There is a moment in Two Weeks Notice when Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock's soon-to-be-ex boss, lists what he'll miss about her. "She's funny...of course, not deliberately," he muses, hitting the Bullock's-eye on why she makes us laugh. She just goes about her character's business -- an FBI agent posing as a pageant contestant in Miss Congeniality, a public-interest lawyer in drag as a real-estate developer's counsel in Notice, a preoccupied mother pretending to be a free spirit in Forces of Nature -- and locates the humor of a square peg forcing itself into round hole.
I like Bullock, on screens this weekend in The Proposal, as a Canadian-born career woman who needs to get married to a U.S. citizen (her assistant, Ryan Reynolds), so she can keep her job. She's hilarious, he's hilarious, it's hilarious. And the funny thing about Bullock is that she's awfully good and undeliberate at the dramatic moments, too, so affecting as Harper Lee in Infamous and as the homicide detective in Murder by Numbers. Heck, I even enjoyed her in The Lake House, a preposterously involving time-warp romance between her and her Speed co-star, Keanu Reeves.
Bullock, 44, has been a star for 15 years, which in actress years is like a half century. She's made some real dreck (Hope Floats, anyone? Practical Magic?), yet I wince when cinephiles like David Thomson write her off as "a household name who has yet to be in a vital movie." Apart from Diane Keaton and Drew Barrymore, is there a funnier female clown currently working?
Anna Faris?— Adam B.- I loooooove Sandra Bullock. She MAMBOS. I will see her in anything--except YA-TA DIVINE SISTERHOOD; I have my limits. She had a cameo--maybe two scenes--in LOVERBOY this indie directed by Kevin Bacon and she Broke My Heart in it. I too thought she was better in INFAMOUS (it's the better CAPOTE film, folks!) and I can gush about my crush more if you want, but I don't think I'm answering your question, Carrie...NO. There's not a funnier American screen actress right now. Bullock ROCKS! (And yes, I'll see her in LAKE HOUSE and PREMONITION and all the other non-comedy films she does, too. I adore her. I thought she was very Audrey Hepburn in THE PROPOSAL...— garyk
- Faris is hilarious, but Bullock makes me laugh louder.— carrierickey
Comment removed.- Probably won't happen anytime soon, but she would be the perfect Stephanie Plum if any of the Janet Evanovich novels make it to the big screen. Forget her chronological age, she looks 20 years younger... her art gives her the remarkable gift of never appearing to be "acting".— factcheck
- Man, what a reilief to be able to admit that I, too, like "The Lake House." I'm not *defending* it, mind you - "preposterously involving" is the perfect description precisely because both halves are equally true - but I find myself watching it when it crops up yet again on one of my many HBO channels. I don't get David Thomson's continuing aversion, except I think he's a big Julia Roberts fan and may see Sandra (as some do) as a poor man's version of Roberts. I never got that comparison, being a fan of both, and finding each a distinct screen presence.— wwolfe
- Julia's a broad. Sandra, like Johnny Depp and Marlene Dietich and Greta Garbo -- and Keanu Reeves -- has sex but not gender.— carrierickey
- Throwing caution to the wind here, I'll say that Bullock's Harper Lee is a much better realized characterization than Catherine Keener's. But, of course, Keener is a critic's darling and Bullock ain't. (Bullock was more deserving of an Oscar nominations than Keener. There, I said it.) Also, the two films described here as "drek" - "Hope Floats" and "Practical Magic" - seem perfectly fine to me, no better or worse than any other Bullock romcom (he says shyly). Full disclosure: I actually love "Hope Floats."— Pash
- Amma Fairs is deliberately funny-you know from her characters that they are supposed to be funny, and she is. Bullock is from the Carole Lombard school-a good-looking gal, whose characters are not supposed to be funny, but end up being so by their actions. Like everybody's laughing, but her character can't understand why.— mike l
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