plus 4, 'The Blind Side' nearly an LSU flick; see trailer of the movie - Alexandria Daily Town Talk

'The Blind Side' nearly an LSU flick; see trailer of the movie - Alexandria Daily Town Talk
TODAY'S HOT MOVIE: 'Moon' is a howler - Green Bay Press-Gazette
Movie Details - YAHOO!
'Dinner and a Movie' promotion returns - News-Leader.com
'Up in the Air' tops holiday movie list - San Francisco Chronicle

'The Blind Side' nearly an LSU flick; see trailer of the movie - Alexandria Daily Town Talk

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 02:03 AM PST

BATON ROUGE — There were a slew of nationally recruited offensive linemen very interested in LSU in December of 2004.

But then LSU coach Nick Saban became what he thought he always wanted to become — an NFL head coach. He left for the Miami Dolphins, and all of those linemen with the exception of Ciron Black of Tyler, Texas, went elsewhere.

Josh McNeil, the No. 1 center in the nation from Collins, Miss., went to Tennessee. Chris Scott, the No. 2 guard in the nation from Lovejoy, Ga., went to Tennessee, Reginald Youngblood, the No. 2 offensive tackle from Houston went to Miami, and Michael Oher, the No. 7 offensive tackle from Briarcrest Christian in Memphis, went to Ole Miss and became a first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens last spring.

Oher is the subject of a much-anticipated movie called "The Blind Side," that opens across the country tonight starring Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy and Tim McGraw as successful business owner and former Ole Miss basketball star Sean Tuohy, a native of New Orleans. The Tuohys rescued Oher from the drug-infested streets of Memphis and brought him into their beautiful home and later became his legal guardians.

The movie, based on the book of the same name by New Orleans native Michael Lewis ("Moneyball," "Liar's Poker") also stars several former and present Southeastern Conference coaches playing themselves recruiting Oher. Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, former South Carolina coach Lou Holtz, former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron, former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt now at Ole Miss and Saban all did the Hollywood thing. The movie could have had a more purple and gold tint to it had Saban not left LSU.

"Michael would have gone to LSU had Nick stayed there," Leigh Anne Tuohy said in a phone interview on Thursday. "I had already called my friend Debbie Heroman in Baton Rouge to make sure she kept an eye on Michael so he would go to class and not get homesick. He was going to LSU."

Instead, "The Blind Side" has blindsided the Ole Miss community over the last few weeks, and the team planned to watch the movie tonight in Oxford before playing No. 10 LSU at 2:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS.

"You can't go a day without hearing about that movie," Ole Miss tailback-receiver-quarterback Dexter McCluster said this week. "Everybody's been talking about it, and we all want to see that movie. I was friends with Michael and talked to him a lot before the draft. He doesn't talk about the movie a lot. He's a shy guy. I know if they were making a movie about me, I'd talk about it all the time, but he doesn't talk about it."

Nutt was asked in a radio interview on Thursday where he would rank Bullock on an attractive scale of 1 to 10.

He gave her an 8 and also said she was a "great actor" and nailed the part of Leigh Anne Tuohy, a spunky former Ole Miss cheerleader from Memphis who is an interior designer.

"Everyone with the movie was just so professional," said Nutt, who made small talk with Orgeron, the man he replaced at Ole Miss, in between scenes last spring. "We're starting to hear a lot about it. I think once the movie starts playing, there'll probably be more and more to talk about."

Saban has one of the longer cameos of the coaches as his recruiting style that won a pair of nationally No. 1-ranked classes at LSU and at Alabama is given a bird's-eye view. A preview of the movie has him complimenting Leigh Anne Tuohy on her drapes as he enters the home.

"Yes, he really said that," Leigh Anne said. "You see he had been to our house before, and he noticed I had made some changes."

Saban visited the Tuohys in late November in 2000 when he was still the Michigan State coach. Saban's agent, Jimmy Sexton of Memphis, is old friends with Sean Tuohy. And when then-LSU athletic director Joe Dean, who did not like to deal with agents, would not take Sexton's call about Saban's interest in LSU's opening, Sexton called Tuohy, who is old friends with Dean.

"Sean picked up Nick at the airport," Leigh Anne said. "I remember I decorated our car with Ole Miss stuff."

