Worst Best Picture Nom ever.

Rating: 2/10 (5 December 2011)

In a world (called Memphis) where all of the white men are either lay-abouts or ineffectual idiots and all of the non-white people are some combination of drug addicts, thugs, and genetically good at sports there came White Woman to the rescue! When the local high school football coach is not able to provoke sufficient violence from his players, who steps in? -- White Woman! When this same coach stupidly calls sophisticated passing plays when he should be calling jam-it-down-their-throats running plays, who steps in? -- White Woman! When a African-American teenager has thighs and a rear-end wide enough to make him an stand-out football player, who invites him into her house and coerces him to play for her alma mater? - White Woman! With her sidekick White Tutor Woman, see White Woman modernize the local child welfare office, see her decorate her clients' house in a manner she likes despite what they may want, see her browbeat teachers into giving grades sufficiently high enough so her adopted son can play football at her alma mater without her having to pay the tuition! Suffice to say the longer you sit through this mess (and long you will sit through many sports montages which would have felt clichéd back in the late 80s) the more offended you should be no matter what your demographic categories you mark on your U.S. Census form. Professional football where careers last approximately 3 or 4 seasons on average and only lucky players are able to walk without pain between their "retirement" and their often premature deaths is held out as the only form of success for African-Americans born on the wrong side of Memphis. The white men in the film played with that "yes, of course, honey" slack-jawed sitcom Dad cowering perpetuates a burgeoning stereotype of its own. Finally, white woman should be offended that the comely Sandra Bullock won the Academy Award for dressing up and doing something of a southern accent over the less attractive but exceedingly more difficult role of Julia Child that Meryl Streep absolutely nailed in "Julie & Julia". I hated this movie.