Monthly Archives: February 2026

Editorials

Feel Good Cinema – The Winning Formula of Upbeat Movies at the Oscars

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Here’s an interesting case study about how Hollywood, and in particular Academy voters, make their choices come Awards season.  It’s 1982 at the 54th Academy Awards.  It was a year that perfectly summed up the transition between old Hollywood and the new.  The movie On Golden Pond won two of the elder icons of the industry their final Oscar wins for Best Actor and Actress; the only one ever for Henry Fonda and the fourth for Kathrine Hepburn.  At the same time, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated new directors, Steven Spielberg, was enjoying his resurgence with the big hit Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), itself a nominee for Best Picture.  But if there was any film that looked like a certainty for the top award at that year’s ceremony, it was the epic historical drama Reds (1981).  Warren Beatty was a firmly established leading man by the time he Directed and Produced this movie biopic about American Communist John Reed and his chronicling of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, but his rise was certainly a by product of the shifting tide in Hollywood.  He was a representative of that transition in the industry, having started under the old Hollywood system and becoming a central figure of the new Hollywood that came up afterwards.  Reds was only his second film as a director after Heaven Can Wait (1978), and it was ambitious to say the least.  A sprawling 3 hour and 17 minute epic with an all star cast that included Beatty as well as Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson.  It was the kind of historical drama that Hollywood often fawns over, and it went into the Oscar season as a heavy favorite.  The movie picked up many Awards on Oscar night, including one for Warren Beatty for Best Director, though he lost out on Actor and Screenplay.  But, Best Director almost always indicates that Best Picture is in the bag as well.  But to everyone’s surprise, and perhaps most of all to Warren Beatty’s, Reds ended up losing Best Picture that year.  And the victor was one that few saw coming; a little British movie about Olympic track runners called Chariots of Fire (1981).

The loss of Best Picture for Reds may have made sense if a movie like On Golden Pond or even Raiders of the Lost Ark had gotten it instead, but Chariots of Fire?  When stacked up against these juggernaut films, Chariots seems trivial, and yet it managed to pull off the upset.  It’s not quite the most egregious upset in Oscar history; no Crash (2005) or Green Book (2018) here.  Chariots was a generally well liked movie by both critics and audiences alike, and that may have been key to it’s last minute victory.  There are a lot of political factors that go into play leading up to Oscar night.  There are Academy voters that certainly put a lot of thought into their selections, but there are also Academy voters that rarely see any of the nominated movies, and their choices are purely made on just vibes alone.  Sometimes, an Academy voters pick for Best Picture may have been the only nominated movie that they had seen that year.  It’s not necessarily about Academy voters being lazy; a lot of them are still actively working in the industry so it’s difficult to find the time to actually watch all the nominated movies.  So, to still be a participating Academy voter, a lot of them purely go by what their gut tells them, and this can sometimes go against what the prevailing winds say about who’s out in front in the race for Oscar.  There’s also the factor of the ranked choice voting system that is used to tally votes in the Best Picture race.  This is where things can get complicated, because Oscar favorites can rise and fall based on the consensus of how well they are liked by the voters.  However, the 1982 Oscars didn’t have that voting system in place.  Back then, it was a purely decided by popular vote, which made the upset all the more impressive.  But, why Chariots of Fire.  It was not a particularly huge success at the box office, and while it was liked by audiences it wasn’t exactly loved either.  Really, the only remarkable thing about it was the Vangelis musical score, with it’s groundbreaking use of electronic synth rhythms, which of course won an Oscar itself.  What helped to carry Chariots of Fire across the Oscar finish line more than anything was that it was a feel good movie, and that has indeed been a winning formula in most Oscar seasons.

Reds was an ambitiously assembled film with grand vision and a lot of passion.  There’s no denying that Warren Beatty did an amazing job directing the film and he certainly deserved that Oscar.  But, it’s a 3 hour epic with a tragic ending, the death of it’s main hero after a steep decline in both his health and well-being.  While Academy voters may be impressed with the technical aspects of the movie, they just don’t seem to want to sit through 3 hours if the endpoint is a tragedy.  Like regular audiences, Academy members like rousing stories of over-coming adversity, and that’s what Chariots of Fire represented.  It was not just a movie about overcoming prejudice, but also a sports flick about underdogs competing in the Olympics.  What it did, and what Reds failed to do, was leave the audience uplifted as the credits rolled.  Of course there was also the political environment at the time, with Warren Beatty’s unapologetic favorable portrayal of a Communist leader in American history perhaps not going over too well with Academy voters during the ultra conservative Reagan years.  Chariots of Fire, by being a safer, less political film made it a less controversial choice.  While this held true in the year 1982, it’s also been evident in many other years throughout Oscar history.  The Academy Awards are often more defined as a snapshot of each year on it’s road throughout history rather than a indicator of the direction of the industry as a whole.  Each year the studios submit what they think is their best shot at the Oscars and then those movies are up to a vote.  There are quite a few movies that indeed have withstood the test of time, and their Oscar wins are just another jewel in their crowns.  But there are plenty of Oscar wins that only make sense in the context of their respective years and have aged very poorly over time.  And the common thing that a lot of those Oscar wins that have aged poorly is that they were the safe choice.

Perhaps the most famous example of the Oscars missing the mark is the year when How Green Was My Valley (1941) beat out Citizen Kane (1941) for Best Picture.  One of the movies was a beautifully made drama from one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors, and the other would go on to be considered the Greatest American Movie of all time.  How Green Was My Valley had all the things that the Academy valued; John Ford behind the camera, lavish production values and heartfelt performances from established actors.  Orson Welles came into Hollywood as a bit of an outsider and he was using his film Citizen Kane to break down many long held traditions in filmmaking, as well as taking aim at some powerful targets.  It’s very well known that Welles based his Charles Foster Kane character after William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and one of the most powerful men in the whole of America as well as in Hollywood.  On that Oscar night, a loss for Citizen Kane in the Best Picture category may not have been seen as that shocking given that Welles made a pretty powerful enemy with his unflattering parody of the vindictive Hearst.  But, through the arc of time, Citizen Kane‘s profile has only improved while How Green Was My Valley has been almost completely forgotten.  Safe choices don’t always pan out beyond their moment in time.  Over the years, the greatest movies manage to find their audience and it’s often because they were movies that took chances and moved the needle in Hollywood towards a different direction.  There are plenty of other times when movies with darker themes missed out on the Oscars and have gone on to become heralded as masterpieces; Vertigo (1958), Do the Right Thing (1989), and The Matrix (1999) to name a few.  They all had the disadvantage of being a little harsh for their time, but even if Academy voters turn a blind eye to them, the audiences will ultimately have the final say determining their place in history.