Tuohy got Saban, Sexton and Dean all together at the Tuohy home along with other LSU officials. LSU chancellor Mark Emmert decided to hire Saban, and days later, Saban was announced as LSU's new football coach.

"So when Nick walked in, he noticed what I had done with the drapes," Leigh Anne said. "Let me tell you, that little man notices everything. He is Type A just like me. We wanted Michael to make his own decision, and he liked Nick. He wanted to go to LSU. But Nick up and left us."

Saban is also shown in the movie in his LSU office looking at film of Oher with amazement.

"Michael Oher is a very, very good player," Saban said recently on the SEC teleconference. "And we have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for what the Tuohys did for him. He went to a good school and had a great career and became a first-round pick. And who knows what would've happened if history would've been a little different?"

Another coach was trying to recruit Oher at that time, but he never got to visit Oher's home, and he did not make the movie.

"I recruited him at Oklahoma State," said LSU coach Les Miles, who was the Oklahoma State coach until he replaced Saban on Jan. 1, 2005. "I did not visit the home, but I spoke to the people who were the key ingredients."

Miles wants to see the movie.

"It's a story about a guy that had little and really needed an opportunity in football, and it's about an attachment to a family that really gave him an opportunity to get a college degree and have an NFL career," he said. "How wonderful that is. I think that that's America. I think that that's what this country really stands for — the opportunity for everybody no matter where they start or what people predict. If you've got some talent, and you're willing to buy in and listen and be directed that in fact it can work for you. I just enjoy the story."

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TODAY'S HOT MOVIE: 'Moon' is a howler - Green Bay Press-Gazette

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 12:58 AM PST

The "Twilight" soap opera continues with a lighter, goofier and far less erotically charged sequel, "New Moon," a movie directed by a man and not a woman.

Thus, the sex and the threat of it are gone in this golden- hued virginity metaphor, a teen romance novel that Mom might approve of. But it's a funny film, a movie in on the joke that the most luscious girl in rural Forks, Wash., might be fought over by pale, aged vampires and buff, Native American werewolves.

That flip tone — the gags and one-liners — get us past the longing, the depression, the sulking, the almost comically swooning moments when Bella (Kristen Stewart) goes weak in the knees, determined to abandon her humanity for her one true love, 109-year-old high school hunk vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson).

"You can't trust vampires, trust me," he purrs.

Then Edward stupidly ditches Bella in a dense Washington state forest. Hey, he had no choice. She's been nagging him to "Change me" — the nakedly obvious vampire-virginity metaphor. And Edward, being gallant in addition to oh-so-pale, won't have it.

Then there's old family friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who's been hitting the gym. Either that, or he's secretly a werewolf, coming of age just in time to fend off fresh threats to Bella from the same folks we were sure Edward's clan had fended off and/or killed off in "Twilight."

Stephenie Meyer's novel keeps Edward at a distance for the most part, and the film does the same, bringing him back for an eye-roller of a finale. Weitz's comic touch shows in casting (Graham Greene as a funny, vampire-savvy Native American character) and in many a comic exchange.

The saga sags when Bella triple-dates to a zombie movie, where all the jokes about weary monster-genre movies sting with the awareness that the pot is mocking the kettle.

Stewart plays grief rather than naked lust this time, and it's not her strong suit. The whole series seems too chaste for her, though not for Pattinson, who so underplays Edward that his golden contact lenses and perfect hair do most of his work for him.

At least this time the movie is more polished, the brawls (save for the silly wolves) more believable. Most of the laughs are intentional, and we get the sense that even though a guy directed it, he wants the mostly female fan base to revel in the overheated romance, the blood-enforced chastity and the sacrifices this toothy "Romeo and Juliet" tale serves up.

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Movie Details - YAHOO!

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 12:37 AM PST


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'Dinner and a Movie' promotion returns - News-Leader.com

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 12:51 AM PST

The Downtown Springfield Association is bringing back the "Dinner and a Movie" promotion for the holiday season, dubbing it "Dinner and a Movie 2," a news release from the association said.

The promotion runs through Jan. 18. It will allow customers who buy dinner at a participating restaurant to then buy discounted movie tickets to the Hollywood Theater or the Moxie Cinema for $5 each.

