JohnLeeHancock Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: The Blind Side
Filed under: Sports », New Releases », Warner Brothers », Theatrical Reviews », Family Films »
The trailers for The Blind Side triggered my "oh geez, another sports-related Triumph of the Human Spirit" cynicism, and I might not have seen the film at all if I hadn't been assigned to review it. That would have been my loss, and I experienced the lovely surprise of having a movie turn out far more enjoyable than I expected. The Blind Side has no twists or gimmicks other than being a very good example of a sports-related family film, with quality performances and writing.
The movie's title is a football reference, which the voiceover of Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) explains at the beginning. Michael Oher (Quenton Aaron) is sweating out a tough but unspecified situation in an office, when we flash back a few years and meet him as Big Mike. An African-American staff member at a mostly white Christian private school is trying to get his athletic son into the school, and the school's coach also spots some athletic potential in Big Mike, granting him a scholarship. Big Mike has terrible trouble keeping up in school, and when his friend's family stops helping him out, he is virtually homeless -- sleeping in the school gym, eating popcorn left there after events, wearing the same thin clothes daily.
From Page to Screen: 'The Blind Side'
Filed under: Drama », Sports », New Releases », From Page to Screen »
One thing you hear a lot about the great HBO series The Wire is some variation on "it ruined all other cop shows for me." And it's true. The Wire was so smart about policework, so painfully realistic without sacrificing drama, that it made damn near everything else, with the obligatory gun-and-badge-scene clichés and pat little whodunnits, seem downright silly; ridiculous. Creators and writers David Simon and Ed Burns called the bluff of an entire genre. They stripped away the Hollywood varnish and made their peers look goofy, clueless, like so many deer staring at headlights.
Michael Lewis's The Blind Side isn't quite like that, but it's close. Certainly I will henceforth have trouble restraining gales of laughter at the naiveté of football movies about scrappy underdog quarterbacks who overcome the odds and lead their teams to victory. Or about the glory of college football. Or about players who make it to the NFL through sheer pluck and determination.
Even more so than The Wire to lame cop dramas, The Blind Side is an explicit rebuke to such stories. Straight up, Lewis (who also wrote Moneyball) says: it doesn't work that way. First of all, the quarterback isn't even that important. A coach with a handle on strategy and talent elsewhere on the roster, can, within reason, make damn near anyone look good throwing the ball. Second: who makes it to the NFL is determined, 99% of the time, not by persistence and heart, but by genetics. Size. Much more than you might think, shape. Innate athleticism that cannot be taught or learned. Depressingly, the selection process for great football prospects often resembles a state fair where people admire the girth and gait of cattle and "hmm" and point thoughtfully.
Sandra Bullock's 'Blind Side' Sure Looks Familiar in New Trailer
Filed under: Drama », Warner Brothers », Trailers and Clips »
Let's get this out of the way: I'm no Sandra Bullock bully. I know, I gave her crap for looking all too perky in her long-delayed rom-com All About Steve (which is currently scheduled to bow on September 4th instead of last March, after The Proposal did well by her and The Hangover put co-star Bradley Cooper in a more recognizable realm). But she seems terribly content to play it safe, merely bantering with Hugh Grant or Benjamin Bratt or Ryan Reynolds, with diversions into dramatic territory either little-seen (Infamous, Loverboy) or little-loved (Premonition).The most prominent exception to that streak would have to be Paul Haggis' Crash, and while I don't think that Bullock is so scheming as to put herself in another Oscar-baiting melodrama out of hopes of continuing that glory to more... individual ends, I hardly think it's coincidence that The Blind Side is the based-on-a-true-story tale of Bullock helping an oversized, undereducated minority teen who in turn makes her a better person. Yahoo! has the trailer; we've included it after the jump.
Will Smith Hits Hurricane Katrina Biopic
Filed under: Deals », Distribution »
Will Smith, his production company Overbrook Entertainment, and Sony have bought the rights to the life story of Hurricane Katrina hero, John "The Can Man" Keller. While John Lee Hancock will be writing the script and directing The American Can, Sony has also bought a spec script about Keller from writer and producer Adetoro Makinde. Keller himself is also one of the associate producers.Keller, who was a resident of the American Can Company at the time of the storm, helped the other residents of the building -- many elderly and/or handicapped -- and a few refugees stay safe while the flood waters raged outside. Keller also documented his story with photos and videotape. He told The Times-Picayune in 2007, "There were other people rescuing people. But they didn't hot-wire boats, hot-wire cars, swim to the grocery store, come back with food, cook for all those people, organize them, get the thugs off them." In the end, 244 people were evacuated safely with help from Keller.
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