The Blind Side

No matter how ridiculous and perhaps somewhat barbaric American sports, politics and worldviews may seem to the rest of the world, or how naive their religion and patriotism (the two of which are often hard to tell apart), you simply don't find a lot of stories like the one told in "The Blind Side" in other parts of the world, - The kind of story that grabs you emotionally and at the same time tempts you to brush it off as just another "American Dream" or fairy-tale, until the real folks the movie was all about show up at the end and you find out it was actually based on a true story.
Perhaps the countries and peoples with the greatest weaknesses and flaws are at the same time also those with the greatest strengths and vice versa. Perhaps God is simply showing off that He can use anything; whatever it is, it just makes you thankful that folks like the Tuhoys actually exist, no matter how rotten the rest of the world may seem at times.
Folks who somehow manage to practice that magic of "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of My brethren, you have done it to Me."
It makes all the other rubbish: the politics, the idiotic sports, the naivete, vanish and for that moment speak louder than all those other factors. Maybe it's all just Hollywood hype and manipulation, but idiots will always exist anywhere, even without Hollywood, and if there's only a quarter of truth in this story and the way it is told here, then it's commendable, certainly watchable, and - for whatever it's worth - inspiring.
After all, the cynics of the world accuse us believers of just swallowing cooked-up stories about our Savior Who walked on water and fed multitudes with miracle bread, too, but it doesn't make them any happier, either, and for the most of what I've seen, not any more charitable citizens, either.
So, may Christian nuts believing in outstanding Christian values, spurring them on to outstanding Christian acts live on, and the cynics do whatever they may do.
May the critics tear apart Sandra Bullock's "distortion" of the original character of Leigh Ann Tuohy, we still think she was great in this one.

If "blessed are the poor in spirit" means to be dumb and simple enough to be enjoying a movie like this, then I will wholeheartedly join the ranks of those blessed and let the intellectuals torture themselves to death with their never-ending cynicism. Sometimes it's cool not to know that certain things can't happen or can't be done, and ignorance truly is bliss when the ignorant happen to know a few things that the sages simply don't dare to believe.

I'd definitely rank this one among the top ten movies of 2009.