But even darker themed movies can somehow push through to win Best Picture at the Oscars.  It seems that the best way to do it is to be so good that your movie cannot be ignored, even if it is a bit of a downer.  One of the best examples of this is The Silence of the Lambs (1991).  The Jonathan Demme masterpiece managed to defy all expectations and sweep through the Oscars despite it’s dark and often grisly subject matter.  The Academy overlooked all that, even though there were more traditional and safer alternatives that year at the Oscars, like The Prince of Tides (1991), JFK (1991) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).  But Lambs managed to beat them all because it was just that good, and time has only proven the Academy right in their decision as the movie is still viewed as a masterpiece 35 years later.  And it’s a story involving cannibalism and torture where even after the case is solved, a mad serial killer is still on the loose by the end.  Sometimes these movies do luck out by running the table in a year with little competition, but great movies can still win at the Oscars even with uncompromising elements to their stories.  Sometimes a movie can win the Oscar with darker themes at it’s center if they do offer that little glimpse of hope at the end.  Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) is one of harshest movies ever put on screen with it’s unvarnished look at the horrors of the Holocaust, and yet it offers hope in the end through the inspiring story of how so many Jews’ lives were spared thanks to the efforts of the movie’s main subject, businessman Oskar Schindler.  Spielberg’s movie is a gut punch, but you don’t leave the movie feeling awful in the end.  Even a movie that ends on a downer, like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) where it’s main character stresses over how he’s responsible for a nuclear arms race, still had enough moments of triumph beforehand that make the journey to that dark moment still feel worthwhile.  There are certainly these exceptions that prove it’s possible to win over the Academy even when your movie is not a pleasant watch all the way through and it seems that the only way it works is if the movie is exceptionally good.

But, it all depends on the mood of the Academy voters as well.  The voting body of the Academy is made up of mostly actors and also includes industry professionals as well as people of special distinction by the Academy. Just like any other election, campaigning is a crucial part of the process in voting for the Academy Awards.  This includes many different tactics like trade ads and special functions to draw awareness to a film, as well as Academy screenings throughout the season.  But, like I stated earlier, some Academy members don’t have the time to see everything, so they’ll sometimes vote based on vibes or defer to their friends and staff over what they think will be the right choice.  When the span of awareness is limited, what usually ends up happening is that the movie that has the most appeal to the broadest audience possible ends up winning in the end.  A great recent example was in 2022, when the “feel good” movie CODA (2021) picked up Best Picture over the more nihilistic The Power of the Dog (2021).  While objectively looking at both movies, The Power of the Dog was the more impressively assembled film, with great cinematography and standout performances delivering a monumental cinematic experience; but it was also bleak and unforgiving as well.  CODA on the other hand was very unassuming and low budget, but it had heart and warmth to it.  It’s not surprising that CODA appealed to an Academy that was in need of a pick-me-up after the harsh Covid lockdown year prior, though Power of the Dog’s Jane Campion still came away with a Directing Oscar.  When Academy voters are low on awareness of the movies to choose from, they often go with the movie that makes them the happiest.  It’s where the ranked choice voting works the most in favor of “Feel Good” movies.  It’s a voting body motivated by feelings more than by technical merits.  This can sometimes shed a light on some of the inherent biases found in the Academy too.  It was reported that a lot of Academy voters admitted to not having seen the movie 12 Years a Slave (2013), but they still voted for it as Best Picture because they felt it’s message was important.  They’re not wrong to feel that way, but they would’ve been better able to back up their claim of the movie’s importance if they had actually seen the movie and judged it on that.  Unfortunately, it’s that lack of insight that can sometimes cause the Academy to be out of lockstep with the rest of the audience when it comes to these movies.

So, looking at this year’s Academy Awards, does this “Feel Good” formula still apply.  As of this writing a couple weeks prior to the Academy Awards of 2026, the front-runner appears to be Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025).  It’s not too surprising, given that it’s not exactly a harsh movie to watch, often filled with enough levity to keep things entertaining throughout.  But, it’s also a movie that doesn’t pull it’s punches either, being shockingly prescient with today’s headlines involving authoritarian acts by the government and the everyday resistance that the citizens of this country are trying to enact to fight back against oppression.  It’s legacy over time will be interesting to watch, but for right now the movie is connecting at the right time by being a dark mirror of our current world.  But, even with it’s darker elements, it still has a story that comes across as a “feel good” one.  It’s a traditional good vs. evil storyline, where the bad guy loses and the good guys win, even if the larger backdrop of the movie’s setting still paints a bleak picture.  The micro, intimate main plot gives us that traditional story of triumph, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s father figure character does reunite with his daughter by movie’s end.  One Battle After Another seems unique in this way amidst the field it’s up against in the Best Picture race.  It’s main competition, Sinners (2025), has a lot of incredible moments in it, but it’s also a movie where all but one of the main characters is either dead at the end or turned into a vampire.  Movies like Sentimental Value (2025) and Hamnet (2025) spend most of their run times dealing with characters processing their grief.  And then there’s also Marty Supreme (2025), which is a story of triumph for the worst kind of person in the world.  From the looks of it, the odds favor One Battle After Another because it does come the closest to matching that “feel good” formula, but this race is still undecided for now.  In the end, it helps to be the most entertaining of the nominated films, because it leaves the best final impression.  It may not be a great indicator of how well the movie might age over time, but it certainly makes a difference when the choice needs to be made in the moment by Academy voters.

Movies by design are meant to be appealing; otherwise what’s the point in making them.  The best movies take risks, and sometimes that can be enough to gain the attention of the Academy voters when they are choosing Best Picture.  But most of the time, what matters in the moment is how this relatively small voting block feels while they watch a movie.  For some Academy members it’s what matters most.  Back in 2012, actor and singer Meat Loaf (who was an active Academy member with voting privileges) confessed that he voted for the Steven Spielberg movie War Horse (2011) for Best Picture purely because it was the movie that made him cry that year.  If that was the determining factor for him, then all the power to him; at least he voted for a movie he had watched.  But the bigger problem is disengagement from the voting members of the Academy, where they just go by vibes rather than making educated choices based on what they watched.  There may have been a variety of factors that could’ve contributed to Warren Beatty losing out on Best Picture to Chariots of Fire; his political stances, the entrenchment of old Hollywood in the Academy, the fact that Warren may have burned a few bridges over the years to get where he was at the time.  The judgement over time is that the Academy was ultimately making the safe choice that year and picked the least controversial film in the pack.  What Warren also represented (the outspoken voice of New Hollywood) also may have ruffled a few old time Academy members as well.  Thankfully, requirements for Academy membership has changed, and the Academy now has a broader, more diverse voting body than it did decades ago.  This has helped lead to more risk taking movies winning Best Picture, such as Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022) and Anora (2024), but even still, those were movies with that were crowd-pleasing in the end, with a lot of “feel good” elements.  Unless you are one of the best movies ever made, you’ll be all but forgotten if you don’t leave a positive impression on your audience.  Happy Academy voters are generous Academy voters, and in the nearly century long history of the Academy Awards, this has been the formula that has most often brought home the gold.

