This is what happens when you give Sandra Bullock an Oscar. People start thinking she’s a serious actress, instead of that stoner chick from Austin who did all those really silly Miss Congeniality movies and never really properly explained how to use the three seashells. Before The Blindside nobody took Sandra Bullock seriously, after The Blindside suddenly she’s the go to girl for holocaust movies.
EW says Screen Gems is offering her the lead in a movie called Never Forget. It’s based on a documentary called On Moral Grounds in which a woman sets out to reimburse Holocaust survivors swindled out of life insurance policies by a European company. It should be a lot of fun. Sarcasm indicated.
The thing is, despite the Oscar on her mantle, Sandra Bullock is still Sandra Bullock. And that means she’s spectacularly unsuited to carrying edgy outer space movies or films in which she cries with people over all the things done to their family by the Hitler (especially given her ex-husband’s recent Nazi connection… cue the uncomfortable junket questions). The Blindside didn’t suddenly turn her into a different actress, it just harnessed her somewhat hammy talents for one specific role. Oscar or no Oscar, she’s still Sandra Bullock and for her this role sounds completely wrong.
Maybe Sandra knows it too, because so far she hasn’t actually taken any of these decidedly non-Bullocky parts being thrown her way. She already said no to a movie about an animal conservationist, perhaps realizing she can’t play a Jane Goodall. She hasn’t taken this one yet either and I’m hoping Screen Gems gets a no. Give her a rom-com, or better yet someone start making Demolition Man 2: McDonalds Strikes Back. That, and I say this with nothing but love and affection for most of her filmography, is exactly where she belongs.
