Hot Tub Time Machine

I can't explain how welcome a breezy broad comedy is in the wake of reviewing the deep, dark Oscar nominees. Hot Tub Time Machine is just that, a breeze blown in from the minds of young writers Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris. Ever since Judd Apatow mined the gold that is the ironic buddy comedy, Hollywood has been keen to crank out like material (The Hangover, Role Models). Hot Tub Time Machine capitalizes on this in a unique way. It takes a respected and veteran actor (John Cusack) and essentially puts his ass in the back seat. This film belongs to Rob Corddry (The Daily Show, W, and I'm digging, folks) and Craig Robinson (Knocked Up,The Office). I had begun to so woefully miss Corddry that I started watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to have his brother Nate fill the void. Believe me, as much as I respect the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin, that hyper-intellectual tommy gun can be more than a little grating on the senses. But here we finally have a giant juicy bite of Corddry in all of his angry glory. As Lou, Hot Tub's resident jackass, Corddry is offensive and rude without losing any of the hapless charm he displayed as a Daily Show correspondent. When Lou questionably attempts suicide, his friends Adam and Nick (Cusack and Robinson respectively) decide to take him on a vacation. Along with Adam's young and nebbishy nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), the four return to a familiar ski town where they once raised Cain. The foursome come upon a hot tub, which they promptly jump into. With the help of an illegal Russian beverage and some serious drunken debauchery, they are transported back to the 1980's. I am going to stop relaying the plot now. Seriously. It would insult you as moviegoers if I were to continue describing the ludicrousness that is Hot Tub Time Machine. All I can say is: if you haven't seen it yet, go. Go now. Do a half-dozen shots of Jagermeister first, whatever gets you where you need to be in order to suspend that disbelief, babies. Craig Robinson's laid back delivery works perfectly in this continuous train of hilarity and newcomer Clark Duke provides both straight-man savvy and dirt-dry sarcasm. Cusack, while always a pleasure to watch in anything is really behind the eight ball here. We all know the plot is ridiculous, the motherfucking writers knew it was ridiculous when they took peyote and wrote it. But Cusack's character knows it and he can't stop indicating it to the audience. That is not acceptable from the ladies of Baywatch, let alone an uncommonly talented, highly intelligent, seriously seasoned pro like John Cusack. If you're going to do something light and unexpected, either just for the money or just for the fun of it, do it. But don't insult me by making a mockery of the acting process when all of your (much less compensated) co-stars give it their all and then some. Hot Tub Time Machine is hysterically funny despite John Cusack, not because of him. It deeply pains me to say this, as Cusack has always been the brainy girl's Mr. Right. Cusack tore up 80's and 90's hits like The Sure Thing and Say Anything with his angsty sarcasm and delightful vulnerability. His piece de resistance was absolutely 2000's High Fidelity. He took Nick Hornby's conception of Rob Gordon and made him every whiny music snob you were annoyed to know . His performance was nuanced and generous, allowing newer talents like Jack Black to shine a gorgeous light upon themselves. Cusack made all of us pretentious film and music mavens proud. The film also resonated with me personally, as it took place in a part of Chicago where I had honed some of those very pretensions. Cusack seemed to be gunning for more recognition in later years, particularly with the film Grace is Gone, about a father of two young girls trying to figure out how to tell them that their mother has just been killed in combat. The beautiful physicality he displayed in Being John Malkovich was on steroids in Grace is Gone, making it look like he was trying to grab an Oscar with his character's hunched shoulder blades.
Cusack has always been a study in incongruence; he maintains a home in Chicago because he claims to love it's people, but he is always extremely unapproachable and appears to want nothing to do with any of them. He bemoans the extra light shed upon celebrities and yet can usually be found dating them, a la Meg Ryan. But Cusack's work, either as an actor, or a writer and producer has always been excellent. In fact, Cusack can lend gravitas to a project that is lacking simply by adding his name to the marquee. But there is something about him in Hot Tub Time Machine that seems to be saying "I know this is a dumb movie. I did it for the money. A shit-ton of it. Please forgive me, and give me your money". He's almost mocking the audience that would come out in droves to see such a film. My Comment is really only about John Cusack, because he is a cultural icon. An icon that appears to have forgotten what a privilege it is to get to do something you love and make a (great) living from it. Director Steve Pink has worked with Cusack for a long time, and it's entirely possible that he has gotten burned out by show business and it's usual vapid players. But he needs to buck up, get down to writing again and show us the sharpness we first noticed in Sixteen Candles when he was still a gawky teen from Evanston, trying to break into the business that he seems so wary and tired of. If he doesn't, we will have lost one of film's truest talents.

Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese (arguably our greatest living filmmaker) has an unparalleled knowledge and reverence for film and it's history. To wit, earlier in his career Scorsese got accused of trying to cram too many different genres into his work. Then came Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. These movies had the personal stamp of a filmmaker who had embraced where he came from; the immigrant-laden working-class streets of New York City. Although it took many years for Scorsese to get the plaudits he so richly deserved, most critics agreed that 1990's GoodFellas was one of best, if not the best, American movies ever made. Scorsese quickly became that rare kind of director who was a box-office draw unto himself, which did not prevent him from turning out several more excellent pictures (The Age of Innocence not withstanding, because as I'm sure everybody knows, Michelle Pfeiffer's hair alone was enough of a reason to hate that movie). In the last ten years, Scorsese has chosen to stretch his artistic talent to an almost catholic degree. He seems to be interested in so many genres and topics that it's become impossible to paint him with any one brush. There was the superb biopic The Aviator, The Departed, which was essentially a re-make of Hong Kong director Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs, and now Shutter Island. The film was adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from Dennis Lahane's (Mystic River) book. Shutter Island begins in 1954 with U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) on a Boston ferry bound for Shutter Island, a mental institution for criminals. Daniels meets his first-time partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) with whom he is tasked with investigating the disappearance of a female patient from the institution. There is a foreboding and ominous air about the island as the two men approach it, further solidified by their introduction to head psychiatrist Dr. Cawley (a suitably creepy Ben Kingsley).

As Daniels and Aule delve deeper into the mystery of the missing woman, Daniels slowly reveals traumas from his past that begin to wend their way into the present. We soon discover that Daniels is tormented by the death of his wife Delores (played weakly by the usually good Michelle Williams) and believes her killer may still be imprisoned on the island. As Daniels becomes more and more paranoid, Shutter Island takes on a panopticon-like prison atmosphere where he is always being watched and soon feels like a prisoner (or patient) himself. Soon Daniels realizes he cannot trust anyone, nor can he outrun his own demons, including his liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. These realizations produce some horrific images as Daniels attempts to unravel the enigma that is Shutter Island.