Editorials

The Rainbow Connection – The Underused Art of Muppet Filmmaking

For generations, the Muppets have been entertaining audiences with their good natured and yet slightly chaotic sense of fun.  And the remarkable thing is just how broad their fanbase has become.  They are truly an audience of all ages pleaser, from grown ups to young toddlers.  For many of us, Generation X’s all the way to Gen Alpha, they have always been there as a part of growth as individuals.  We learn the ABC’s and 123’s from the likes of Big Bird and all of his friends on Sesame Street during our youngest years and eventually we grow up to appreciate the delightfully absurdist and subtly adult humor of the Muppet Show.  Kermit the Frog may be the most recognizable character to represent a whole brand across the whole world since Mickey Mouse.  And the Muppets can even count people like Elton John and Quentin Tarantino among their biggest fans.  But what has made these characters who are just puppets made of felt so beloved by so many.  The Muppets weren’t the first puppet characters to become household names.  Puppeteering has been an artform for centuries, going all the way back to the Punch and Judy days.  But what seems to have set the Muppets apart has been the way they are presented to us.  The men and women behind the Muppets are not just great puppeteers, they are also skilled in the art of filmmaking as well.  The Jim Henson Company has been just as instrumental over the years as Industrial Light and Magic and the Stan Winston Studio in changing the way that movies are made.  What started as just a place to build and craft new types of puppets has grown into a visual effects workshop where some of the most creative minds in the industry can experiment with new ways to make the impossible possible.  And yet, even with all the technical advancements that have been employed by the Jim Henson Company to create all their brilliant practical effects over the years, the Muppets which are still puppeteered by hand are still their most magical creations.

To understand the reason why this kind of “Muppet Filmmaking” is special, it helps to understand the man who made it all happen.  The company’s namesake, Jim Henson, was a true original creative genius.  Born in Mississippi and raised in Maryland, Henson always dreamed of becoming a filmmaker.  While in high school, he found a creative outlet in creating puppets and performing with them.  He attended many workshops over the years where he would meet other puppeteers that shared his interests, including a fortuitous meeting with a future collaborator named Frank Oz.  After college, Henson and his small band of fellow puppeteers created a short form comedy for a local Baltimore TV station called Sam and Friends.  The puppets in the show were very simplistic, often lacking in much detail and character, but one puppet modeled after a frog that Henson puppeteered himself managed to stand out from the rest.  The other Sam and Friends puppets faded into obscurity, but Kermit as he became known lived on and would become the catalyst for what was to follow.  In 1968, Jim Henson’s workshop was hired to develop puppets for the new public broadcasting show for children called Sesame Street, a show that took the nation by storm and quickly became a institution for young audiences everywhere.  All the while, Henson was developing more and more elaborate puppets, which by now were being called Muppets.  In 1976, Henson and his team were given a prime time slot on television with The Muppet Show, and it became his biggest breakout hit yet.  Not only was the Henson Company making it big with their success as puppeteers, but they were also doing so while take bold experimental swings with what they could do with puppets on television.  They weren’t just bringing puppets to life, they were making them feel alive.  On the Muppet Show and Sesame Street, the most magical trick that Henson and his team pulled off was to make you forget you were watching puppets at all.  The Muppets feel like real living characters and that’s largely due not just to how they are performed, but the way they are staged as well.

Jim Henson, surprisingly, never considered himself a family friendly entertainer.  It was never his ambition to make anything just for children.  He always saw himself more as an Avant Garde filmmaker; someone using the medium of film to experiment with the illusion of life.  And while we may view the Muppets as a mainstream entity today, what Henson saw with his popular characters was a way to do things in film that no one would have ever thought was possible.  After the success of The Muppet Show, Henson was granted his greatest wish which was to direct a feature film, naturally starring the Muppets.  The Muppet Movie (1979) may seem like a fun comedic romp starring Kermit and the gang, but when you take a step back and think about some of the scenes in the movie, especially those where the Muppets are out in the real world, you start to realize just how experimental the film acutally was.  It’s simple things like Kermit and Fozzie the Bear driving around in a car that you don’t think are out of the ordinary until you realize they had to rig a car to drive on it’s own just so they could fit Jim Henson and Frank Oz into the front of the car to make it look like the Muppet characters are really driving.  There are many other incredible illusions found throughout the film, including in the opening shot where Kermit sits on a log in a real swamp playing his banjo, which involved Jim Henson cramming himself tightly into a hidden submersible that they then placed into swamp water so it would leave Jim hidden from view.  But perhaps the most mind-blowing sequence that the Henson Company ever put into one of their movies was in 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper, where the Muppets all ride bicycles through a park.  This sequence baffled visual effects experts for years wondering how they managed to get Muppets to look like they are really riding bicycles.  It was revealed that there was a hidden marionette rig just out of frame that helped to create the illusion, but it’s just another great example of how the Jim Henson Workshop was taking both filmmaking and puppeteering and elevating both artforms at the same time.

But the Henson Company wasn’t just keeping these tricks strictly in house either.  They were gladly aiding other filmmakers in developing more imaginative worlds for the big screen.  They worked on movies like The Witches (1990) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), creating creatures that could believably exist in the real world, while still being entirely out of this world at the same time.  Perhaps the strongest example of just how well the Jim Henson team’s talents had grown over the years was found in the galaxy far, far away known as the world of Star Wars.  While Star Wars creator George Lucas was getting help from many different visual effects companies from all over the industry, he saved a very special assignment for Henson and his crew.  In the second film of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas created this important new character called Yoda; a centuries old, diminitive alien creature who would end up training the hero of the story, Luke Skywalker.  It would’ve been impossible to cast any human actor in the role, so he knew that he had to turn to puppeteers to bring Yoda to life.  And who better to turn to than the greatest workshop for lifelike puppets in the entire world.  Yoda would be a lot different than the other Muppets.  Instead of felt, he would be made of foam and plastic, with highly detailed features sculpted into his face so that he would feel more lifelike.  To bring him to life, Frank Oz would be doing the honors of giving Yoda voice and movement.  The results were beyond successful, as Frank Oz and the Jim Henson artists proved that their Muppet characters could not only hold their own acting opposite human characters, but that it was also possible to have them give dramatic performances as well.  Yoda’s even sharing the screen with an acting titan like Alec Guiness and he still doesn’t feel out of place.  George Lucas tried and failed to campaign for an Oscar nomination for Frank Oz’s performance as Yoda, but regardless of a nomination or not, the creation of the character proved just how far the artform had progressed to where an acting nomination didn’t seem like too much of a stretch for a Muppet character.

