r/moviecritic • u/phantom_avenger • Dec 29 '24

What movie was critically acclaimed when it first released, but is hated now?

Post image

The Blind Side (2009) with Sandra Bullock is the first to come to mind for me!

28.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

7.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.3k

u/nails_for_breakfast Dec 29 '24

She and her husband pretty much did exactly what the representative from the NCAA accused them of in the movie

734

u/mrbuck8 Dec 29 '24

And the movie portrayed her as a villain for even asking.

As a college football fan, knowing how crazy boosters can be (especially in the SEC) I remember watching the movie and being like "that woman's line of questioning is so incredibly reasonable."

120

u/Alexandru1408 Dec 29 '24

I'm unfamiliar with college football, the recruits and how it all goes, but why would a football recruit be a piggy bank?
How would the family benefit from him going to a their alma matter?

Also, what makes SEC boosters crazy or more crazy then the boosters in other conferences?

178

u/OkArt1350 Dec 29 '24

They're so passionate about their alma mater that they'd commit crimes and violate rules to win. They get bragging rights over their other rich friends who went to different universities.

In this case, the family actually stole some of his NFL earnings, if I remember correctly. I can't remeber if it was just undue influence, conservatorship, or a financial crime buts there's a lot of news stories.

A good look at the crazy world of boosters is the SMU episode of 30 for 30. They're the only college football program that received the death penalty (complete suspension of the football program) from the NCAA for violating rules associated with boosters. Think free houses, cars, and salaries for top recruits and their family.

100

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/RexManning1 Dec 29 '24

Didn’t they only have a small fraction of those franchises back in 2003?

5

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/RexManning1 Dec 30 '24

I read something that the majority of their holdings came between 2003 and when they divested and the implication was that the money to buy more franchises came from whatever they got from Oher. Whether it was likeness rights from the film, books, speaking engagements, etc., none of it would have existed without him.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Sean Tuohy sold off the 117 franchises in 2019 for over $220 Million. Shortly after that, Michael Oher started sending his "shakedown" text messages demanding millions from them. You do the math.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Nonsense. They never got any money from Michael Oher to fund their franchises. When he started in the NFL he hired his own agents, accountants, and financial planners. If the Tuohys would have touched his money or contracts, Oher's financial team would have been all over that.

And who goes to a Taco Bell because the owners are celebrities? Who even knows who the franchise owners even are? You act like they have pictures of Michael Oher 20 ft tall on their storefront signage.

Without him they still would have build their fast-food empire to 117 locations,

Without them he may not even have graduated high school.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

Try 30-60K per year

4

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

No they were already really well off. Went to school with the youngest

1

u/RexManning1 Dec 30 '24

Well off can come from 1 franchise. Very easily.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

True. But he already had a good bit and was notable in other areas. The mom was already a pretty big interior decorator in Germantown. Which is a very rich area. So she was making bank.

At Briarcrest they weren’t the wealthiest. But the were pretty high up on the list.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

They had 57 franchises worth $50 million back in 2002 when they first met Michael Oher as a sophomore.

7

u/pangolinofdoom Dec 30 '24

I have learned an important lesson from this thread...

If I ever have a son, he is NOT allowed to play football. Especially in the South. What a confusing and complicated nightmare of a sport!

2

u/TheBigBangClock Dec 30 '24

My son is 10 and a few of his baseball teammates are now transitioning into contact football during the fall. Given all the data we now have about the correlation between football and CTE, it blows my mind that parents are letting their kids play. Every time I talk to one of the dads, they basically say "we're monitoring his plays and if things get out of hand we'll think about stopping him" or "I don't really like him playing but I hope he'll quit before he gets to high school". And these are all parents who are roughly the same age as myself who grew up watching Junior Seau play with the Chargers all those years and then ultimately commit suicide from CTE. Our city even offers a flag football (no contact) league.

2

u/0dogg Jan 02 '25

Watched a documentary that focused on families of kids who'd suffered traumatic brain injuries playing football. An overwhelming majority of the parents said that, knowing what they know now, they'd still let their kid play football. 99% sure most families were from Texas...so it tracks.