Shutter Island is interesting and is, like all Dennis Lahane stories, refreshingly original. But there is something missing from the film. Nearly all of Martin Scorsese's movies have one thing in common; a flawed male protagonist locked in a struggle against others. Jake LaMotta, Henry Hill, Travis Bickle, Howard Hughes and even J. Christ all fit that model. Teddy Daniels does too, but the story those characters find themselves in never became gimmicky the way that Shutter Island does. Leonardo DiCaprio does his usual excellent job of mining his emotions and coming up flush with dramatic gold, and while not much is asked of him, Mark Ruffalo is good as well. I would have liked to have seen more of the viscerally spooky Max von Sydow as Dr. Naering, but I can always re-watch Hannah and Her Sisters to catch him playing his best character ever, the dour Frederick. By the way, I feel that Scorsese's casting of von Sydow in this role seems like an homage to Woody Allen's homage to Ingmar Bergman. That might be just me though. Shutter Island is doing a brisk business, with some of the more positive reviews proclaiming it "the best thriller in years". Well it may be, but that doesn't mean it's great. I wonder if Scorsese ever allows himself to fear the feeling of not being able to live up to his past masterpieces. There's a bit of a catch-22 operating, in that people didn't respond to Scorsese's work until he began making his films intensely personal. But once an audience falls for your most personal work, it's a sonofabitch of a situation trying to get them to stay with you as you move away from that. My Comment in a nutshell is precisely that conundrum. How does an artist grow and evolve without losing the fans who fell in love with her original art? Humans usually hate change, and I am one of those humans. I think it's the brave and brilliant artists that say to hell with the change haters. I applaud Scorsese for always trying to branch out, to try different things with film. Although Shutter Island is no Taxi Driver, it is still a fine example of one of history's best directors staying relevant.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is the best film ever made about the Iraq war and it's effect on our troops. Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal force us to look at the vast wounds (physical and otherwise) sustained by the soldiers with an unflinching eye. Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sergeant William James, newly appointed team leader of an elite EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit. James' job is to disarm the very unpredictable bombs scattered throughout the Iraqi war zone. He joins Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who have just lost their previous leader to an IED explosion. The EOD unit has just thirty-nine days left in their tour and Sanborn and Eldridge are counting the hours. James, however, is a soldier addicted to the adrenaline high that comes with doing something that can cost one his life. James doesn't feel alive unless he's facing death, and he soon leads his team into perilous territory by taking risks with their lives. Outwardly, James displays a too-cool-for-school demeanor that belies his inner tumult. Renner does a beautiful job of conveying the duality within SSG James. When he is standing over the badly maimed body of a child, it only takes one seconds-long close-up to see the torment of war. Anthony Mackie as Sanborn gives an even and engrossing performance as a soldier who tolerates little bush-league bull in his unit. Brian Geraghty is overly angry as Eldridge, a part he could have finessed better. Both Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce appear in one short scene each, but they are both rays of light in this dark, dense world. Kathryn Bigelow is not a prolific writer/director, but she is very, very good. She is spartan with her direction, and never uses three camera angles when one will do. Although, with a budget of $15,000,000, it's possible she had little choice. The best thing Bigelow and Boal do is get across the psychological makings of a character. We see James in his home town after he has finished his tour. He cleans his gutters, chops vegetables with his girlfriend (Evangeline Lilly, looking like the hottest mom the suburbs has ever seen) and plays with his infant son. But as James stands in the grocery aisle, staring at the wall of cereals from which to choose, we know he is going back to war. Bigelow captures that realization so simply and easily, it makes me feel like many other filmmakers are somehow wasteful pollutants.
My Comment is about psychology and how some people choose to ignore it's existence. I'm not arguing that Freud is God. On the contrary, he was as flawed as any man (the cocaine and the misogyny prove that point). But nothing irritates me as much as someone discounting the effect the psyche has on one's behavior. I once read an interview with Mia Farrow, shortly after Woody Allen had left her for her adopted daught Soon-Yi Previn. Farrow was hurt and humiliated and proceeded to take out some that anger on Allen's psychiatrist, whom she felt had played a part in the betrayal. She announced that psychiatry was dangerous, and that every psychiatrist would have his license revoked when the public got wise. I'm not implying that Mia Farrow is viewed as an expert on anything, nor that anyone actually believed her. But statements like hers can be destructive, much like Tom Cruise's bimbo rant against psychotropic drugs used to treat depression. Psychology can be misused by all sorts of people, but that doesn't make it a bad science. The understanding that comes from exploring a person's psychology is tantamount to having the proverbial crystal ball, and that understand is magnified when applied to a character. The Hurt Locker gives us that understanding and wraps it in a violent, horrible package called war.