One of the key things that really helps to make these characters come alive is the way real human actors interact with them.   It’s not just the case with Yoda holding his own with his Star Wars co-stars.  The collection of Muppet films over the years also demonstrates many different examples where the human actors truly make you believe that talking directly to a puppet is completely ordinary.  It’s honestly not a difficult thing to do, because the Jim Henson puppeteers are so good at their craft that they can bring the illusion of life easily into these characters just through personality alone.  There are so many examples you can find through interviews and special appearances made by the Muppets over the years where your eye is drawn directly towards the character and not at the performer puppeteering them, even when they are visible too.  These puppeteers just know how to make these felt creations feel alive in front of you and that’s helpful for the actor on the opposite end.  It’s easy to see how The Muppets have attracted so many talented people to appear beside them in both the Muppet Show series and in their films.  Sometimes, you even get performances from the human actors in the movie that actually shine through beyond what is called for in a movie where Muppets are their co-stars.  Some of the most special cases are Charles Grodin’s hilariously over the top villainous role in The Great Muppet Caper, as well as Michael Caine’s surprisingly straight forward performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in Muppet Christmas Carol (1993).  The fact that Caine’s performance as Scrooge would feel right at home in any other serious adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel is all the more remarkable when he’s acting opposite Kermit the Frog.  It’s always a great thing that these Muppet movies have human actors that are selling the illusion alongside their puppet co-stars.  Keeping the artiface up only helps to make us see these characters as genuinely alive, and it’s remarkable how well that translates even into the real world.

Unfortunately, many films today don’t seem to try as hard in making the impossible feel real like these Jim Henson enhanced movies have over the years.  When Henson died suddenly in 1990 at the age of 53, he left a big hole in the world of visual effects.  No one quite had the same intuitive ability to think of ways of doing things differently the way he did.  A large reason why the Henson Company is now a part of the larger Walt Disney Company today is because Henson agreed to have them operate the management of his company while he would continue doing the things he loved the most, which was crafting in his workshop.  He wanted to create bold new things, and having the responsibility to run a company was getting in the way of that.  Sadly as a result of his absence, the industry began to move away from his workshop’s very DIY method of filmmaking.  One of the big things that changed was the advancements in computer generated imagery, which unfortunately was making the need for handcrafted puppetry obsolete in the creation of fantastical creautres on screen.  Ironically, it was a filmmaker who helped to give them one of their big breaks that was also leading the change that would hasten their downfall.  When he decided to create his prequel trilogy to the original run of Star Wars, George Lucas didn’t return to the Henson company to have them craft new and imaginative alien Muppets to populate his film.  Instead, he had his team rely heavily on CGI, including with the creation of characters in the film.  Jar Jar Binks would be a break through creation in character animation through computer animation, and sadly even Yoda would be given a CG make-over in the series (albeit still voiced by Frank Oz.  Now, Jim Henson was never opposed to embracing new technology to help improve the work that his team was doing.  In fact, Henson was already starting to experiment with a new rigging system that would allow him to animate a CGI character by hand the same way he would do with a puppet in something they called Project Waldo.  However, the only time this experiment was ever used was in Jim Henson’s last ever project before he died; the Muppet Vision 3D attraction found at the Disney Hollywood Studios at Disney World.

Since then, the need for these felt puppets in live action films began to wane, as CGI was giving filmmakers better and more lifelike results.  Even still, the Muppets never truly went away.  Sesame Street still provides valuable educational entertainment to young children even after being on public broadcasting for over 50 years.  The Muppets have also continued to make movies over the years, though many of them don’t have the same high quality as the ones that came out during Jim Henson’s time.  And though they keep trying, the Walt Disney Company doesn’t to know quite what to do with the Muppets that are now under their control.  They’ve tried to reboot the characters in many different ways, but audience interest seems to have waned considerably.  There really hasn’t been an adequate replacement at the Jim Henson Workshop since the sudden loss of Jim Henson himself.  Frank Oz had already left the workshop to pursue his own career as a film director and Jim’s son Brian didn’t last very long at the time top before leaving to pursue other things as well.  It also didn’t help that Henson’s hand-picked successor to play Kermit after him, Steve Whitmire, was fired by Disney due to toxic workplace complaints leveled against him by Workshop staff.  The Jim Henson Company has been in search of an identity in the years since Jim’s death, and sadly it has led to a long decline where the their influence in the world of visual effects has considerably waned.  And yet, there is still an appetite for Muppet related content.  The visual wonder of the movies made by Jim Henson during the 1980’s, including his more mature films like The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986) have a strong nostalgic value, especailly as more and more people are getting bored with what CGI has been offering us lately.  And who knows what will happed to the Muppets in the AI era of visual effects. What really made the Jim Henson visual effects stand out is the fact that so much of the creativity comes through in the construction of the visuals.  Unlike other movies today, the Henson visual effects team are building things that are tangible and present in front of the camera. And that’s what’s getting audiences more interested again in the practice of Muppet Filmmaking; the fact that what we are seeing is present in the scene itself, even when it’s a talking Frog or Pig.

There are strong signs that some filmmakers want to bring back more physical effects into their movies.  And when your movie or show is filled with alien style creatures, the Henson Company  has a proven history in delivering on that.  This was definitely evident in parts of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, with J.J. Abrams incorporating many puppeteered aliens to fill out his scenes in The Force Awakens (2015), and Rian Johnson bringing back the non-CGI, Muppet version of Yoda in The Last Jedi (2017).  Sticking with the practical effect of having a Muppet style puppet in Star Wars properties, the popular Mandalorian series also won over many audiences with the introduction of Grogu (aka Baby Yoda), a true fully puppeteered character just like the original Yoda.  But the real test of the future will be whether the Muppets manage to survive the shifting sands of the movie industry.  As a counter balance to the rise of AI, more and more people are valuing the things that are tangible and real in their consumption of media, and the Muppets fit right into that.  Even as AI media generation improves, the appeal of the hand-crafted Muppets is enough to help boost it’s profile into a whole new generation of audiences.  One would hope it’s not just the characters themselves that are gaining popular traction with audiences; that the inventive thinking that enabled the Jim Henson company to take bold artistic risks also spills over into the general visual effects field as well.  There’s a reason why the original Muppet projects like the Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island still hold up and it’s not just the characters alone.  Jim Henson knew that audiences needed to be dazzled by visuals often never achieved before by special effects.  Muppet Filmmaking may be undervalued at the moment by the industry, but audiences are coming to realize it’s value, and it is shifting movie studios towards considering more practical approaches to creating imaginative special effects without the aid of computers.  Regardless of the shifting priorities in Hollywood, we know that there are still enough people out there who have been raised their whole lives with the Muppets being an especially fond part of our childhood memories.  Tmes will change, but there will always be a place in our culture  for Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Gonzo to keep us looking for that rainbow connection.

