DVD Review: The Blindside

Rated PG13 for some language, mild violence

Starring Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron, Tim McGraw, Jae Head, Kathy Bates

Teenage Mike Oher has lived a rough life, having grown up in the projects with a drug abusing mother and has recently been crashing on his friend's couch. His friend's father is a janitor at a Memphis Christian school and pleads with admissions to allow his son and "Big Mike" to attend due to their ability in sports. Impressed by "Big Mike's" size, the school let's him under the condition he gets his grades up so he can play football the next year. Mike has trouble in school though and we soon learn that he often spends his nights at the school's gym where it's warm and his only spare clothes are t-shirt he carries with him in a bag.

One night, Leigh Anne Tuohy (whose children attend school with Big Mike) and her family spy him walking in the rain and offer him a ride and a place to stay. Realizing he has nowhere to go, they decide to extend his stay and get him the help he needs to succeed in school (also helping is the school's science teacher who learns that Mike, who may appear dumb, has been paying attention all semester and while he can't pass written tests, he excells when given the chance to take them orally). Soon Mike becomes part of the Tuohy family, with the Tuohy's requesting for guardianship of him from the state and Mike qualifies for football - with the help of the Tuohy's he is able to become a star linebacker, gaining the attention of major state colleges.

While the movie comes off at first as a football film, it really is more of an autobiographical film about the life NFL linebacker Michael Oher who was a first round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. While Michael's story of rising up against the odds and succeeding is inspirational in itself, the Tuohy's also serve as a fine example of what we as people should strive to be, providing help and love to those in need regardless of their background.

The Longest Yard

So it's adam sandler's remake of the burt reynold's film, however burt reynolds is also in this one so obviously he didnt think it was half bad or im sure he wouldnt have done it, lol...

critics said he added too much humor in it and downplayed the violence of the original - not to mention this one's PG13 which the originial was rated R, but yeah...

Sandler stars as Paul Crewe, a former QB for Pittsburgh who got banned from the NFL for shaving points off a game 6 yrs... he gets drunk one night and pissed at his gf so he takes off in her bently, gets pulled over cuz she reports the car stolen and then once they find out he's been drinking he starts a high speed police chase, eventually totalling his gf's beloved car. so since he just violated his 5 yr probation he gets to spend 3 yrs in jail. the warden has the guards play football in some legue and they're first game is scheduled against the league's returning champs so he recruits Paul to help out and give em pointers, to which he tells em they should play a match against a not so good team to boost their confidence, which gives the warden the idea that crewe should assemble a team of cons to play against em for a game to be broadcast on espn2 in 4 weeks.

there's a lot of cast members that got no publicity - like goldberg as a con w/ a huge dick, stone cold steve austin as a guard, as well as others, including the big tall guy from happy gilmore, and rob schneider randomly appearing saying 'you can do it!' chris rock's in it, as well as nelly, and of course adam sandler and burt reynolds...

it was pretty good tho, if ya like adam sandler and esp liked the waterboy or just like movies about football you'll probably like this one.