Participating restaurants are Whiskey's Bar Grill, Bruno's, Farmers Gastropub, Fedora, Kai, Izumi Hatake, Lili's Diner, Mille's Cafe, Springfield Brewing Company and St. Michael's Deli.

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'Up in the Air' tops holiday movie list - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 02:03 AM PST

George Clooney first read the script of "Up in the Air" at his villa in Lake Como, Italy. The story of a devilishly handsome charmer who extols the single life and has no plans to ever marry or procreate resonated with him.

In 1996, Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer bet him $10,000 apiece that he would have kids before he was 40. When that deadline passed, Clooney made it double or nothing that he would become a father by 50. At 48, he seems no closer to changing diapers than he ever did.

While writing "Up in the Air," Jason Reitman couldn't help but be aware that its main character, Ryan, shares life choices with Clooney, his No. 1 pick for the role.

Reitman worried that the Oscar-winning actor would pass for that reason.

But when he talked to him at Lake Como, Clooney said that "he saw the parallels between the character and his life and he was ready to stare them straight in the eye," Reitman said.

Surprisingly easy

The part came surprisingly easy to him. "I didn't encourage introspection. These are all things that just go unsaid. George read it, he gets it and he knows how to play it.

"The question for me going in was whether or not I was going to have to push him when it came to being vulnerable on camera.

"That is something I hadn't seen him do a lot of in his other work. I didn't have to push. He just gave it up, like a gift," Reitman said.

Clooney joked around about what he and Ryan have in common. "Well, we're the same height," he said during a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival.

He took issue with the idea that "Up in the Air" is just a comedy. "I don't think of it necessarily as funny, especially since it addresses things in my life I find a little harrowing."

The voyeuristic element of "Air" might be enough of a draw for Clooney's adoring fans. But the film has quite a bit more to offer. It couldn't be timelier in its examination of the emotional toll of losing your job.

As a professional firer, Clooney's character lives his entire life on the road. His goal is to collect 10 million frequent flier miles, traveling from city to city stopping off at companies that want someone to do their dirty work for them.

He can look people in the eye and tell them they no longer have the job that provides food and shelter for their families.

In 2002, when Reitman set about adapting the novel on which "Air" is based, the economy was ship-shape. But by the time he was ready to direct, the financial bubble had burst.

Facing reality

He decided to face reality by soliciting real people from St. Louis and Detroit, where the movie was being shot, who were among the recently unemployed.

An ad was put in the local papers saying that a documentary was being made about job loss and that they wanted people to go on camera and be as honest as possible about their experience.

"We said it was a documentary because if you say you are making a movie with George Clooney and do you want to be in it, you get the wrong kind of response. People would show up all excited," said Reitman, the director of "Juno" and "Thank You for Smoking."

Each person sat across from an interviewer and answered questions about how they came to lose their job, who delivered the bad news and how it has changed their life. Then they were fired again and asked to respond the way they had or the way they wished they had when they were actually let go.

"We showed them this legal document," Reitman said. "It's par for the course now when people lose their jobs. Companies are terrified about lawsuits. It's kind of a standardized firing.

"They would start to read this document, and it was one of those things where their eyes would turn and their body language would change. They became so in the moment.

"They went to a place where I'm constantly trying to get actors to go - a place of true realism. The way they reacted was heartbreakingly real and proved for very tricky editing."

Testimonials

All the while, Reitman was wondering whether audiences would understand that these are real people's testimonials. Judging from early screenings, it appears that they do and that they get it immediately.

Jason Bateman, who plays Ryan's boss in "Up in the Air," could have added his own testimonial. After he shot a pilot for a TV show, his agent called him up to tell him a network had picked up the pilot but that they were going to recast another actor in his part.

"The rest of the story is I cried for three days about it and three days later got another call from my agent saying they had decided not to pick up the show after all," Bateman recalls. "How much worse could this be? I got my heart ripped out and for no good reason."

He worked with Reitman before on "Juno," and they have developed a kind of shorthand. This time the direction was to keep things simple.

"I just had to be a douche bag," Bateman said, "and that is pretty easy to do when you've got suspenders and pleated pants."

Up in the Air opens Dec. 4 at Bay Area theaters.

To see a trailer for "Up in the Air," go to www.theupintheairmovie.com.

E-mail Ruthe Stein at pinkletters@sfchronicle.com.

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