Movie Reviews

Wuthering Heights (2026) – Review

Few works of literature have managed to enchant generations of readers the same way the Wuthering Heights has.  The sole published novel of 19th century author Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights has remained one of the most beloved stories of lost love ever put on page since it’s debut in 1847.  It is the quintessential story of forbidden love that has inspired countless imitators throughout the years.  And of course, it was perfectly suited for the cinema as well.  There has been over 30 film and television adaptations of the story throughout the years, ranging from the very faithful to the wildly re-imagined.  Of course, the most well known version is the 1939 Hollywood classic, directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  It’s also a surprisingly international story as well, with adaptations found throughout the world in places like India, the Philippines, and Mexico.  But given that the story has been re-adapted so many times, one has to wonder if there is anything new that can be brought to the story that can make it feel new to a whole different generation.  Some have tried to re-examine the story through a different prism of context.  British filmmaker Andrea Arnold famously created a very stripped down version of the story, keeping it within it’s Victorian setting but shooting it in a very modern documentary like style.  She also finally realized something from the book that has never truly been done in other adaptations, which is to cast an actor of color in the role of Heathcliff, whom Emily Bronte described in novel of being of Romani descent.  But, even by modernizing the aesthetic used to tell the story, the roots of Wuthering Heights are still bound by the gothic Victorian setting, though Bronte’s novel was still ahead of it’s time in many ways.  There are many different ways to modernize the story, but the most effective way to help audiences today connect with this nearly 200 year old tale is to stick close to what is at the heart of the narrative.  In essence, it a story about the obstacles we put upon ourselves in the pursuit of love, and the terrible things that can come from unquenched desire.

What is interesting now is what a provocative filmmaker like Emerald Fennell saw in Wuthering Heights that made her want to adapt the story her way.  Fennell has been something of an interesting rising star in filmmaking recently.  After working for a while as an actress, including a featured supporting role on the hit series The Crown, Emerald got her chance to write and direct her debut feature film.  The film was a thriller called Promising Young Woman (2020), starring Carey Mulligan, and it won enough acclaim to propel Emerald to an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay.  And while Promising Young Woman had it’s provocative moments to be sure, it was nothing compared to her next film, Saltburn (2023).  Saltburn was a daring and taboo busting satire of wealth inequality that has since become something of a cult hit.  While the movie didn’t do much at the box office, and was completely ignored during Awards season, it became a streaming sensation, especially with reactions to some of the movie’s more shocking and gross out moments.  It certainly showed us what Emerald Fennell was capable of as a filmmaker.  She could create these lush, exquisitely produced shot compositions with incredible artistic vision, and use that same vision to showcase the grotesque and weird, as well as frame it in a shockingly erotic manner.  Saltburn’s twisted story of decadence and desire was well suited for Emerald’s provocative vision, and for me personally it was one of the best movie experiences that I had that year, mainly because I just admired the daringness of the whole thing.  But, what was Emerald going to do as a follow-up.  In a way, Wuthering Heights seemed to be an odd choice.  As daring as Bronte’s novel was at the time, it is still chaste compared to what we have now in modern media.  Could the shocking sensibilities that we saw in Saltburn work in a classic piece of romantic literature that has lasted centuries, or was Emerald going to have to tame her directorial instincts in order to remain faithful to the book.  Regardless, Emerald Fennell managed to get Warner Brothers to finance her adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, and place it in an ideal pre-Valentine’s Day release window.  But, does Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights breath new life into this classic tale, or was she a bad fit from the beginning.

The novel Wuthering Heights has been a part of many English and Literature class curriculums throughout the world, making it one of the most widely read novels in history.  But if you did manage to miss out on the novel through both your high school and college years, here’s a brief over view.  Set in the Yorkshire moors of Northern England during the early 19th century, the story centers on a young girl named Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) who lives in a dreary old manor house called Wuthering Heights.  Her father Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) one day brings home an orphaned boy (Owen Cooper) whom he takes in as a ward of the estate, mainly to keep Catherine company as something like a pet. The boy has no name, so Catherine names him Heathcliff.  Over time, Catherine and Heathcliff grow closer together, and Heathcliff becomes very protective of her, shielding Catherine from her father’s alcohol fueled fits of rage.  As they grow older, Catherine (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) remain friends but something between them seems to be building, which is noticed by Catherine’s close friend Nelly Dean (Hong Chau).  But, the years of drinking and gambling by Mr. Earnshaw have take their toll on the wealth of the Wuthering Heights estate.  In order to avoid financial ruin, Catherine takes it upon herself to attempt to court the wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), who live on his vast estate with his eccentric sister Isabella (Alison Oliver).  Linton is smitten by Catherine almost immediately upon their first encounter, and in a short amount of time he asks to wed her.  Despite getting what she wanted, Catherine feels like she is betraying her love towards Heathcliff, whom she loves in a more visceral way than she does Edgar.  But, the choice to marry becomes more essential when Heathcliff suddenly leaves Wuthering Heights.  Years pass, and Catherine is living a luxurious life at the Linton estate, though she is largely romantically unfulfilled.  Then she learns that Heathcliff has returned, now a man who has gained his own fortune and has just bought Wuthering Heights from her dead beat father.  Is it too late to rekindle the flame of their old love, and will it bring both Catherine and Heathcliff to ruin if they act on their desires while she remains a married woman?

Emerald Fennell has more than just the classic Bronte novel to live up to with regards to her adaptation.  Her film is also going to have to stack up to the classic 1939 adaptation, which many herald as one of the great works of early Hollywood cinema.  Indeed, it’s hard not to think about the version with Olivier and Oberon when watching this movie, but I’m also an avid consumer of classic cinema as well.  I don’t think most modern day audiences are as familiar with that movie, and that’s probably who Emerald Fennell is appealing to more with her version of Wuthering Heights.  Her take on Wuthering Heights is definitely made to appeal more to a millennial and Gen Z audience, especially with a lot of the modern touches she adds to the film, including a soundtrack with contemporary sounding original songs by Charli XCX.  It’s definitely a modern kind of movie with the trappings of a period costume drama.  But, for literary purists looking for a faithful adaptation of the novel, this is definitely not it.  Emerald’s adaptation is very loosely tied with the original novel, retaining it’s core premise and characters, but throwing in some bold detours away from the original narrative itself.  But, does it all work out?  In some ways yes, and in other ways no.  The generally positive side is that the movie is never boring.  In it’s nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes, the movie manages to keep us engaged with it’s often manic pacing and bold choices that definitely cause a stir.  But, Emerald Fennell also perhaps pushes a bit too much in the direction of being provocative and shocking that she in a way kind of misses the point of the story in general.  Wuthering Heights at it’s heart is a tragedy, even before (Spoilers ahead, even though this widely read book has been around for almost 200 years) Catherine dies at the end.  It’s a tragedy about how two soul mates miss their opportunity for happiness together due to finances, and when they reconnect years later, it’s too late.  And that unrequited love turns toxic as a result, leading to a lifetime of bitterness, especially for Heathcliff who far outlives her and remains haunted by her memory.  Emerald Fennell seems less interested in that, and sees the story more as a vehicle to present some twisted portrayals of sexual awakenings through the prism of a classic literary romance.

