangelical backing. About a big African American kid, one of 12 in his family, whose early years are horrific growing up on the rough side of Memphis, with a crack-addicted mother, and a father he doesn’t know. In and out of foster homes, “Big Mike” is intermittently homeless and sleeping on the couches of acquaintances when he can, one of whom takes him to a private Christian high school, which enrolls him on the athletic coach’s word. On a snowy night, walking back to school in shorts, Mike catches the eye of a rich white family that takes him in and helps him with school and to play football. He comes to play left tackle, protecting the quarterback’s “blind side” with such skill and power, that he draws the attention of college coaches who come clamoring to have him play.

The movie is a feel-good experience, with a wholesome view of the family and life that adopts Mike. Sandra Bullock, as the no nonsense mom who shepherds Mike, and country singer Tim McGraw play the parents. It’s definitely a good, strong character for Bullock, who plays it well. The movie is enjoyable, combining nice family and sports scenes in Mike’s rise out of his circumstances. Though I found it rather sugary, and a bit Disney like, it still is an inspiring a story. It seems Mike is made a bit simplistic in the movie, docile with a low IQ, and parts of the gritty stuff and prejudices seemed airbrushed lightly over. Still the photos of the real people at the end of the movie lend to its strength as a true story; that Mike Oher went on to play offensive tackle this year as a rookie for the Baltimore Ravens is amazing. See this recent New York Times story.

Interesting to note, Oher said he mostly liked the movie but said his character was portrayed as too stupid and his football skills were misrepresented in it though he didn’t elaborate. (He did go on to make the Honor Roll at Ole Miss a couple times.) Oher doesn’t seem to care a lot about the fuss over “Blind Side,” which was based on the 2006 bestselling book by Michael Lewis. Apparently the film’s budget was a mere $29 million, which Sandra Bullock took a pay cut for and agreed instead to receive a percentage of the profits. Seems like a bright idea now. Continue reading →

Of course, I had to see “The Road” because of the intriguing Cormac McCarthy book, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Most seem to know what it’s about: a father and a son trying to survive after some unknown apocalyptical disaster has gutted civilization. The father and boy are on a road going south to the coast, where presumably they might find more food and have a better chance at survival. But along the way there are roving bands of bad guys the father and boy try to avoid, who take prisoners and eat people to get by. It’s a world reduced to savagery and a food-to-mouth existence, where the boy worries if they are still the “good” guys who won’t resort to cannabalism, and his father assures him that they are, that they’re “carrying the fire.”

The movie is a somber affair. The wife, played by Charlize Theron in flashbacks, decides life post-apocalypse isn’t worth living and does herself in before their journey (no great secret if you’ve read the book). Viggo Mortensen, as the father is looking old and scraggily in this, but is excellent as is the boy played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. The cinematography is especially affecting, with scenes of an ashen, dead landscape, where rotting trees split and fall in deafening crescendo, and broken-into cars and houses are left by the wayside. The area around Mount St. Helens serves as a haunting backdrop to the film’s shots of a post-apocalyptic world.

The movie follows the book to a tee. I was sure they would mess with it, but even the ending is like the book’s. Because of the book, I knew where the scary parts would be. The movie seems much more scary than depressing. God the cannibals! You’ll never want to go down into the cellar again. Why does Viggo do it?!&%! Run for Christ sakes!

