Horrible Non-Horror: Kazaam!

"I was a medium-level juvenile delinquent from Newark who always dreamed about doing a movie. Someone said, 'Hey, here's $7 million, come in and do this genie movie.' What am I going to say, no? So I did it."—Shaquille O’Neal

With logic like that, it’s almost hard to be too tough on Kazaam, one of the more infamous critical bombs of the 1990s. Then again, the fact that O’Neal made $7 million off it AND rapped extensively throughout the process eliminates any guilt I might have.

Quick Plot: When a wrecking ball knocks into the window of an abandoned antique lamp shop, the disembodied voice of an NBA all-star is released into a boom box soon to be discovered by Max, an unhappy sixth grader struggling to cope with his mom’s impending marriage to a perfectly nice fireman, the mystery of having never met his deadbeat dad, and daily beatings from Latino bullies. Poor white kids in the ‘90s!

It looks like SOME screenwriter watched a whole lot of live action 1990s Disney kids’ films, eh?

Upon finding the mystical boom box (and yes, this being 1996, one could and should take a chug of Zima every time the words “boom box” are used), Max frees the titular genie Kazaam, who introduces himself via rap.

Well, I think it’s rap. Shaq basically talks in rhyme and music plays underneath him. That’s the same thing, right?

Although Max is guaranteed three wishes, Kazaam’s skills are a little rusty, rendering the kid dubious of his newfound rapper’s delight’s actual powers. What follows is a not-creepy-at-all sequence wherein Kazaam starts following the kid’s every move, be it to find his smarmy music pirating dad or, um, to bed.

But back to the music pirating, since that’s the ultimate plotline Kazaam’s script chooses to follow. Makes sense really: if there’s one thing 6-12 year old audiences want in their mainstream family comedy films, it’s a morality lesson about the illegal side of the recording industry. Will Max’s absentee father learn that videotaping live performances to sell on the black market for an evil mustache twirling, genie hijacking Arab is wrong? Ain’t NO villain worse than a sham recording studio executive!

Sigh. Even The Nucracker In 3D knew that when in doubt, toss in a Nazi.

Directed by Paul Michael Glaser (the man responsible for two of my vastly different guilty pleasures, The Running Man and The Cutting Edge), Kazaam stands today as hilariously ill-planned attempt to create a Rock-like movie star using a cookie cutter kids’ film. It pains me to say this, but Shaquille O’Neal isn’t actually the worst thing about Kazaam. Like a lot of athletes-turned-thespians, the man can’t quite act, but is surprisingly likable when just hanging around.

Just ask Max’s mom, who temporarily forgets her engagement to a hot NYC firefighter to flirt with the 7’ tall self-proclaimed tutor to her tweve-year-old son.

This being Kazaam, however, Shaq doesn’t JUST hang around. He raps. He does the cabbage patch. He delivers lines like “This puts the boom in box!” in a manner that, despite his self-describing introductory song, is neither contagious, outrageous, nor spontaneous.

Although I’m not saying it isn’t funny.

No, the problem with Kazaam—aside from its very existence—is that it’s so clearly written as a product by people who can’t quite really write to begin with. Nevertheless, screenwriters Christian Ford and Roger Soffer grabbed a batch of proven tropes—fatherless kid, teen bullies, magical (literally) Negro, stock Arab villains (aaahhhh the ‘90s), product placement—and mushed them into something of a movie. With an incredibly unlikable brat of a protagonist and a muddled plot (remember: the bad guys in this KIDS’ FILM are music bootleggers) Kazaam is rather wonderfully miscalculated.

Also, a tad, perhaps one might say, racist? Or just weirdly unaware of some of its implications. See, when a black man tells a bratty young white boy that the kid is now his master, something slightly wrong is going on. “I own you!” Max later shouts when Kazaam dares to ignore his whims. Yes, this post is coming from someone who epically ranted against The Blind Side to the occasional ‘you’re overreacting’ comment, but PLEASE don’t tell me I’m not supposed to be reading anything into A WHITE BOY OWNING A BLACK MAN.

Perhaps one could think of Kazaam as a ‘90s version of The Toy. Except with rapping. And with the grand comedy skills of Richard Pryor replaced by the wooden enthusiasm of a basketball player. And with Middle Eastern music pirates standing in for Jackie Gleason, piranhas, and the KKK.

Did I mention the rapping?

