I Feel The Need, The Need For Speed

My name is Steven. Although depending on the friends I am with at the time I could also be called 'Perry' but explaining that one would involve a rather boring story so I shan't bother.

I graduated from the fine educational establishment that is the University of Salford with a degree in Leisure Management. Not sure why I chose that particular degree but a degree is a degree and if anything at least it pads out the CV a bit.

I currently work for a transport company ensuring that people get their beer deliveries, so I am an addition to that statistic of graduates doing jobs that have nothing to do with their degrees whatsoever, although I could argue that drinking is a part of leisure and I manage people getting their 'leisure', but that would be pompous of me so I won't.

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Mar 1

The Blind Side

In my quest to see most of the Best Film nominees for the Oscars this year today I watched ‘The Blind Side’, mainly because I wanted to see if Sandra Bullock deserved to be the favourite to win the best actress Oscar.

Didn’t really know what the film was about, other than it involved American Football and a supposedly Oscar worthy performance by Sandra Bullock. Well I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I don’t mind American Football films, ‘Remember The Titans’ and ‘Any Given Sunday’ were both pretty damn good, and even ‘Varsity Blues’ had it’s enjoyable moments. As such I would not have been against another film involving the sport but in this film the American Football itself is not the main issue.

The story revolves around a shy kid known as ‘Big Mike, a tall, well built black kid obviously epitomising the kid from the wrong side of town really. He gets in to a Christian school thanks to his friends dad convincing the P.E teacher to persuade the school board to let him in, in part as he’s pretty damn good at sport.

Sandra Bullock is the parent who has her two kids go to the school and one night the family are driving home from some school event, see ‘Big Mike’ walking home in the cold and find out he has nowhere to stay for the night so offer him a place for the night.

You could be forgiven for thinking this would just fall in to the age old cliches of a struggling black kid is taken in by a white family who have money, they help him realise his potential and he comes part of the family, with the typical druggie mum who gave up the kid due to not being able to cope with the fine balance of having a drug habit and having a kid.

Well to be honest that is mostly how the film plays out, but it does so with some good performances from all involved, the little kid who plays Sandra Bullock’s youngest son is pretty damn good and ‘Big Mike’ is really good too.

When it comes to Sandra Bullock I can say that she was good, but i’m not too sure if the deserves all the Oscar buzz surrounding her. I can’t help but think that the Oscars are doing exactly what the BAFTA’s did with the best actress award and giving the award to someone who is starring in an American movie that is based on a true story and gives a half decent performance. Carey Mulligan was good in ‘An Education’ but i’m not sure she deserved the ‘Best Actress’ award as I still think that Gabourey Sidibe put in a really good performance in ‘Precious’, but seeing as no-one has really seen that film and it’s Sidibe’s first acting experience she’s never going to win the major awards and will just have to live with being overshadowed in the awards by Mo’Nique winning all the Best Supporting Acress awards going.

So in summary, ‘The Blind Side’ is well worth seeing, gets about 8/10 from me but Sandra Bullock should not be the favourite for the Oscar, even though my view means naff all to the Oscars and she’ll almost certainly be picking up the award on Sunday.