1

u/matthewsmugmanager Dec 30 '24

Here's another reason NEVER to permit children to play American football: the very high likelihood of traumatic brain injury as a result of years of accumulated subconcussive hits.

https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/population-health/divisions-sections-centers/medical-ethics/education/high-school-bioethics-project/learning-scenarios/the-nfl-brain-injury

5

u/bristlefrog Dec 30 '24

Army gets it's it's data for treating traumatic brain injury from IEDs from the NFL

1

u/Parallax1984 Dec 30 '24

This is how bad it is. I’m much less worried about my son who does competitive indoor and recreational outdoor rock climbing than I would be if he played football

5

u/mrandr01d Dec 29 '24

What's a booster?

7

u/insight-out1 Dec 29 '24

If you’re serious, a person that likely graduated from the university or is a big fan. That person donates money to the school based on the likelihood of the performance in a sport or other school program. There are boosters that donate to the school just because, but they’re more or less donors.

1

u/Parallax1984 Dec 30 '24

This person is probably fortunate enough to not live in a state like Texas. I hate this godforsaken state or unfortunate enough to never have watched Friday Night Lights

5

u/drewcandraw Dec 30 '24

Also the 30 for 30 about the Fab 5 Michigan basketball team from the 90s and the multi-part SB Nation doc ‘Foul Play’ about Ole Miss and Mississippi State in the 00s-10s and centers around one football player for each school.

Basically, there’s a ton of money at stake in college football and men’s basketball and schools will do anything to win, which includes a lot of under the table bribes to secure top players. Until the very recent NIL rules, players were forbidden from any payment or gifts of any value.

Pretty much every NCAA D1 school breaks recruiting rules and only a few get caught and made an example of.

6

u/Burgendit Dec 29 '24

It's a funny world we live in when giving college athletes money, cars and housing is considered the evil thing. God forbid they actually get payed? Lol

12

u/DarkwingDuckHunt Dec 29 '24

It gets even more crazy when you look into how "amatuer" sports originally started.

The rich made sports unpaid so only the rich could afford to pay them. Or people the rich paid, but only under the table paid. They didn't want the poors to participate, so if you don't get paid you can't be in sports, cause you need to eat.

The whole of the NCAA is based on that idea. People forget just how old the NCAA is.

I'm 100% in favor of any athlete getting paid if their sport generates money. They fucking earned that money, not some old guy who runs the sport's dept.

9

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

It’s no longer that way.

Supreme Court ruled it illegal

Todays college football is now the Wild West of people receiving payment

2

u/WhyYouKickMyDog Dec 29 '24

It's why I don't want to watch college sports. The shit is straight exploitation.

4

u/TheGreatestOutdoorz Dec 29 '24

You are not remembering correctly. They didn’t take Andy money from oher. Every single claim he made had been proven to be a lie. The truth is that he let some shady people in to his life who took his money and told him the family stole it. Oher isn’t exactly the smartest guy in the world and (possibly) believed his new “friends”. It went to court and proven that Oher was wrong but he still feels like he got screwed, because he doesn’t want to admit he lost his money all on his own.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

The ESPN article you linked is from Aug 14, 2023

Try this one from 3 months later:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38855339/tuohys-say-michael-oher-paid-blind-side-profits

The studio execs from Alcon Entertainment were telling the truth. They DID only pay the Tuohy family about $700K over the years. The family has all the receipts that show they split it up 5 ways and each of them (including Michael Oher) made about $138K

They sent him TEN checks over the years. I guess when his lawsuit says (twice) that "the family made millions while he made nothing".... he was lying.

5

u/BougieSemicolon Dec 29 '24

So Oher wasn’t trying to shake down the family, he was just fooled by fake friends who stole his $?

This is just sad all the way around.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Of course he was trying to shake down the family. He was the one who sent the extortion text messages starting back in 2020. He was the one who filed the lawsuit... and apparently this is not the first time he'sgone to lawyers about this. He was the one who told his current lawyers what to put in the lawsuit: that "he made nothing from the film" when he knew perfectly well that they sent him TEN checks over the years.