It stands to reason that Emerald Fennell is very much a fan of the novel; I don’t think that she would have chosen it otherwise as her next movie project if she wasn’t.  But there is so much more to Bronte’s novel that Fennell chooses to leave out.  What is interesting about this in comparison to the classic Olivier version is that both movie adaptations stop at the same point; at Cathrine’s tragic demise.  Bronte’s novel actually has this as the halfway point, where the story skips ahead many years later in the second half of the novel.  There we see the toll of losing Catherine has had on Heathcliff, as he has become bitter and meanspirited.  That’s the tragedy of the novel, Heathcliff becoming a far worse person over time as his time with Catherine was all too brief and un-fulfilled, and he spreads that pain to the next generation, with Cathine’s only child Cathy being the target of most of his wrath.  In a strange way, both movie adaptations look more kindly upon Heathcliff than Emily Bronte does, where she largely portrays him as brute.  I can see why the change is made, because it makes the role a more attractive one for leading men, and Heathcliff is inherently the most fascinating character of the whole book.  In place of that darker aspect of the character, the classic 1939 makes Heathcliff and Catherine’s story more about the tragedy of lost love.  You would think that Emerald Fennell would use her version to examine the dynamics of passionate love versus a life of privilege creating friction between these two tragic characters, but that seems to get lost in some of her cinematic indulgences.  The movie treats it’s romance in a steamy way, but Emerald rather interestingly doesn’t seem to portray any of her characters in a favorable light, and that makes it more difficult to sympathize with the romantic side of the story.  Heathcliff is a brute, but Catherine is also equally detestable in the way she manipulates everyone around her in order to get her way.  And it seems every character has that flaw, treating each other poorly in the pursuit of their own gain.  It seems like Emerald still seems to be in the mindset of what she brought to the narrative of Saltburn, where everyone was contemptable in that story.  It worked spectacularly in that story, but feels out of place in Wuthering Heights.

On the positive side, Emerald does make this movie look gorgeous from beginning to end.  Not only that, but her fearlessness in visual aesthetic actually helps to make this movie stand out that much more.  I certainly would never have expected some of the bold design choices in this movie.  The design of Wuthering Heights itself, built in the middle of these jagged, black stone rocks jutting out of the ground, feels like something out of a Tim Burton movie, and that’s just the first taste of all the weird things to come.  The interior design of the Linton estate is equally bizarre in concept.  There’s one room that has a floor that is blood red, and it spotlighted by the sheer white walls that rise up from it.  There’s also a clever reference to Jean Cocteau’s classic 1946 re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, with the wall sconces holding up the candles that light the room being modeled after human hands.  Fennell also does a remarkable job of shooting the remarkable landscapes of the moors.  The movie was shot by DP Linus Sandgren, who has worked on films like La La Land (2016), No Time to Die (2021), and of course Emerald  Fennell’s Saltburn.  For this film, he shot much of the movie with Vistavision cameras, marking yet another major studio movie to re-vitalize this long dormant format after The Brutalist (2024) and One Battle After Another (2025) have brought it back to prominance. The results are undeniable, as some of the wide angle shots in the outdoor scenes has some epic sweep to them.  This is definitely a movie that benefits from a large screen experience.  I also appreciate the fact that Emerald Fennell isn’t afraid to get a little strange in her visual storytelling.  There is one room in the Linton estate that is made to resemble the color and texture of human skin on it’s walls, even with the details of imperfections like moles included.  It’s where Emerald Fennell’s oddball sensibilities work in the film’s favor, even while the story is a let down.  It’s a mess, but it’s one of the prettiest messes you’ll ever see.

The film also benefits from committed performances from the actors.  This movie wasn’t just a passion project for Emerald Fennell, it was also spearheaded by Margot Robbie as well, who also served as producer.  The two have history of working together, with Margot being a producer on Emerald’s first two films in addition to this one, and Emerald getting to appear alongside Margot in the movie Barbie (2023), playing Midge, the pregnant Barbie doll.  While the character herself may be a tad difficult to like as a whole, you’ve still got to give Margot credit for her committed performance.  She balances the performance well, playing so many sides of the character including being charming, amusing, and also cunningly manipulative.  Jacob Elordi does fine in the role of Heathcliff, though I do think that he gets less to do here than he should.  It may be an unfair comparison, but I feel that Olivier brought a lot more gravitas to the role of Heathcliff.  Olivier made his version far more brooding and a force of nature.  Elordi’s Heathcliff is certainly an imposing figure, with that 6’6″ frame of his making him tower over everyone else.  But his Heathcliff is a lot more passive in this version of the story, never quite leading us to believe that he becomes the brute that he eventually turns into in the book.  It’s interesting that this is the second movie in a row where Elordi has brought to life one of the great brutish characters of English Literature.  However,  I feel like he brought a lot more to his performance as Frankenstein’s creature in last year’s film from Guillermo Del Toro.  Even still, Elordi does deliver when it comes to the romantic fireworks boiling under the surface.  There’s also a lot to be said about the strong performances coming from the young actors who play Catherine and Heathcliff in the opening part of the movie.  For Charlotte Mellington, this is her film acting debut, and she does a great job portraying the chaotic, impulsive nature of Catherine in her youth, and she is complemented perfectly by young actor Owen Cooper in the role of Heathcliff, with this coming off the heels of his awards winning performance in the hit Netflix series Adolescence.  Another standout is Alison Oliver as Isabella, whose eccentric performance helps to bring some unexpected levity to this film.

I do admire the fact that Emerald Fennell wanted to take on this classic story and do it in her own way.  And the movie is elevated by it’s incredible visuals and strong performances.  But I also feel that it falls way short in it’s re-telling of Emily Bronte’s classic story.  Wuthering Heights has endured because it’s far more than just another steamy romance about forbidden love.  It’s also a great exploration about the way love and desire can turn even the purest souls into dark and meanspirited people when it’s denied them, and how that extends across generations.  Emerald seems to have gotten the steamy romance part right, but she doesn’t add much else.  It’s a very shallow examination of the themes of novel, and for the most part it just seems like Emerald is using the premise of the story as a means of injecting her own indulgences.  While Wuthering Heights has never truly been adapted fully on the big screen, with most adaptations leaving us with the two lovers being seperated by a tragic death, Emeral Fennell’s version seems even more detached from the source novel.  It’s going to be interesting how people will react to this movie.  I feel like most people who are familiar with the book probably won’t like it, while casual audiences might embrace it more; if they aren’t put off by all the weird choices Emerald Fennell made with her version.  For me, I feel like you’ll get a better understanding and experience overall if you seek out the classic Laurence Olivier version.  While it isn’t perfect, it’s closer in spirit to the original book than this new version.  All that being said, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is still a visual treat that warrants seeing it in a theater.  And some of her artistic choices are pretty bold and daring, even if they clash a bit too much with the story being told.  I’d say go in with an open mind and see if the weirdness works for you.  Emerald Fennell certainly loves this strory and it’s characters, but her indulgences don’t do a whole lot of favors for them in the end.  I’d say if you end up being quizzed about the story in literature class, don’t uses this version as you Cliff Notes quide to the story’s meaning.  It’s very much Emerald Fennell’s take on this story for better and worse, and while she delivers on the visual spectacle, I feel like she should probably choose something other than a beloved literary classic as her next project, unless it’s something that makes for a better fit for her style.

Rating: 6.5/10

What the Hell Was That?

