The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009)

0/10
Certainly the most putrid movie I've seen all year, and it's down there among the worst I've ever seen. That this is supposedly one of the ten Best Pictures of the year is so mindboggling and so unfathomable I can only reason that politics or payola are playing a role. And Sandra Bullock's performance is decent, serviceable, functional, what have you...but Best Actress? No, sorry.

I'm not sure how close to its source The Blind Side is but it's a non-stop string of clichés and morals assaulting the viewer with the subtly of a sledgehammer, and there's such an abhorrent amount of smug, self-congratulatory white guilt catharsis that my stomach was almost in knots watching it I was so embarassed. The conflict in this movie lasts for about 4 minutes and equals little more than a brief argument. Every scene is wrapped up with such neat, predictable rigour it turns laughable after the first hour. The logic being used is unbelievable on any level (glaring example: scouts from colleges clamour to sign Michael Oher based, from what we see, of a DVD shot, burned, and sent out to high schools across the U.S. by his 8-year old adopted little brother. I'm not kidding when I say this sequence lasts about 20 seconds, and then bam the scouts are at his next game falling over themselves to offer him a scholarship). Something I thought would turn out to be a pivotal plot point involving a car crash is laughed off by the characters so nonchalantly and dismissed so quickly, I can't even comprehend the logic of including it.

As some kind of Disney sports movie like The Mighty Ducks or something, The Blind Side would at least be passable or more forgiveable for its blithe idiocy, gigantic leaps in logic, stereotypical characters and everything-turns-out-OK plot...but Best Picture? BEST PICTURE? Is this a joke? How? What planet am I on? Jesus Christ I get worked up just thinking it. Even my movie-going companion, usually more lenient in her criticism than I, hated it to its core.

But it was still better than Inglourious Basterds.

Haha nah just kidding, it was worse. Way, wayyy, wayyyyy worse.