For some reason, people still see him as this "gentle giant" from the film. In the rare case that they do finally realize that this is a money-grab, it's always someone ELSE who put "poor innocent Michael" up to it. It's the new wife... it's his friends... it's his lawyers. It's always someone else "getting in his ear".

I've done the research. This is all him.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

They took zero of his NFL money and were very very rich before meeting him

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

Eh. I've lived in Oxford, MS. I've seen things. Including interacting with this family as well as major players in the SEC that also, somehow, are senators.

I ain't hearing no lies.

1

u/SF1_Raptor Dec 30 '24

I'd add the movie Blue Chips. While I'm not sure on the accuracy, it gets into the same sorta stuff from what I remember.

64

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

It's not only that he would be a piggybank (though they could be if they were drafted) its that the benefit to the booster is the star players going to their schools. Boosters paying for that was illegal at the time. 

23

u/Alexandru1408 Dec 29 '24

So basically it was a prestige boost for the boosters, for delivering a high quality recruit to the school?

24

u/Dekrow Dec 29 '24

Boosters do it for all different reasons. Some want access to the athletes, some want their school to have a more successful program.

13

u/Simple_Glass_534 Dec 29 '24

Booster donations are what pay the ridiculous salaries of the coaches. The state of Georgia is not paying Kirby Smart 13m/yr, the boosters are.

2

u/Castellan_Tycho Dec 29 '24

Kirby Smart is the highest paid public employee in Georgia. The state does pay his salary.

4

u/Simple_Glass_534 Dec 29 '24

Thx. I stand corrected. I thought most of the salary was via the boosters. State of Georgia is paying full freight on Smart.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Castellan_Tycho Dec 29 '24

I just looked up if he was a state employee, which he is, and if his salary was paid by the state of Georgia, which it is. Do taxpayers pay for his salary, no, because of the reasons you stated. The large programs generally seek to be self sustaining because of how much money is involved, and how shitty it would look if they were taking money from low income students lunch programs, to pay a football coach 13 million dollars per year.

With most D1 schools, the football team funds almost all other sports. Basketball is pretty break even, or makes some modest money for the blue blood programs, and baseball has a few teams that make chump change compared to football, but the rest depend on football to fund their scholarships, equipment, facilities, and travel. Football is definitely the cash king.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Anjunabeast Dec 30 '24

Kinda seems like the education part is an afterthought for these colleges

1

u/lemmegetadab Dec 29 '24

The basketball coach at UConn is the highest paid state employee in Connecticut. And the next person down makes 10 times less

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

[deleted]

1

u/lemmegetadab Dec 30 '24

It looks like that on paper because that’s how it is. The state of Connecticut is literally writing these coaches checks.

Your statement about the other student athletes has merit, but that’s literally not even what we’re talking about

21

u/Old_Wallaby_7461 Dec 29 '24

Also, what makes SEC boosters crazy or more crazy then the boosters in other conferences?

They care more

2

u/BigSportySpiceFan Dec 29 '24

Because it just matter more

7

u/MelpomeneAndCalliope Dec 29 '24

The SEC (& fans) is extra about everything. I say this as a big fan and alum of an SEC school.

1

u/Anjunabeast Dec 30 '24

What’s SEC?

1

u/EmbiggenedSmallMan Dec 30 '24

Surely you jest. The Southeastern Conference (SEC)? You know, schools like the University of Tennessee, the University of Kentucky, University of Georgia, University of Florida, I think University of Louisiana. Plus, quite a few more, there's something like 12 teams in the conference, I think.

Seeing how this thread is talking about division 1 college sports, I seriously don't think the other comments are referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which, just FYI, is also known as the SEC.

1

u/Anjunabeast Dec 30 '24

Ahh I’m from anywhere near those places and not great with geography.

5

u/captainpink Dec 29 '24

There's an article about a guy who would pay players back when that wasn't allowed. The sheer casualness of it all and how easily he claims everyone does it surprised me. These guys love winning football games.

https://www.bannersociety.com/2014/4/10/20703758/bag-man-paying-college-football-players

5

u/TheGoliard Dec 29 '24

Dude there's even protocol. Never pay a kid too much upfront. Keep the cash dribbling out so he has to come back again and again.

