The trailer for the movie based on Michael Lewis's book the Blind Side made its way around the college football blogosphere yesterday to less than rave reviews.
Mr. Irrelevant told readers to "prepare to be completely disgusted . . . ", while Dr. Saturday called it "a thinly veiled chick flick." Doug, filling in for Orson at EDSBS this week, has a complete list of offenses, including that "It's all about Sandra Bullock," and "We've got another white-woman-saves-poor-aimless-black-people story on our hands."
Most of this boils down to a disappointment that the trailer makes it look like the movie focuses too heavily on the human interest story and not enough on the finer points of the left tackle position from which the book gets its name. In short, too much chick-flick, not enough football.
I have a bit of a different take on that, though.
You see, I live in a house full of girls (even our two dogs are females), and I can't tell you how much time I've spent watching the seemingly never-ending series of Janette Oke "Love [something] [something]" movies on Hallmark.
So for my brethren in the sports blogosphere that are a decade or more behind me on the life and family curve, I say that the Blind Side postured as a chick flick is brilliant. I've been trying to get my girls to fall in love with football for 15 years, and every little bit helps. If they can have good feelings about football via an eye-sweating movie, perfect.
And anyway, there may be more football in there than you know. As danmarcel noted in yesterday's thread, "Trailers can be cut to emphasize almost anything." Case in point is this fantastic remix of the trailer for Stephen King's The Shining, which I find endlessly amusing:
So yeah, the trailer for the Blind Side may not be a fair representation of what the movie actually is, but even if it is, I'm all for it if it gets me out of yet another viewing of Anne of Green Gables. Although that Anne does have a wit.