The Blind Side - Movie Review

Sunday, after all the kids were gone and we had our empty nest to ourselves again, my wife and I did the logical thing - we went to a movie. With another couple. Yep, we finally had our house and our selves alone and we left and joined others.

The movie was my wife's choice - The Blind Side. My thought was that any movie with Sandra Bullock in it can't be all bad. As Warren (the male half of the other couple) put it - "She's hot!" And after a disappointing weekend of football, this movie promised a little good football. Sure it was going to be a "chick-flick", but hey, if the wife's happy, I'm happy.

Much to my surprise, I really liked The Blind Side. In the movie, Bullock's character adopts a boy from the streets and helps him out. We follow the young man through high school to college and the issues that go with him. Life wasn't simple. It wasn't handed to him on a silver platter or even on a KFC paper plate. But (no secret - Micheal Oher's in pro-football now) he makes it.

I won't give any spoilers here, but there were a lot of memorable lines. My favorite was when Bullock's character was asked about the gun she was carrying. Asked if it were a Saturday night special, she replied "Yep. And it works good the other days too." Man, she's a tough lady.

There were good "non-lines" too, places where the actions say more than words. As Bullock walks off the football field in a tight dress, all of the players (who had mothers her age), tilted their heads to watch her walk off the field. As Warren said, "she's hot!"

I had one more favorite line, I won't quote the line here - you'll have to see the movie to hear it. But it was a line every mother should tell her son as he heads off to college. She explained to her adopted son what her reaction would be if he got a girl pregnant.

There were a lot of loose ends in the movie. There were four minor parts that I felt like were brought in or taken out with little or no tie-in. Oher's brother was brought in one scene (and a few hazy flashbacks), but was never mentioned again. Another boy who Oher went to school with was never seen after school started. And late in the movie a boy was killed that had no previous tie-in (unless he was the boy that Oher started school with - if so, I missed it). And finally, Oher's real mother - no mention of her after her big scene. But life is full of loose ends, like the guy I went to school with - last I looked, he was still in trouble with the law.

All in all, a good movie. I give it a B+ (it didn't "wow" me enough for an A). Very little profanity, no sex scenes and very little violence. I checked IMDb and it's rated PG13, I'm surprised it wasn't PG. I strongly recommend the movie.

Red Box vs Netflix

A co-worker mentioned that he uses Red Box a lot and I decided to check it out. Red Box operates those kiosks you see in the grocery store and rents DVD's for $1/day. They claim no late fees, they just charge $1 each day.

I compared this to my current Netflix plan which is $8.99/month. These DVDs tend to sit on top of the TV for a while, so at $1/day, I'd probably be paying $10-$20 a month. Of course I could delay picking up until I was ready to watch and could return sooner (even on Sundays), so maybe I'd be at the low end of that. And there's no driving with Netflix, it's all done through the mail.

Out of curiosity, I took my Netflix queue and checked it out on Red Box (you can reserve movies ahead of time). To my surprise NONE of the top 5 movies were in Red Box. Now a lot of my Netflix queue is "older" movies (2-5 years old) that we never watched the first time around. So I guess this is understandable. But it doesn't make me want to switch DVD providers

What do you think? Netflix or Red Box?