5

u/stpetedawg Dec 29 '24

“It just means more”

2

u/TheGoliard Dec 29 '24

I'm an SEC school alum. The South traditionally had little pro sports. The population identifies with the state school.

Combine that with a healthy dose of peasant "THINK YER BETTERN ME, BOY?" paradigm, you have a toxic fan soup on the bubble.

2

u/randyjackson69 Dec 30 '24

College football is also just the biggest sport in the south.

Rich but maybe not billionaire people can actually make a difference in their favorite football program especially now because they can pretty much 100% openly pay players. It’s different than NFL where it’s an exclusive club of all billionaires, and all those teams play under a salary cap.

Right now college football is an arms race of really rich boosters poaching the best players from other programs with insane NIL deals. The SEC schools tend to have the boosters that are willing to spend the most

1

u/OdysseusLost Dec 30 '24

Lol the SEC boosters aren't more crazy than other conferences. The SEC just isn't popular on reddit, probably for a number of reasons but also including that the majority of redditors aren't fans of or didn't attend a college in the SEC. Probably quite a few more now though with Texas being in. The college football subreddit is more excited about Alabama being left out of the playoffs than they are about whoever is going to win it all.

1

u/CuzIWantItThatWay Dec 30 '24

He signed some papers they told him were for adoption. He found out years later it was actually a conservatorship. They made bank.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24

They were already wealthy. In 2019, Sean Tuohy sold off a large chunk of his restaurant holdings for $213M. He kept 11 Taco Bell locations in the Florida panhandle. The idea that Collins lives a luxury lifestyle because of the movie is also absurd. She lives a luxury lifestyle because she married into FedEx wealth. Her husband is Cannon Smith, son of FedEx founder Fred Smith.

In fact, FedEx wealth is the entire reason the movie was made. 20th Century Fox decided not to exercise the film options on the book. Alcon Entertainment, a company financially backed by Fred Smith, ended up making the film. His daughter Molly Smith was a producer on the film.

1

u/CuzIWantItThatWay Dec 30 '24

All of that doesn't negate the fact that they stole from him.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24

They only had control over his person, not his estate. How did they steal from him when legally they had no control over his money (or lack of)?

To anyone who knows Hollywood, it’s shocking they got paid anything at all on a net profit contract. David Prowse, who physically portrayed Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, never got paid on a net profit contract. Return of the Jedi grossed $475M with a $32M production budget.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Yep! Forrest Gump took in over $670 million at the box office, but according to Paramount's financial statements, it lost $62 million

Winston Groom, the novelist who wrote the original book, received $350,000 for the film rights. But he was also supposed to get 3% of the movie's net profit. No profit... therefore no money.

Welcome to Hollywood accounting.

0

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Except they didn't. His lawsuit never accuses them of touching his NFL salary, book sale money, speaking engagements fees, or other endorsement income. That's a given. We all know that Michael Oher's agents, accountants, and financial planners would have pounced on that in a heartbeat. He wouldn't be "discovering it" 14 years later.

So what's left? Money from the Blind Side book and movie. That accusation crashed and burned back in November 2023 when they proved to the court that they split the money evenly and paid him his fair share.

1

u/Animaleyz Dec 30 '24

Having good players makes the team better. Better team means more wins, wins means TV revenue for the school. And for many many years, the kid got next to nothing for it, officially at least.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

Born and raised a Florida Gator, the SEC is fucking WILD

6

u/PorgCT Dec 29 '24

The HS coach was disciplined for breaching NCAA rules, and that was known at the time the movie came out.

2

u/SF1_Raptor Dec 30 '24

You know, it's crazy reading this after watching the 30 for 30 on the SMU "death penalty".

1

u/see_bees Dec 30 '24

I think the rapid adaptation of NIL across conferences puts a chink in that (especially the SEC) notion. A Michigan donor committed $12 million to get Bryce Underwood, the #1 high school qb, to attend there.