High Notes

Shaq gets a “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” moment, and you KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW how much I love those

Low Notes

It’s not my place to criticize a film I’m only watching BECAUSE of its awful reputation, but even the bad movie lover in me can’t find a proper rationalization for why concert bootleggers made sense as Disney villains

Lessons Learned

Building a neutron bomb can be a little dangerous

Romeo once said to Juliet, “grab four of your friends and we’ll have a sextet.” Weird how I don’t remember that scene from 9^th grade English class

Nubian goat eyes is the food of kings

Men are like buses. There’s always another (sound advice for a mom to pass onto her child)

In life, there are no second chances. No. Second. Chances. Well, there are if your genie becomes a djinn, but what are the odds?

The Winning Line

“And if you girls are hungry, let’s green egg and ham it”

Rapped, of course. I chose this particular lyric because from henceforth, I shall no longer use the term “Let’s get something to eat.” No no no (or as Matthew McConaughey would say in Magic Mike, “Nahhh nahhh nahhh”). My goal in life is to now see how long I can go constantly saying “Let’s green eggs and ham it” before being beaten senselessly—actually, sensibly—by friends, family, waiters, take-out cashiers, or anyone with hearing on the street

The Winning Possibly Really Inappropriate Sodomy Based Line

In a film rife with slightly discomforting scenes between a preteen and his full-grown friend with no sense of boundaries, it’s kind of a twist that The Winning Possibly Really Inappropriate Sodomy Based Line does NOT come from the mouth of a genie. Instead, there’s this:

“There’s only one place this will fit!” threaten the bullies as they wave a small key in front of Max’s terrified eyes. Um…ew?

Basketball!

Just in case you were worried that Shaquille O’Neal forgot his athletic roots, fear not:

Law & Order: SVU Alert

You KNEW I couldn’t let this one go: Max’s mother is played by Ally Walker, best known to current television audiences as the villainous Agent Stahl on Sons of Anarchy but ALSO special for guest starring in a pretty ridiculous episode of my favorite criminal justice program. In Season 11’s “Conned,” Walker played a psychiatrist who was controversially into electro-shock treatment and positively scandalously into sleeping with her thirteen-year-old patient, who was also the father of her baby. Just another day in SVU

Rent/Bury/Buy

Kazaam is pretty much as bad as you probably think it is, so those (like me) who look forward to such validation will certainly benefit from a rental. The disc is tragically sans special features, but it does have this as its menu:

Which is almost worth owning in itself.

A Walk In the Woods With One Foxy Antichrist

"If Ingmar Bergman had committed suicide, gone to hell, and come back to earth to direct an exploitation/art film for drive-ins, [Antichrist] is the movie he would have made." John Waters

Many writers--myself included--use the term ‘polarizing’ far too much. “You’ll either love it or hate it,” we say, often as a way to excuse ourselves from responsibility when you rent it and, well, hate it. 

*Note that I probably used these exact words, or appropriate synonyms, when discussing The House of the Devil. 

That being said, it’s hard to think of a better person that fits such a word as Lars Von Trier. Aside, perhaps, from the more universally praised Breaking the Waves (a film that boasts one of the best performances of the decade, in my humble opinion), the majority of his work sharply divides viewers like few other directors working today. 

You’ve probably heard a lot of people call Antichrist ridiculous, gratuitous, and misogynist. It’s easy to do so, especially if you look past, ignore, or simply miss what I think is a major clue to Von Trier--or, more appropriately, Antichrist’s--actual story and theme. It may indeed by ridiculous and more than a tad gratuitous, but much to the dismay of many Dogville hating kittens, this is not a film about the evil of women.

Quick Plot: In a stunningly haunting black and white opening to rival every diamond commercial ever, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe make love while their toddler tumbles out a window.

Yeah, this is not The Blind Side.

Thank Satan.

I can’t discuss Antichrist without blatantly going into plot detail, so for those of you who haven’t seen the film yet, accept one keyword for optimum viewing, then exit until viewed (oddly enough, now on Netflix Instant Watch but not DVD). Ready for your early present? Here it is:

Perception

Now scurry away like demonic little foxes and come back in 108 minutes.

As for the rest of you, let’s talk. 

Antichrist is a gorgeous and grotesque film, and also something pretty brilliant. Before you start throwing your hands up in the air or wagging rusty scissors at my clitoris, let me point to the most important moment in the story, the unlocking-the-box of Mullholland Drive, Rosebud itself, the talking fox.

Aside from being kind of adorable, it is, plain and simple, the turning point of the film because here is where we discover whose story is being told: He.