What the Hell Was That? – The Blind Side (2009)

Baseball is viewed at large as the great American sport, and it has likewise inspired it’s fair share of movies, from inspirational like The Pride of the Yankees (1942), to the comical like Bull Durham (1988), to movies that do both like A League of Their Own (1992).  But the other great American sport known as American Football hasn’t really left a cinematic mark in the same way Baseball does, despite being a much bigger and wealthier sports league.  In fact, there are far more popular movies devoted to lower league football then there is of the NFL, at least when it comes to the ones that people remember.  College Football left it’s mark with the classic Rudy (1993), about a plucky underdog who finally gets his shot playing for Notre Dame.  High school football also has given us some memorable films, like Friday Night Lights (2004).  But when we think of memorable movies about the professional football league, it usually centers on underdog stories about true life individuals who battled against the odds to get to the league.  This is true of movies like the Mark Wahlberg headlined Invincible (2006).  But, when inspirational movies are the things that draw people in for a movie about football, the tendency can sometimes be for the filmmakers to take some liberties with the story they are telling to make their narratives more cinematic.  It’s harmless if the movie still sticks to the heart of what it needs to be about, namely how their subject beat the odds.  But it also opens up the movie to become more manipulative too, and that can sometimes be a dangerous thing if there is an agenda behind the making of the film that intends to distort what really happened.  Sadly this is the situation with a very flawed rags to riches football movie known as The Blind Side (2009).  While it isn’t the only sports movie to ever play fast and loose with it’s history, the changes that were made to the true story of it’s subject have since revealed it to be a rather exploitative film over time, and one that gets even more problematic after learning all the things that have come to life since then about the subject as well.

The Blind Side tells the story of Michael Oher, a young man raised in terrible conditions who through the charitable support of the affluent Tuohy family was able to get a football scholarship to play for Ole Miss, which then led to him being drafted into the NFL in the first round.  Oher would play 7 seasons in the NFL, including a Super Bowl winning season with the Baltimore Ravens, before he was cut in 2017 due to an injury.  Oher’s rags to riches storyline caught the attention of author Michael Lewis, a non-fiction writer known for chronicling major financial events and scandals in his books.  He had previously written a best-selling book about team management in Baseball with the acclaimed Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003), which of course would be adapted into an Oscar nominated film in 2011 starring Brad Pitt.  His follow-up book would stick in the world of intersecting sports with competitive strategy similar to those found in the financial world, and that book would be The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.  Contrary to what you may think, Michael Oher is not the main subject of Lewis’ book, but is rather a featured player whose storyline is part of Lewis’ larger narrative about how professional football has evolved over the years, particularly with the way players are recruited now.  While there was a lot of fascinating information detailed throughout the book, many people latched onto the narrative involving Michael Oher’s journey to the NFL.  One of the main reasons why Oher’s storyline became such a prominent part of the book is because Lewis was familiar with the Tuohy family already; he was former classmates with Sean Tuohy, the father in the story.  This access allowed him to observe Oher’s rise first hand, and that helped to give the book a more personal touch overall.  Of course, Hollywood took notice of this inspirational story, and the book was quickly optioned for a movie adaptation, particularly focused on Oher and the Tuohy story.  You would think that this would lead to a nuanced exploration of the way Oher’s rise to NFL stardom represented a shift in the way the sport of football rosters are managed these days, but sadly that is not what we ended up with.

The fundamental flaw with the movie is that it forgets who the movie should be about in the first place.  Michael Oher is sadly treated as little more than a prop in this movie as it’s the Tuohy family that gets most of the focus.  More specifically, the matriarch of the family, Leigh Anne Tuohy is the primary focus of this story.  One of the reasons for this is because it made the project more attractive as an awards worthy vehicle for an A-list actress to take.  And that’s exactly what led to the casting of Sandra Bullock for the role.  Bullock, up to this point, had been one of the most consistently successful actresses working in Hollywood over the last decade.  But, she was also viewed as something of a genre performer as well, seen as more comfortable performing in comedies and romances rather than in a “serious” role.  This was the era of Miss Congeniality (2000) and Two Weeks Notice (2002), which gave her a lot of box office wins, but no gold on her shelf.  All the while, Bullock was still building up the reputation of being one of the nicest and most charitable people in show business, so she wasn’t without her admirers.  The industry wanted to show their love for Sandra Bullock, but the right role just never surfaced for her.  And then came the big year of 2009, which was where Sandra finally seemed to break through.  She had a critically panned comedy in the spring called All About Steve (2009) which bombed pretty hard, but on the heals of that was the surprise box office hit, The Proposal (2009), co-starring Ryan Reynolds.  So Sandra Bullock was already riding a wave once her more “serious” movie The Blind Side was about to hit theaters. The movie itself was received with mixed reactions by critics, but it was warmly embraced by audiences, giving Sandra yet another box office win.  And come awards season, Sandra seemed to be a clear front runner for the coveted Best Actress prize, and sure enough that momentum carried her all the way to Oscar night.  After a long, storied career, Sandra Bullock was now finally an Oscar winner, and still being the ever self-effacing type, she opened her Oscar speech saying, “Did I really win this, or did I just wear you all down.”

If the intention of this movie was to give Sandra Bullock the kind of role that would finally win her an Oscar, than job well done.  But, the shift that it took to put her character into the central role of the movie did so at the expense of telling the more compelling story of Michael Oher.  Oher’s story is greatly reduced to him being found by the Tuohy family while he was homeless and having them build him into the star athlete that he would become.  The Tuohys as a result, and more than anything the character of Leigh Anne, come across as much more of the driving force in his life, while Michael remains this passive figure in his own story.  Of the many falsehoods told in the film, the biggest one would be that Leigh Anne was the one who introduced Michael to the sport of football.  In reality, Michael had already been playing the sport for many years before he had met the Tuohy family.  One crucial fact from the book that the movie leaves out is that Michael had been supported by multiple foster families over the years as he kept working on his talents as a football player.  The Tuohys were only one of the families he had relied upon for support, and were the ones most crucial for steering him towards choosing Ole Miss as the school he wanted to play for, given that it was their own alma mater.  He did live with Tuohys during his final year in high school, and they were the people he relied upon throughout his college career, at one point naming them as his adoptive family.  But that’s where the movie deviates from the truth.  This movie glorifies the Tuohy family much more than it does Michael.  Michael is almost insultingly without personality in this movie.  This would become a contentious point many years later, as Michael Oher would come to object to the way that he was portrayed in the film.  The movie makes him out to be like a simpleton; a sad puppy that needed nurturing in order to become whole again.  While the movie wants us to be inspired by Michael’s transformation, it forgets to treat him as anything other than an archetype.