1

u/TheTense Dec 30 '24

As an aside: didn’t Michael end up well off and comfortable and go to college because of the booster? Yes it’s illegal in football rules, but if you take football out of the equation, they made a positive difference in this humans life, right? Surely, that’s worth so much more.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Absolutely. They made a HUGE difference in his life. And what they did as boosters wasn't even illegal. The NCAA did an investigation, and found evidence proving:

- They didn't "recruit" him, and they weren't giving him these wonderful things as payment because he was a football star. They started doing kind, generous things for him (funding his lunch account, etc.) back in 10th grade... before he even played football.

- They didn't force him to pick Ole Miss or pressure him in any way. Did they hope he would pick Ole Miss? Absolutely. But everything the NCAA found showed that he always had free will in his choice of which scholarship to accept.

- He wasn't just some stranger they were going to kick to the curb in 4 years. He had been living with them for over a year and they were willing to take legal responsibility for him as his legal guardians. (The conservatorship) His birth mother was on board with this family taking him in. He was more like a part of their family.

The NCAA ended the investigation 4 months later, ruled that it wasn't some "pay-for-play" business deal and allowed him to go to Ole Miss.

1

u/hilarymeggin Dec 30 '24

It’s funny - I’m reading a biography of Joan of Arc that includes questioning from her trial, and I thought the same thing.

“How many times did the voices speak to you? When was the last time they spoke to you? Can you see the people? How do you know it’s St. ——? Why is she speaking French? How do you know they come from God?”

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Yes, apparently their suspicions originated from coaches and boosters from the other colleges. They were mad that he didn't pick their schools... so they called the NCAA and reported that these Ole Miss boosters were paying this kid to play for Ole Miss. The NCAA had no choice but to investigate... it definitely looked bad from the outside.

But after they did their investigation, they found enough evidence to realize that the reports were just sour grapes. The Tuohys were taking care of his needs LONG before he became a hot D1 prospect and they weren't pressuring him to choose Ole Miss.

1

u/mrbuck8 Jan 01 '25

and they weren't pressuring him to choose Ole Miss.

There's just no way I can believe that.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25

Actually, that's the easiest thing to believe. What's the one thing missing from Michael Oher's back-stabbing lawsuit?

ANY accusation that they ever forced or coerced him into going to Ole Miss. If they had actually done that, are you telling me that he wouldn't be using that as part of his "they controlled me" narrative? We both know it would be in that document.

This is what he wrote in his 2011 autobiography.

"In the end, after visits to several schools and meetings with a lot of coaches, I picked the University of Mississippi. Tennessee and Oklahoma were both schools I liked a lot, but in the end, I was most comfortable about being closest to the community I’d become a part of. Just like I had wanted to go wherever Steve went to high school, I wanted to be near wherever Collins went to college, close enough to see S.J.’s baseball games, close enough for Leigh Anne and Sean to come to my football games. I had been separated once before from the family I loved. Now I finally was part of a stable family, and had good mentors, good support, and a lot of people who believed in me. I wasn’t about to give all of that up to start over again somewhere else."

Knowing how many times he switched homes and schools over the years, it makes sense that he wouldn't want to start over again in a school hundreds of miles away where he knew no one.

My take? He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that if he picked Ole Miss, it would make his sugar-parents the happiest. It would cement his place in the family and keep the Tuohy money-train rolling. It would guarantee that he would have a place to live each summer for the next 4 years. As a bonus, since he and Collins would both be there together, the Tuohys would come to every home game for the next 4 years and wine and dine him and his buddies.

When they came to him months before signing day and said "If you're still thinking about possibly choosing Ole Miss, we really should become your legal guardians just in case... so that the NCAA doesn't block you from going there." he thought he hit the jackpot. He visited several schools that fall and pretended to still be making up his mind... but he knew all along what would be best for his success plan.

1

u/mrbuck8 Jan 02 '25

I can believe they didn't "force" or "coerce" him as you put it now. But initially you said "pressure" and I can't believe they didn't do that. I have a hard time believing that they didn't discuss the benefits of attending Ole Miss, and what he stood to lose if he didn't, at great length with him. For an adopted teenager who didn't want to disappoint and/or lose the family who took him in, I'm sure it felt a great deal like pressure.