Dafoe, The Dude, The Not-Doctor, He of the Large Scrotal Sac, whatever. One of the biggest criticisms of Antichrist has been its misogyny and at the surface, that’s more than warranted. Gainsbourg’s She commits horrendous acts of violence and proves herself to have been a soulless mother who may very well have chosen an orgasm and thesis over the life of her child. Also, she can’t tell her right from her left, so she must be an idiot.

If you can’t tell from my Internet tone of voice, I’m being sarcastic. 

For the first half hour or so of Antichrist, we’re seeing genuine grief from She as He tries his own tricks to cure her. We’re near hypnotized by Gainsbourg and almost forget that Dafoe must be harnessing his own form of inner turmoil and guilt. Right when the fox opens his mouth, the film switches its neutral point of view, and everything that follows is filtered through Dafoe’s perspective.

Earlier signs point to his own instability and paranoia--think of the strange little infection He finds growing on his arm when he wakes up with the window open. But once we get to Chapter 3, nothing we see can really be trusted. Take, for example, the polaroid of Nicholas with his boots on the wrong feet. An innocent mistake a lot of parents (and occasionally, 28 year old women like me) probably make, but flashbacks--whose flashbacks?--reveal it to be total Shoegate and the sign of a truly twisted woman...mostly because that’s the image Dafoe now thrusts upon his wife. Back in the hospital, She tearfully accepted responsibility for the tragedy because she knew Nicholas could escape his crib, and now, with chaos free to reign, He rewrites the event to put all the blame on She. She saw Nicholas climb the table, purposely switched his boots, logged He’s privates and rammed a vice in his leg because, as the story now goes, women are inherently evil. 

Antichrist is not a misogynist movie, nor is it about misogyny. It's a story of the deepest despair a man and woman can possibly reach, and the horrors their own grief may then create out of desperation and avoidance. About a man who deals with his despair by assigning all the blame, both of this tragedy and the whole world, on the only other person left that can accept it. He is just as responsible for the death of their son, but his therapy involves dropping all of it on She, painting her as an almost medieval witch pent on the destruction of all the men in her life.

What actually happens in that third chapter? Having only watched the film once, I can’t really say just yet. I don’t know that I believe clitori are cut or crows broken. Violence occurs, but all we know of it is filtered through the eyes of a man in great emotional pain and in no way is his perspective to be trusted as fact. 

It’s His story, surreal, biased, judgmental and cowardly. Perhaps this is Lars Von Trier’s first film in recent years told from a male point of view. Not a bad start.

High Points

Dafoe and Gainsbourg go above and beyond the call of duty to give absolutely incredible and raw and brilliant performances

There’s an awful lot of shaky cam and extreme closeups, and they all work quite well to shake your own vantage point viewing a nightmare

Low Points

The very fact that Sandra Bullock will end Sunday night with an Oscar while Charlotte Gainsbourg will be home sipping wine

Did we need to see a certain closeup of a rarely seen (on non-porn) body part being mutilated? Probably not, but that’s Von Trier for ya and it’s as brave as it is disgusting

Lessons Learned

Putting your baby monitor on mute is about as logical as taking the caffeine out of coffee

The most important tool a grieving father can own is a wrench

Oak trees have an awful lot of acorns to shed just when you want to sleep

Rent/Bury/Buy

As long as you have a rough idea of what you’re in for, any film fan should at least see Antichrist with an open mind and possibly empty stomach. There’s a good chance you’ll despise the viewing experience, but just as sure a gamble that you’ll rate Antichrist a masterpiece. The performances are more than excellent, the imagery uniquely gorgeous, and the experience the kind that doesn’t come along every year. There’s also injured genitals and baby death, so it’s probably not the flick you tune in with the family between courses on Thanksgiving or pop in while babysitting a neighborhood child.

Unless you really hate your family or the neighborhood children.

The Blind Side...of all that's good in the world

I don't know how to say this, so let me just spit it out:

Last Friday, I snuck in to watch what I soon learned was one of the most racist films to earn an Oscar nod (and tragically, most likely Oscar) since Breakfast At Tiffany's. Some may call it 'feel-good' and 'inspirational.' I call it offensive garbage.

Now I can already hear you bloodthirsty genre fans scratching your heads in confusion. "I Googled 'horror!'", you mumble, or, for those 3 viewers that seem to find this one page every month, "I just wanted a good headshot of Marc Blucas looking like an idiot ." 

