All Hail Sandra Bullock New Orleans Queen

Sandra Bullock is in the house! She loves New Orleans and New Orleans loves her and her hubby
Jesse James.

The Real Estalker reports that her New Orleans home was: "like some kind of homo-rococo hot mess, even though the sellers were not, in fact, homosexuals. RE thinks but can not confirm that the heavily gilded interiors had been worked over by noted New Orleans antiques dealer/interior decorator Buzz Harper who, is an honors graduate of the Gone With the Wind school of plantation decor".

The Bullock-James family have owned the house since last June, and when Cholo and I go for our walks, we pass by the house and see tons of worker bees eradicating the homo-rococo hot mess (pictured above).

While Alberto and I were teaching tango last night on Prytania Street, just a few blocks away a Hollywood style glam movie premiere was taking place. The movie is Sandra Bullock's "The Blind Side". I can hardly wait to see it!


From The Times Picayune:

A touch of Hollywood glitzed up New Orleans' Prytania Theatre on Thursday (November 19) night, as actress Sandra Bullock and a host of other stars attended a local red-carpet premiere of Bullock's new movie, the sports drama "The Blind Side."

A scene from The Blind Side

Bullock, who on her way to the red carpet shook hands with many of the hundreds of fans gathered to catch a glimpse of the arrivals, said Thursday's event was unlike any other premiere she has attended - mostly because other premieres haven't served as a fundraiser for the Warren Easton Charter Foundation, the New Orleans school she and husband Jesse James have adopted.

Sandra Bullock with Warren Easton students

"You roll your eyes and you say, 'Why do we have to do another premiere? It's such a waste of money'," Bullock said, wearing a floor-length Alberta Ferretti gown.

Sandra Bullock showing the crowd some love like a Mardi Gras queen

"Then you go, 'We could do a premiere and it'll actually make money and show people what's happening in their community that they don't realize is happening.' "I didn't realize how many folks didn't know the good that was happening here, and I think that was a shame, because of all places, this community deserves to know that there is positive happening and successful, positive things."



James joined her on the red carpet, along with Bullock's "Blind Side" co-star Quinton Aaron

Quinton Aaron star of The Blind Side on the red carpet at the Prytania

and director John Lee Hancock. Local actor Bryan Batt also showed up,

We love Bryan Batt so handsome on the red carpet for the premiere of The Blind Side

but the loudest cheers -- second to those greeting Bullock -- were reserved for the arrival of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and his wife, Brittany.

Brittany and Drew Brees on the red carpet at the Prytania - Go Saints!

They were later joined on the red carpet by Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey, who also got an enthusiastic greeting from the crowd. Also in attendance was Michael Lewis, the New Orleans native who wrote the book on which the movie is based. He was as wide-eyed as anyone else on the red carpet, and he admitted a certain amount of awe at seeing one of his books become a movie. "This is the coolest thing, coming back here," Lewis said. "It's cool that it goes back to my roots -- this is my theater. My parents came here for movies, this is their theater."

Just like the stars filing into it, the venerable Prytania Theatre was gussied up as well. Two blocks of Prytania Street were blocked off in front of the theater, and a red carpet had been stretched down the middle of the street. A set of Hollywood-style, four-beam skylights whirled away nearby. The theater's 89-year-old operator, Rene Brunet - himself something of a celebrity among the neighborhood residents gathered at the edge of the red carpet - said it was the biggest premiere ever held at his theater. It was so big, in fact, that he decked himself out in the tuxedo he normally reserves for the theater's Oscar-night celebration "I looked at it, and I said, 'Oh, golly, I hope it fits,'" Brunet said. Thursday's event was to be followed by a fundraising party at the House of Broel - also for Warren Easton - which made it a perfect match for the big-hearted "The Blind Side."

The film tells the real story of NFL player Michael Oher, who was taken in as a homeless teen by a Tennessee family who realized that their support could offer him something his life to that point had lacked: a future. The family, the Tuohy family -- the patriarch of which is also from New Orleans -- was also in attendance. "There's a big New Orleans connection with this, with Michael Lewis," Bullock said. "And I think the themes of the movie are so applicable to so many schools in the United States." She added: "I watched it for the first time two nights ago. I don't have the capability to express the words I feel. You just feel hopeful for kindness and humanity and what's possible, rather than leaving something and feeling doomed, which you do every time you turn on the TV. It's just, you see real people doing it, and you go, 'There's no reason we can't do it.'"

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