The suggestion that they were completely hands-off, had no impact on his decision, and that his reasons all came from his own mind is definitely not the easiest thing to believe.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 02 '25

Again... he has never accused them of it. So why are you accusing them? Does it really make a difference or is it just an attempt to make him a helpless victim and demonize them?

  • They were Ole Miss boosters
  • Sean Tuohy was a scholarship basketball player in college and was very familiar with NCAA rules and policies
  • They knew that if they were caught applying undue inflence over Michael, they would be providing ammo for the NCAA investigators to use against them later

Was there Ole Miss merch all over the house? Yes. Did they go to Ole Miss home games and watch away games on TV? Yes. Was their Christmas tree red, white and blue with Ole Miss ornaments? Yes.

But once he started getting college offers, they made a conscious effort not to "pressure" him. The private tutor they hired (Sue Mitchell) was also an Ole Miss alumni. Apparently, she was less careful. That scene in the movie where she's spooking him before he visits Tennessee... telling him how they have some kind of med school lab under the football field where they study cadavers is true. This is all in the books.

If it's any consolation, I'm sure they are regretting not pressuring him away from Ole Miss. If he would have picked Tennessee or LSU, they would have never created the conservatorship... it wouldn't have been necessary. The NCAA wouldn't have cared, and they would have just gone as they were. Him living there... calling them 'mama' and 'pops' and them calling him their son. The casual "adoption" the Tuohys are always talking about.

So you don't accept my premise that he was playing them all along? No, not poor Michael... not the victim. You have to remember not only where he grew up, but HOW he grew up. Looking out for #1 and doing whatever he could to survive. He may have been light years behind the other students academically, but he was top of the class when it came to "street smarts".

1

u/mrbuck8 Jan 02 '25

You seem to care a lot about this.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 02 '25

Yeah, it's probably because I read both the Blind Side book and Michel Oher's 2011 autobiography "I Beat the Odds" years ago. Since I know the true story, this one kind of red-pilled me on how the media picks these narratives and the public gets this mob mentality where they really don't care if their facts are correct or not... they just pick a side and blindly believe it.

August 2023, Michael makes all these accusations... the media blasts it EVERYWHERE. Channel after channel, story after story parroting his accusations like they are the gospel truth. A few months later in November, the Tuohys provide the Shelby County court a whole paper trail of evidence proving that they didn't make millions from the film and Michael Oher didn't make nothing. His lawsuit contains false accusations and outright lies. What does the media say? Not a thing. Other than a handful of sites, the story is completely buried. Another month goes by, they provide the court all those shakedown extortion text messages Michael sent them. Crickets. Nobody cares.

I do a little research and find out that in Tennessee there are 3 basic kinds of conservatorships:

  • - Conservatorship of Estate. The authority to manage a person's finances.
  • - Conservatorship of Person. The authority to handle their personal healthcare and living arrangments.
  • - Conservatorship of Person & Estate . Authority over both.

I see that the Tuohys picked the Conservatorship of Person with Michael Oher. So they never had the power to "control his finances", or the power to "sign contracts in his name". I think of the countless times the media has repeated that lie and compared his conseratorship to Britney Spears when they are nothing alike. The though that millions of people are blindly buying this nonsense is simply mind-boggling.

0

u/GodsBellybutton Dec 30 '24

Because college football is a billion dollar industry

13

u/RadScience Dec 29 '24

This movie was so problematic, and the black woman villian who dared question their holy motives never sat right with me.

1

u/IsomDart Dec 29 '24

Wasn't Kathy Bates the "villain" investigating them?

5

u/5432198 Dec 29 '24

No, she played the tutor.

5

u/janniesalwayslose Dec 29 '24

And the democrat. Looking back, what a strange hail mary to make the family seem more tolerant.

2

u/thegreatbellyflop55 Dec 29 '24

I mean, it was also just the funniest one-liner of the movie. I don't think it has anything to do with tolerance, that was one of the few examples of good writing in the movie. 