I understand your pain and will now open a door for you to exit, should you choose. Feel free to return at a latter date, such as Thursday when I hope to post genital ripping praise of Lars von Trier's Antichrist or next week when the Day of the Dead remake gets its chance to thud. Allow me, however, this one pocket of cyberspace to waste on a movie that deserves none of the baffling praise it has somehow earned. 

And for the loyal readers who actually read this way too long synopsis of a way too long and unnecessary film, I threw in a reference to Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror. Don't say I don't love you.

Also of note: throughout this 'review', you may hear some electro jazz music playing in intermittent spurts. Trust me, you'll know (bwamm chicka chicka...I clearly don't know my porn music). This signifies an ideal moment for any director of feature length pornography--professional or amateur, we're all artists here--to take the otherwise uninteresting scene into X-rated territory.

Not a Quick Plot: A kindly janitor named Tony comes to a private Christian school to try to enroll his son, Stephen. In order to do this, he has to talk with the school’s basketball and football coach (Ray McKinnon, who gets to make a lot of Karrrr-azay faces in a bid to nip at Jim Carrey’s ankles) because of course, young black men are athletic and will make fine additions to any team. Turns out, Tony has ANOTHER young, potentially athletic black man under his occasional care (aka, he sometimes sleeps on Tony’s couch) named Big Mike (Quinton Aaron, who gets to...mumble and occasionally walk), and wouldn’t it be great if he could go to school too? 

Yes, that’s a fine idea, and what a nice gesture from a caring man like Tony.

Now to follow in the footsteps of the film, let us never speak of Tony again.

Big Mike walks to school and stands out, according to one source, like a fly in milk because apparently, there are no black people in Christian small towns. No black people except for Big Mike. And Tony and Stephen, but they have served the script’s purpose and seem to have evaporated into the glistening Caucasian air. Since they don’t have any nice white people to adopt them, we’re led to believe they will probably turn to drugs and die early deaths.

In the classroom, Big Mike is kind of a drag. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t seem to learn. Teachers snidely talk about his lack of ability, and Big Mike spends a few evenings hanging out at a laundromat and making hesitant eyes at the town’s only black woman (bwamm chikka chikka chikka) until one day, while walking nowhere in the rain, he crosses the street in front of the Tuohy family. Father Tuohy, played by Tim McGraw as a man comprised entirely of knowing grins, tells Big Mike he can “go on,” because apparently black people need permission to cross the street in 21st century Tennessee. Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock in what I believe to be a role she sold her soul to Satan to be considered for an Oscar for) insists Big Mike come home to the Tuohy mansion and spend the night on the couch. (bwamm chikka chikka chikka). 

The next morning, she wakes up and wonders if he stole anything.

He didn’t, of course, because he had been touched by the spirit of Caucasia. Leigh Anne drives Big Mike to his mother’s house on The Other Side of Town where a bunch of thuggish black men call her Snowflake and suggestively wink in her direction. Clearly homeless, Big Mike sheepishly returns and before long, the Tuohys (teen daughter and horrendous man-child son S.J. included) are sharing their Thanksgiving dinner with the monosyllabic new guest and Leigh Anne is buying him rugby shirts, making his futon, and attending parent teacher conferences where she learns that Michael (as he’s now known because nobody on the Streets ever knew he didn’t like being called Big Mike) tested in the 98th percentile for “protective instincts.” 

Now I’m not from the south, but are students really tested on this? Am I crazy, or is this something generally reserved to describe quality guard dogs? Anyway, Big Mike gets some extra help tutoring from kindly teacher Kim Dickens (bwamm chikka chikka) and starts to smile more. Also, he gets pet by S.J.

D’oh! I skipped over the amazingly poignant scene wherein the Tuoys go to a fancy restaurant for dinner, and Michael stays behind to embrace the busboy. When asked about the identity of this rare African American male not selling drugs on The Wrong Side of Town, Michael explains that he is his brother.

And like Tony and Stephen, we never see him again.

Anyway, Michael becomes such a big part of the family, he’s actually allowed to pose with the Tuoys ) for their annual Christmas portrait! Of course, Leigh Anne assures the slack-jawed McGraw that she won’t use the photo on the Christmas card but cut to--get this--the Christmas card, complete with Michael’s smiling mug in the background! You totally didn’t see that coming, did you??? 

Naturally, the questions start coming. Leigh Anne sometimes dines on $18 salads with a few girlfriends who wear really big accessories and colorful scarves, which naturally means they’re the kind of women who don’t approve of a black man sharing house space with Leigh Anne or her 16 year old daughter Collins. One of them even compares the Christmas card to a still from 1976’s King Kong, 

which is a terribly cruel insult to both black people and Jessica Lange. 