The Washington Post and L.A. Times pretty much clobbered the movie (the N.Y. Times a bit less so). The Post’s Ann Hornaday called it a “thin, hopelessly mannered story” — “one long dirge … marking the death of hope and the leaching of all that is bright and good from the world.” The L.A. Times’ Kenneth Turan said it was good at horrifying and depressing us but had little else to offer. I thought it faithful to the book and was a pretty affecting tale, a warning of sorts about nuclear annihilation. It reminded me a little of the 1983 TV event, “The Day After.” It also had redemptive qualities in the bonding of the father and son, and in the overall fight between good and the forces of chaos and evil. The struggle to get to the sea and the ending there are subtle but compelling. It might not be an Oscar contender, but “The Road” is no slouch of a movie.

ps. Watch for Robert Duvall as the old nearly blind man they encounter on the road (barely can tell it’s him), and thankfully Guy Pearce comes in at the end. I can’t help but quote from “The Road” these days in asking, “Are you carrying the fire?” Continue reading →

This is sort of one of those crazy summer movies you go to that’s a bit suspenseful and ridiculous but you can’t help liking the scary action all the same. It’s about a couple who celebrate their honeymoon by backpacking to a remote beach on the island of Kauai. Everything seems fine until they hear from some hikers about a double murder of a newlywed couple back in Honolulu and they consider turning back. But they decide to go on and end up joining another couple along the hike whose weirdness in time makes them question if they’re the murderers. Without giving too much away, things get pretty nutty after that. And the ending, itself, is pretty laughable (not sure it makes a lot of sense). But still the action shots of the two athletic couples on the tropical Kauai are hard not to see through. Actor Steve Zahn is the only one I really recognize of the bunch. The film apparently was shot in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Kauai, and despite all its murderous villainery, makes you want to go hike the tropics after seeing it. Continue reading →

“The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug,” states a quote from war correspondent Chris Hedges at the beginning of “The Hurt Locker.”

The action-packed war film set in Iraq in 2004 is a hair-raising adrenaline rush that follows three members of Bravo Company’s bomb disposal unit as they work to defuse a series of IEDs, or roadside bombs, in the streets of Iraq, all the while trying not to be picked off by insurgent gunfire.

There’s Spec. Owen Elderidge (Brian Geraghty), who’s a bundle of nerves and seemingly out of his element, and Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), a professional who follows protocols and procedures in the best hope of getting out alive.

Then there’s Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), a replacement to the unit’s previous bomb-technician leader who is killed in an explosion. James comes off initially as a cocky bastard considered “reckless” by the others and hell-bent on a death wish. But he also has what it takes to disarm even the most sinister bombs, and in time a more caring side of him comes through.

The film follows the threesome unit as they start a 38-day rotation on a handful of nerve-racking missions, wherein James’s disengaging of bomb wires is undoubtedly the scariest moments to watch. Renner gives a gripping performance as Staff Sgt. James, the risk-taker and adrenaline junkie whose disregard for protocol rubs the others raw.

“The Hurt Locker” is a powerful film due to its authenticity and its script. Written by journalist Mark Boal, who was embedded in Iraq with a bomb squad, and shot close to the Iraq border in Jordan, the film plunges viewers into feeling what war is like, and the risks soldiers take. Except for small roles by Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pierce, the other actors in it are relative unknowns, and don’t distract from the film’s realistic war story and look. I found “The Hurt Locker” quite intense and effective, but for those who don’t care for men and war films, it’s perhaps not meant for everyone. Continue reading →

I’m still laughing after seeing this movie about a groom and his three groomsmen who road-trip to Vegas for the bachelor party; whereupon they wake up the next morning not remembering the night before, nor where the groom is, and have to try to retrace their tracks to find him in time for the wedding. The groomsmen share equally pretty funny roles, and even a tiger-owning Mike Tyson makes an appearance.

It’s pretty hysterical and I was quite dubious beforehand, thinking it would be just the same old buddy genre of immature men, bathroom humor and bad taste, without much behind it. But “Hangover” is pleasantly and surprisingly more than that. It’s still crazy, for sure, utterly nutty and far from politically correct, but there’s some substance here and some genuinely funny humor, making it a thoroughly entertaining wild ride — sure to be the summer’s hit for laughs. So get a babysitter, or do what you have to do, and get thee to a theater. You deserve a corrupt break like this.

ps. It’s safe to say the movie gets a strong R rating if you’re wondering about the kiddies etc. Continue reading →