1

u/janniesalwayslose Dec 29 '24

Oh yeah it was funny and I don’t think they cared about tolerance making the movie, it’s just even funnier if you watch the movie from the perspective of the critics and would be an eye roll moment Lol

3

u/FitzyFarseer Dec 29 '24

I have no memory of this part of the movie, so I’m intrigued

9

u/nails_for_breakfast Dec 29 '24

It's at nearly the very end of the movie and she gets made into a villain for questioning the family's motives and accusing them of exploiting Michael for his athletic prowess and their own gain when that's actually what the real life family was doing

3

u/zurdopilot Dec 29 '24

Was it ever retribution from all that stuff? i heard when it blow up about being a lie but dont rember if there was any conclusion to it.

3

u/jpopimpin777 Dec 30 '24

I was gonna say, I didn't watch the movie until it came on randomly after the truth had come it. It's so wild that they tried to make the NCAA rep a villain character when she was the only person actually looking out for him and they were totally exploiting him. IIRC the scene in the picture is them outside her office.

11

u/georgewalterackerman Dec 29 '24

Yeah, but viewed on its own, and not in any context, it’s not a terrible film

17

u/radicalelation Dec 29 '24

It's not really a good one either. Basic Hallmark special with budget and star power, but the bar is lowered because "true story". Nothing good, nothing bad, and Sandra Bullock was not at all her best despite being one of the only reasons, besides buying into the marketing of heartwarming restorer of faith in humanity, to give it a watch, it was just... Eh, but it felt so good to certain folk at the time.

10

u/Aggravating_Paint250 Dec 29 '24

She looked good though

6

u/HogmanDaIntrudr Dec 29 '24

Huge correlation between watching The Blind Side and jerking it to mommy porn.

2

u/hoptownky Dec 29 '24

Meh. It was pretty bad.

5

u/MrHodgeToo Dec 29 '24

I see a sequel. The hero’s revealed to be the true villains and the former baddies are actually the goodies. A commentary on society story.

4

u/nails_for_breakfast Dec 29 '24

It would flop unfortunately. The kind of people who want to watch a movie about high school football are not the kind willing to be made uncomfortable by the real truth here

2

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '24

That's why so many of those sports movies end with them inadvertently solving racism

1

u/pj_socks Dec 29 '24

I think you underestimate just how popular football is. A large subset of fans would absolutely watch that.

2

u/Dentros1 Dec 30 '24

Pretty sure they didn't actually adopt him either, but had him in a conservatorship. He also saw nothing from the movie. I mean, they were absolute dirtbags for what they did to him. Gotta love the subtle Christian morals they were pushing in the film.

1

u/dankhimself Dec 30 '24

Really?! I may try to put this movie on so I can tell people that I watched it hahaha.

That's, well, very unfortunate that it's true, but funny in a weird way. Damn.

1

u/HarryNutzach_ Jan 01 '25 edited Jan 01 '25

Actually, no. It was the complete opposite. In real life the NCAA investigated for months, saw the evidence that the Tuohys were taking care of his needs, (funding his lunch account, buying him clothes, etc.) almost a full year before he even PLAYED football at that school, and months before they even saw him play in a basketball game. There was no possible way they could have known what kind of athlete he would become when they first started spending money on him.

They also saw enough evidence to convince them that the Tuohys weren't pressuring him to select Ole Miss. In his senior year he visited Oklahoma University, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, North Carolina State, Tennessee, LSU, and of course... Ole Miss. The NCAA knew his grades were awful, but the Tuohys encouraged him to make these visits. If the plan was to funnel him to Ole Miss, they wouldn't have been so willing to let him waste precious study time visiting so many other schools.

The biggest evidence we can see today that the NCAA investigators were wrong with their suspicions is the fact that Michael Oher has NEVER once accused the Tuohys of forcing or pressuring him to choose Ole Miss. Even now, that accusation is one completely missing from his lawsuit.

The conservatorship served its purpose. It showed the NCAA that the Tuohys were willing to be his legal guardians and he was more like family and not just some athlete they recruited for a "pay-for-play" business arrangement. They ruled that he could accept the scholarship and play for Ole Miss.