The other great thing about this scene is it gives us the opportunity to hear this line: 

“You’re changing that boy’s life.” 

To which we can all mouth in prediction at the same time Leigh Anne’s heartfelt response:

“No. He’s changing mine.” (presumably by teaching her that black people like rugby shirts)

Soon it’s time to legally adopt Michael, a surprisingly easy feat when you’re white and Southern because you can waltz into a state office, cut the line, and charm everyone around you with your own protective pluck and low cut top. Leigh Anne is also saddened by just how easy a process it is to claim a young black man as your own, so she seeks out Michael’s birth mother so that she can direct her pity somewhere else. According to a social worker, this is a woman who’s been described as having “more than a dozen” children and naturally, there’s little Leigh Anne can do to comfort her (bwamm chickka chickka).

Leigh Anne can, however, buy Michael a brand new truck and Michael can, of course, take freckly demon seed S.J. out for a spin and immediately get into a nearly fatal crash because he was distracted singing “Bust A Move” with a nine-year-old rather than watching the road. 

Sadly, S.J. survives unscathed.

Oh well, glad that unpleasantness is behind us, because now it’s FOOTBALL SEASON! Remember, this is the whole reason Michael ever had a shot at The Good Life With White People, so it’s very important that this young man prove himself on the field. Unfortunately, football is haaaaaard. Poor Michael can’t really get a grip on the logistics, but more importantly, the big guy seems positively timid when it comes to tackling other men. Coach Rubber Face can do nothing but cross his eyes and make stupid mouth gestures. Thankfully, Leigh Anne is watching eagle eyed and solves the problem: Michael doesn’t want to hurt anybody, but if he thinks of the football team as his family and the other guys as Oompah Loompahs, he’ll be amazing! 

Remember, this is the same dog--dude, I mean dude, who tested in the 98th percentile for protective instincts.

Cut to the first Big Game, where Michael is a little slow to get moving. Also, everyone in the crowd not now in love with Michael is a blazing racist because the only black people they know--if any--come from The Wrong Side of Town. This also applies to the referee, who flags Michael for no reason other than, we’re all supposed to believe, the color of his skin. Because there are no black people playing football in 21st century Tennessee. Ah well, at least this is enough to make Coach Stupid Rubber Face realize that he loves Michael like a son. Naturally. 

So now Michael is popular ‘n stuff and everyone--including football coaches and college recruiters--want a piece of him. We even get a scene where Leigh Anne watches--in between coaching cheerleading, apparently--as a huddle of white men approach Michael and eye his giant arms as if they’re primed for heavy labor on the cotton fields. 

Again, really wish I was joking.

Since there’s still another 30 minutes let in the film, it’s time for Another Conflict. This time, Michael needs to raise his grades a bit, which is easy enough when Kathy Bates is your tutor (even if she is shhhhh! a Democrat; bwam chickka chicka). Of course, there’s one crusty old white English teacher who isn’t charmed by Michael’s poor writing skills. This is where Smiley McGraw comes in handy to recite The Charge of the Light Brigade to an otherwise possibly illiterate Michael, who then writes an essay that earns him the A he needs. 

No comment on the fact that Michael doesn’t seem to actually read the poem, providing struggling English students with a very poor example of how to earn a scholarship (i.e., have a dad like Tim McGraw).

So you thought we’re ready for the Happy Ending, right? Nooooooo. We need to EARN it! This is a Best Picture nominee, for goodness sake. See, now that Michael is the cat’s plus size pajamas, he can actually choose which university to bestow his greatness upon. Like the rest of the film, there’s no actual thought process for the character to go through. He simply mumbles in agreement after a quick montage where various men in suits wine and dine him and, more importantly, precocious little S.J. who’s far more concerned with what gee whiz bonus he gets in return for Michael’s letter of intent. 

After a lot of casual prodding, Michael decides to attend Ole Miss (which I assume is code for the University of Mississippi, but I’m not southern so I probably don’t deserve to know) but there’s Drama here because this is the alma mater of both Tuoys. Leigh Anne was even a cheerleader there! So in steps the NCAA to investigate whether the Tuoys just adopted this defensive prodigy in the hopes of improving their Division I’s roster. A black woman with a severe haircut and, most likely no happy adolescence with a nice white family is positively mean to the baffled Michael. 