The Blind Side unfortunately is one of the most blatant examples of what has been called a “white savior” narrative.  It’s where Hollywood creates a story about an oppressed people, but frames it’s from the point of view of the un-oppressed person who takes it upon themselves to help those in need.  Often it’s a white character whose personal journey intersects with a community of color, and they become the difference makers in the end in the pursuit of justice, while at the same time robbing the agency of the oppressed group themselves in their own struggle.  Think movies like Dances With Wolves (1990), or The Help (2011), or Green Book (2018).  Even a sci-fi flick like Avatar (2009) still falls into the same tropes.  There are nuanced ways to portray these kinds of stories, like my favorite movie of all time Lawrence of Arabia (1962) where the oppressed group still has agency in their own destiny and the “white savior” is not without some major flaws.  But the worst offenders of this type of film often are the ones where they seem to just exist to reinforce the power structure of race dynamics.  We unfortunately are no where near resolving race relations in America, and if anything things are growing worse.  And it just makes movies like The Blind Side come off as naive and pandering.  It’s a movie made purely for a white audience to make themselves feel better about racial issues.  This is largely what “white savior” movies do, which is to present a movie about racial issues, but make the audience identify most with the “good” white characters who stand up to the bigotry of the “bad” white characters, presenting a very superficial portrayal of what makes racism a societal problem that we still live with today.  It unfortunately treats the minority characters as superfluous beings, there merely to be victims to be saved.  As history has shown, minorities don’t rise up out of the generosity of enlightened white people, but often because they are brought to the point where they have no other choice than to take the initiative themselves.  Sadly, Hollywood for the longest time has never seen the need to tell the story from this perspective, because they’ve always been under the mistaken assumption that a movie will only succeed if it caters to a white audience first and foremost.  Thankfully with the rise of filmmakers like Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, and Ryan Coogler, we are seeing more movies being made today that tell the story of race in a America from the point of view of the oppressed, but unfortunately, there are still too many movies like The Blind Side that still get most of the money out of Hollywood.

Where the story of The Blind Side takes a darker turn into an even more loathsome place is the reality that has come in the wake of the movie being released.  Fourteen years after the movie came out, Michael Oher was ready to tell his side of the story when he began to write his memoir.  In 2023, he made a discovery while researching his time with the Tuohys that has fundamentally changed his relationship with them, and reframed everything he thought he knew about his time with them.  He had always thought that the Tuohy family had formally adopted him when he turned 18, shortly before he graduated high school and went off to play for Ole Miss.  But in his research, he found out that the paperwork that they had him sign back then was not for adoption, but instead was to put him legally into a conservatorship.  In a conservatorship, the guardian has full control over the the conservatee’s personal affairs, including all financial decisions.  This meant that the Tuohys had final say over Michael Oher’s future earnings, especially with regards to the rights over his own life story.  Despite having significant control over Oher’s financial future, they thankfully never exploited it once he made a lucrative career in football, which is perhaps why such a thing went unnoticed for so long over the years.  But, upon learning of his conservatorship status, which at the time was still active in 2023, Oher began to wonder how much he was actually being denied over the years in compensation as the Tuohy family gained fame and recognition off of his name due to the success of the movie.  Oher took it upon himself to file a lawsuit against the Tuohys, seeking an end to the conservatorship and issue an injunction barring them from ever using his name or likeness in their own self promotional dealings.  He also wanted them to stop them from calling themselves his adoptive family.  This was certainly a blow for the Tuohys, considering the fact that they’ve used the success of the book and film to boost their own profile, particularly as motivational speakers and celebrities in right wing political circles.  Loosing their connection to Michael Oher’s story would be significant to their profile, but they indeed misled the public about their true relationship with Michael by repeatedly stating that he was adopted into their family.  In 2024, both sides settled, with the Tuohys removing all references to their “adoption” of Michael Oher from their website and pledging to honor that agreement moving forward.

All of this points to The Blind Side being not just a bad “white savior” story line, but also a dangerous one, because it’s based around a blatant lie.  The Tuohy family made Michael Oher believe for years that he was adopted when he wasn’t, and that their financial success over the years was built around the fact that they owned the rights to Oher’s life story, and he did not.  Oher did not pursue holding them financially liable, given that he himself had already done well enough because of his time in the NFL.  What his lawsuit was meant to do was to give him back control over his own narrative.  That’s the reason why The Blind Side feels so icky now, because it’s not insightful about the issue of race and instead uses it as an ego trip for the white people who had control over the story from the very beginning.  The movie makes it appear that the Tuohys were responsible for giving Michael Oher the talent to play football with their financial support and stable household, which is just a flat out lie.  The most shameless moment in the movie is where Leigh Anne sidelines the coach and tells Michael the fundamentals of the game.  It’s a moment purely there to make Leigh Anne look like a badass mama bear and to give Sandra Bullock another highlight reel acting moment.  But, as Michael Oher has pointed out in telling his own story, he lived with many other families who all supported his pursuit in playing the game of football.  By the time he met the Tuohys, he was already a star athlete.  But the even more damaging thing that happened to Michael Oher is that the movie presented him as this pathetic individual who needed to be saved.  It took a toll on people’s public perception of him, with many believing he was uneducated and a loner.  In an interview during his lawsuit, he stated that “when you go into a locker room and your teammates don’t think you can learn a playbook, that weighs heavy.”  So, in controlling the narrative around Michael Oher’s life story, the Tuohys may have ended up driving him further away, because his life has not been made better by the movie, but theirs had.

The movie itself is mediocre at best, but it’s made all the worse when you discover the whole truth around it.  Michael Oher may not have been exploited by the Tuohys before the movie came out, but he certainly was after.  The Blind Side is purely built to reinforce the idea that racial harmony has been achieved in America, but all that is now shown to be a lie.  Michael Oher had to put a stop to the Tuohys using his story for their own aggrandizement so that he could finally tell his own story from his perspective.  In doing so, he’s shone a light on the still existing lack of agency that minorities still have in talking about racial issues in a media landscape.  The rise of the internet has allowed for better access to hearing stories from all kinds of oppressed groups around the world, but Hollywood is only just recently getting around to allowing people of color to be the ones to tell stories from their point of view.  Before, the “white savior” perspective was the only way to draw attention to racial issues on film, because the industry was still under the mistaken impression that a white audience must be catered to first and foremost in order for a movie to make its money back.  While movies like Dances With Wolves, The Help, and The Blind Side may have been made with good intentions, they nonetheless come off as patronizing to the minority characters who don’t seem to matter as much.  Things are changing for the better though, as witnessed by Sinners’ record breaking 16 nominations at the Oscars; a movie where the only prominent white character is a literal vampire.  People of color have more platforms to tell their stories their way, and that is thankfully making movies like The Blind Side more antiquated than ever.  The best thing you can say for the movie is that it did finally get Sandra Bullock an Oscar, though her much better career defining performance would come later in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity (2013), a movie where she would’ve deserved her Oscar a lot more.  But, the worst part of this movie’s existence is that it robbed Michael Oher of the chance to have his story told the right way on the big screen.  In the end, we see a version of him that makes him look weak and sad, which is an insult to his true achievements as a star NFL player.  At least in the end he managed to reclaim his agency and put a stop to people like the Tuohys who were boosting themselves up over his success.  That’s a positive sign that the “white savior” trope is loosing it’s hold in Hollywood, because this movie showed us all the harm it truly does to someone who has lost control over his own image.