Up

After seeing Up, I remain completely convinced that the nomination of ten films is a ratings ploy. Writer/directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have created an original and charming animated film, but not a Best Picture nominee. Up begins in the 1940's with a shy boy named Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner). Carl worships a swashbuckling adventurer named Charles Muntz, who pilots a blimp to exotic locales. Soon Carl meets a plucky tomboy named Ellie (also a Muntz fan), who immediately befriends him. We see the next seventy years as a montage wherein Carl and Ellie grow up, fall in love, then marry. Present day arrives bringing Ellie's death and Carl's inevitable loneliness. Now residing in the home he and Ellie shared for years, Carl decides to embark on the one adventure that Ellie would have loved. He ties thousands of balloons to his home and takes off towards the remote Paradise Falls in South America. Giddy at the prospect of fulfilling Ellie's lifelong dream, Carl soon realizes that he is not traveling alone. A young boy scout named Russell (Jordan Nagai) has remained on the porch of Carl's house while attempting to get his "Helping the Elderly" badge. Carl and Russell land in South America and come upon a rare bird, talking dogs and eventually, Charles Muntz himself.
The really successful animated films always contain elements that both children and their parents find entertaining. Up has both, but lacks the brilliant plot of Brad Bird's The Incredibles, or the ingenious writing of Shrek. The movie has raked in over $700,000,000 worldwide, which I think points to a serious dearth of animated films as opposed to the actual quality of Up. Ed Asner voicing the character of Carl is perfect casting, as Asner does crotchety old man like nobody else (except Jack Cafferty). Jordan Nagai delivers a run-of-the-mill child's character while voicing Russell, with every whine and giggle landing predictably where you imagine it might. Christopher Plummer as the voice of Charles Muntz is a delight, as Plummer rarely gets a role where he can play. The best parts of Up are the scenes with dogs that are able to speak with the aide of electronic collars. The collars translate the dogs' barking into human words. For any dog lover, the recognition of canine behavior will be palpable. My Comment is on the main message of Up, which seems to be: Don't Forget to Enjoy Life While You're Making Plans. I feel like everyone I know is always thinking of the next house, the next car, the next life. Do we actually believe that we'll start living in the present just as soon as we get the next thing? I think we don't even know how to live in the moment. I know I don't. For me, the most "in the moment" I am is when I'm watching a movie. Not at home, with my phone and television and pet kinkajou (I don't really own a pet kinkajou, he's dead). But in a theater, lights down and technology turned off. I allow everything to fade away and allow myself to swim in someone else's story. If it's a good story, then it's the best two hours of my life. If it's not, then I still get analyze it, hypothesize about it and criticize it. It's really a win-win. I wish that when I left the theater, I didn't jump back into my plan-making instead of leisurely enjoying the ride.

District 9

The fact that District 9 was is the first feature film of 31-year-old Neill Blomkamp is remarkable, but it also helps explain some of the film's flaws. Blomkamp uses the interesting (if slightly lazy) device of recounting the film's events through mock-documentary interviews. Several sociologists relate how in 1982, a large spacecraft arrived in the airspace over Johannesburg, South Africa. After a three-month period in which no movement is made, the South African authorities break into the craft and discover an alien species. The aliens are brought to terra firma and made to live in a shantytown-like area called District 9. After twenty years, both the white and black South African have become increasingly tired of the alien beings (or "prawns", the derogatory nickname they are given) and are desirous of their removal to a different, more remote area called, of course, District 10. The South African government outsources the removal of the prawns to a private company called Multi-National United, or the MNU. The MNU has a clear disregard for the aliens as well as public relations. The man tasked with the eviction is the colossally insensitive Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a white Afrikaner. Wikus excitedly plays to the cameras as he bounces from one filth-laden shelter to the next, demanding the aliens signatures on their eviction notices. When he doesn't get the response he desires, Wikus directs his foot soldiers to callously beat or kill the alien in question. Wikus and his thugs soon encounter an intelligent prawn named Christopher Johnson and his small son. While ransacking Christopher's domicile, Wikus discovers a receptacle filled with black liquid which he accidentally sprays in his face. It soon becomes clear that he has been infected by the liquid which is the juice that powers all prawn technology, technology which only a prawn can operate. While at the hospital, Wikus realizes that he is transforming into a prawn. His higher-ups at MNU know that they can harvest Wikus' organs to gain control of prawn weaponry, representing billions of dollars to their corporation. As Wikus sees himself becoming an alien, he begins to empathize more and more with the plight of the prawns.
Director and writer Blomkamp is himself a white South African who immigrated to Canada at age eighteen. It is fair to say that Blomkamp knows a thing or two about being both oppressor and alien. He also brings his considerable 3-D animation and visual effects experience to District 9, and the film is the better for it. The story is interesting and engaging, but the blunt tool Blomkamp uses to get his point across is painfully transparent. MNU is a crude Blackwater substitute, and it's bosses and employees make obvious stand-in's for either Apartheid Afrikaners, or Coalition Forces in Iraq. Meanwhile the nickname "prawn", meant to conjure up any manner of racial epithets, did nothing but make me hungry. District 9 does not belong on the Best Picture list but it does belong on the box office toppers list as it has to date grossed over $204,000,000 worldwide. I can't help but think that the Academy must really want to pull more viewers by nominating popular films. Blomkamp has a bright future ahead of him, especially if he can refine his writing to match his competency in directing. I appreciated the transformation that Wikus undergoes and my Comment has to do with understanding someone once you walk a mile in their shoes. A few years back, an acquaintance told me that people without children simply didn't understand what life with a child meant. I did not have any children at that point and I wanted to brass knuckle his arrogant face. I have a daughter now and I absolutely get what he meant (don't get me wrong, the guy is still a jackass). I have always found it both easy and pleasurable to denigrate somebody I deemed stupid, vain, arrogant or rude. But lately I keep coming back to F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose Nick Carraway quotes his father as saying "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had". When I read Gatsby in high school for the first time, I paid little if any attention to this sentiment. Later I paid attention, but chose to ignore it. Now I endeavor to abide by it because it's the right way in which to behave. Neill Blomkamp's message, if somewhat heavy-handed, seems to be a variation on this theme.