Hurt and shocked at being allowed to display any sign of individuality, Michael storms off and returns to his childhood home where all the poor black people are doing drugs and drinking alcohol. I’d really like to pretend that was an exaggeration. It’s not.

Michael hesitantly parties with his new friends, (bwammm chicka chicka) but gets upset when they make sexual comments about his snowflake of a mother and white sister. I mean, Michael has shown absolutely no interest in the opposite sex the entire film, so naturally the mere thought that someone else would say such words rile his Protective Instinct (98 %, remember). Bad Black Drug Dealer pulls a gun on Michael, but since our hero is working on protective adrenaline, he easily KOs BBDD and three other villainous, non-white tutored thugs and leaves.

This brings us to the arguably Greatest Scene of All Time, and easily the reason Sandra Bullock will walk home with a quickly lessening in value Oscar in a few days. Leigh Anne has had time to think about the past year’s events and has concluded that she might not a good person. To make peace with herself, she drives back to The Wrong Side of Town to confront The Bad Black Guys, most of whom sit menacingly on a porch with their tattoos glistening with nefarious intentions under the hot sun. With her Wonder Bra beaming and southern accent chirping, Leigh Anne convinces the crowd that she’s a proud NRA member holding a gun in her designer purse. 

That’s all they need to let her go. (bwamm chick chicka)

Wow white people rule. They even intimidate black people with their sass!

Michael, meanwhile, is eventually found (not that hard because he’s the only black person on the Not Wrong Side of Town, and horizontal stripes from rugby shirts help to widen his girth even further). Leigh Anne apologizes, Michael decides Ole Miss will be his new home no matter what, and an epilogue leads them to orientation day on campus. A few attractive freshmen pass his glance, to which Leigh Anne then threatens to cut off his penis if he dares impregnate a fellow student. 

“She means it!”  says S.J. with a smile, finally confirming what I suspected from the beginning: that he is indeed a 30 year old man akin to Burial Ground’s Peter Bark, only Leigh Anne castrated him when he did indeed get someone pregnant. It explains so very much.

Real-life footage pops up over the credits as the actual Michael Oher gets drafted by the NFL, daughter Collins gets the surely equal in grandeur honor of becoming a college cheerleader, S.J. gets to walk onto the opening day football field wearing a sweater vest, and the audience around me mumbles how wonderful the last 2 hours of hell were. I consider suicide.

Lessons Learned

Owning 85 Taco Bells is an incredibly lucrative profession

The bigger the accessories, the bigger the racist

You’ll never love clothing nearly as much as you love it in the store

Thugs packing heat are easily intimidated by prayer group presidents

Disclaimer

Please understand, I mean no disrespect to the Tuohy family or Michael Oher. If this indeed their story, then more power to them for being kind and charitable and defeating the odds. They--but more importantly, we--simply deserve better. 

Conclusion

This film received a nomination as Best Picture of the Year. Enough of the Hollywood industry considered this to be just as good, if not better than, Inglourious Basterds. Thus far, it’s made over ten times more money than The Hurt Locker. This, a film in which every line that isn’t shockingly offensive in a did-they-really-say-that way, is anticipated by any audience member with a slight hold on the English language. A film that insists, sometimes outright, that black people suffer in the world every day but every once in a while, a loving white family can change that. A film whose central character has zero weight on anything that happens around him.

An equally long essay could be written comparing The Blind Side to Precious, a film also about an overweight, underloved African American. But see the difference, to sum up quickly, is that Precious cares about its lead. It empowers her. It allows actress Gabourey Sidibe room to create a human being that can be hurt and find her own strength to deal with that, occasionally with help from others but most importantly, from within herself. It’s not a flawless film by any means, but it is a film about characters that actually develop, for better and worse. Quinton Aaron's only direction as an actor is to quietly accept everything white people tell him. 

Although, it should be noted, Michael is often compared to an onion composed of many layers. 

Yes, just like Shrek.

The Blind Side is a McDonald’s--or, more appropriately, Taco Bell--dollar menu item. Seemingly appealing, yet less fulfilling than the gum scraped off a sidewalk. Dangerous to your health and destructive to the minds and bodies of those that consume it. It creates an imaginary fantasy world where people are either amazingly angelic, uneducated and dangerous, or blank slates willing to fall on whichever side seizes them with prettier colors. 

This film makes me embarrassed to be considered white. And alive.

Now let's forget our troubles with a cute photo of an English bulldog puppy.