A Serious Man

Every so often a film comes out that would never have been made were it not for the fact that the director (or directors) was a heavyweight. Liberty Heights, written and directed by Barry Levinson comes to mind as do all of Woody Allen's films. A Serious Man, written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen fits that bill exquisitely. Just imagine a little known writer giving this pitch; "Um, it's set in the Midwest in 1970 and a nebbishy Jewish college professor experiences a crisis which causes him to look to his religion for answers. Oh yeah, and I don't want any stars. At all. In the entire movie". But Oscar-winning Coen brothers, different story altogether. A Serious Man is a darkly comic look at the life of Professor Larry Gopnik whose wife Judith has fallen in love with another man and wants to divorce him. Larry is also up for tenure and is facing a lawsuit by a student who is blackmailing him for a passing grade. Larry's son Danny is studying for his looming bar mitzvah and likes to smoke the weed out whenever possible, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) has been stealing money from his wallet to save up for a much-needed nose-job. To round out the misery, brother Arthur (Richard Kind) has been sleeping on the family's couch as a result of his out-of-control gambling habit. While Larry feebly attempts navigate the series of shit storms coming his way, he turns to his community rabbi's for help. A junior rabbi offers Larry the typically ambiguous platitudes that come so easily to religious leaders, but that really only help the least imaginative of sheep.
Larry's competitor for his wife's emotions is the supercilious Sy Ableman, played brilliantly by Fred Melamed. Sy appears to be everything that Larry is not-confident, smooth, in short, an "Able Man". Michael Stuhlbarg plays Larry Gopnik as one of the worst stereotypes of the Jewish man. He is weak and shaky, unable to handle the most blatant of betrayals by a loved one. Larry cowers under his domineering wife's pronouncements, and he allows the odious Sy to embrace him even as Sy perpetrates the act of stealing Larry's wife. Sy is the other part of the negative Jewish stereotype: the cunning liar who sweetly whispers flattery into your ear while conning you behind your back and balling your lady. All this film needs is a wealthy money-changer and it's a Der Sturmer cartoon. As much as this unappetizing slice of life offends me in the abstract I have to admit that while I was watching it I felt differently. As you may have guessed, I am what Grammy Hall would call a "real Jew", and let me tell you something, we can smell our own. Many times during the viewing of A Serious Man I found myself cackling my high-pitched Jewie laugh, only to look over at my gorgeous goyish guy and see, NOTHING. Stone faced. No laughter. Not even a smirk (although in truth it could have been my cackling). I was a giggly mess because I recognized the Gopniks with sparkling clarity. I didn't want to, but I did. The point is, while I have been waiting all these years for two of my favorite filmmakers to acknowledge their Jewishness, suddenly they do, and I don't like what I see. Apparently, neither did most of America, because the film only did $9,000,000 in domestic box office. But the film is nominated for Best Picture which it does deserve, as the writing is excellent and the plot is authentically original, like all of the Coen brothers' films. But methinks the brothers did themselves a disservice by only casting unknowns, as that clearly hurt the movie's bottom line. My Comment is about our cultural differences and why we love it when we find out someone is the same religion we are. And Jews, don't bullshit me and say you didn't love it when you found out Gwyneth (or Shia or Natalie or Scarlett) was Jewish. I don't know who the Episcopalians get excited about, but you can't have a single conversation with an Irish Catholic without them invoking one Kennedy or another. It makes us feel so good to find someone we perceive as an ally, even if the only similarity they possess is a belief in the same Yahweh. Please don't think that my observation translates into criticism, because I am guiltier than most in this capacity. I usually don't enjoy meeting new people, and I'll grab a hold of anything that might bind me to someone. Ironically, what binds me most to a new person is their hatred of meeting new people, and this outweighs religious proclivities any day of the week. Joel and Ethan Coen have given us the ultimate self-hatred portrayal, with Judaism front and center. I don't really like how my people are being portrayed, but I think the Coens render it beautifully.

The Blind Side

Although it pains me more than a shiv from an inmate, I'm going to quote Jerry Maguire. We live in a cynical, cynical world. I am one one of it's eager little cynical beavers, and damn it if this movie didn't have me teary-eyed within the first frame. The Blind Side was adapted by writer/director John Lee Hancock from the book by Michael Lewis. It's based on the true story of Michael Oher, the 2009 first round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens. The film details the difficult life of the young Oher who was born in the aptly named "Hurt Village" housing project in Memphis, Tennessee. Born to a crack-addicted mother, Oher was raised in a series of foster families that were not always filled with rainbows and Bugaboo strollers. In The Blind Side, Oher is played by Quinton Aaron who is so subtle in his performance, I almost didn't notice it. Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Ann Tuohy, a Southern steel magnolia who drives the entire film. Leigh Ann and her husband Sean (played by Tim McGraw, what?) live a privileged life of wealth, thanks to Sean's success as a franchise owner and Leigh Ann's booming decorating business. Both of their children (Jae Head and Lily Collins) attend a prestigious private Christian school in Memphis. Oher attends the school because a recent caretaker has lobbied to get him enrolled and things are not going well. Oher is one example of the thousands of disadvantaged children in this country who gets overlooked and passed through classes because he is an athlete and because he is part of the most shamefully broken system we have. Oher muddles through school, and soon becomes homeless until the Tuohy's invite him into their home. A tutor soon follows, helping Oher to raise his grades and become eligible for the school's football team. All the while, we see the impact that this damaged young boy has on the Tuohy family. They adopt Oher and lovingly guide him through high school, then college at Ole Miss. Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher seemed to me to be a poor choice and this was confirmed when I watched videos of the real Michael Oher, who is leaps and bounds more engaging than Aaron. Tim McGraw is no actor, I'll leave it at that. But Bullock carries this film. She is emotional and present, and shades Leigh Ann Tuohy with many different layers. She may be the tough Southern lady with the long nails and frosted hair, but we nearly smell her fear as she is led into the dangerous neighborhood where Michael used to live. Bullock has never been known for her acting ability, but has always possessed a very real and down-to-earth appeal that has kept her at the top of the heap. In 1998's Hope Floats, Bullock gave us glimpses of a talent that few knew she had. But, for every Crash, we received an onslaught of crap like Forces of Nature, Practical Magic, The Net, Miss Congeniality, Miss Congeniality 2, Speed 2: Cruise Control...please tell me I can stop. The point is, while this is a good performance, I believe that the Academy has bestowed the Best Actress nomination on Bullock because they have always liked her as a person and are thrilled that she has finally delivered. The Blind Side itself is a good film, but it is not a great one. The writing is solid, as is the ready-made plot. It also does it's job of making me cry in the dark. But it is not the Best Picture, nor will it win.
I do think it brings to light a serious problem we have in America, and that is what I am focused on in this highly Cultural Comment. I have heard from so many liberals that this film gives us the wrong message; namely, that all an impoverished African-American needs is a good, Christian white person (or family, in this case) to pull them out of their situation. I have also heard from many conservatives that this is all poppycock and there is nothing wrong with celebrating the generosity of lucky people who have helped those who are quite unlucky. In fact, the conservatives claim, isn't it just that generosity that makes this the greatest country in the world? Both of theses groups might do better to focus on the real problem at the hidden heart of The Blind Side; that the public education system is fucked. Highly, pitifully so. All anyone need do is pick up Jonathan Kozol's excellent book, Savage Inequalities to grasp the heartbreaking conditions of public schools unfortunate enough to be in poorer districts. Health care, abortion and yes, even terrorism seem to pale in comparison to how serious a national problem education is. And yet, it always seems to fall by the wayside in the national discourse. If we don't focus on improving our education system, we will fall behind. Period. I loved the improvement Michael Oher's learning in The Blind Side, hell, I even dug the montage. But that was one kid. We have our work cut out for us in trying to ameliorate this problem, and I don't think there are enough rich families to handle it. Well, not after Madoff, at least.