Throughout the last couple of decades Sandra Bullock was mainly seen as an actress who'd fronted a number of successful romantic comedies. That perception slightly changed when she featured in the Best Picture winning Crash and was finally altered for good when she won her only Best Actress Award to date at the 2010 ceremony.
Bullock won her award for The Blind Side, a film which saw her play the kindly but abrupt interior designer Leigh Ann Tuohy. I personally feel though that Bullock isn't the star of the film as this isn't really Leigh Ann's story but rather that of Michael Oher. We first meet 'Big Mike' when his size impresses the coach at the prestigious Wingate Christian School enough to grant him a scholarship. The problem is that Michael can't play for the school football team until his grades improve which is a shame as he doesn't seem to comprehend anything that is being taught to him. At the same time Michael finds himself out on the streets and is rescued by Leigh Ann and her family. The relationship between Leigh Ann and Michael is probably why the film struck a chord with the Academy and why Bullock ultimately received her Oscar. But at the same time I felt this part of the film was rather saccharine as getting to know Michael helped Leigh Ann to grow as a person. Instead I enjoyed watching Michael try attempt to find his place in the world and struggle with the fact that the Tuohy's intentions may not have been all they seemed. Judging from the poster alone, The Blind Side is seemingly about football but there is very little of the sport included in the film. There is only one extended football game in the movie and if you've ever seen a sporting film before you know exactly what to expect. Indeed, The Blind Side isn't very big on surprises but instead is one of those sort of films that Oscar loves to honour that being a 'feel good story'.
Whilst Bullock received all of the praised for The Blind Side I'd instead like to complement Quinton Aaron on his performance as Michael. I felt that he perfectly captured the essence of the gentle giant with Michael having the body of a giant but the mind of a child. I don't think Aaron ever made Michael into a patronising character and instead made him feel incredibly three-dimensional. That's more can be said for Bullock's Academy Award-winning turn in which she seemingly drew inspiration from previous Best Actress performances. Bullock's performance particularly evoked memories of Sally Field in Norma Rae and Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich both of whom won the Oscar for their roles. But while those two characters stood up for something they believed in, all Tuohy did was act as a Good Samaritan for a boy in need. I think my main problem with the role, and the film as a whole, is that there's not much story progression one Michael moves in with the Tuohys. Leigh Ann is definitely a one-note character meaning that Bullock was hard pushed to actually deliver a spot on performance. I believe that Bullock's win was primarily due to the fact that the Academy believed that it was her time to win one. Never mind that there were better performances from less established stars as Bullock was going to win the Oscar regardless of how good she was. The Blind Side's other Oscar-shaped surprise was the fact that it was nominated for Best Picture at all. As I've already mentioned, the 2010 ceremony saw the reintroduction of ten nominees meaning that some mediocre pictures had to be given nods. The Blind Side was one of those films which I believed was simply filling a gap and was one of the reasons that, two years later, the Academy decided to honour between five and ten films rather than a set number.
However, even this new system of picking nominees didn't stop the occasional bad movie turning up and that's just what happened when Bullock's next nominated film turned up. I still remember distinct whooping coming from the audience when Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Best Picture nomination was announced to the assembled crowd of press and PR people. This to me signals that one of its main intentions was to garner as many Oscar nominations as possible which is reinforced by the fact it had a limited release during the final week of 2011. The film also includes a ton of familiar faces including Bullock, Tom Hanks, Max Von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman and Jeffrey Jones. Unfortunately for this talented bunch they're simply supporting players with the lead role being taken by Thomas Horn, a young man who had no prior acting experience before being cast in the film's lead role. This to me was one of the key problems with Extremely Loud as the character of Oskar Schell is a tricky one to pull off due to the fact that he suffers from some form of autism. I do feel that even a talented child actor would struggle to make Oskar seem sympathetic so in my opinion Horn was fighting a losing battle. It got to the point that occasionally during the film I just wanted to slap Oskar as Horn wasn't able to convey the fact that his character sometimes spoke out of turn without realising it. As well as including the Academy favourite of a character with a learning difficulty, Extremely Loud's other ace in the hole was that it concentrated on the events of 9/11. Oskar's father Thomas Schell, played by Hanks, was the only person who really understood him and so his son was devastated when he was killed at the World Trade Center. The film centres on Oskar's search to find the lock that fits the key that his father left for him and that had the name Black on it. Although the quest for the mysterious Black is an interesting one, I felt that director Stephen Daldry didn't do enough to make us care about Oskar's end goal.
I personally felt there were only two enjoyable parts of the film the first of which is when Max Von Sydow enters the story as a character simply known as 'The Renter'. The mystery man is renting a house with Oskar's grandmother and cannot speak leading to some interesting odd couple scenes between the pair. It's quite clear that The Renter is Oskar's grandfather as our protagonist starts to notice similarities in the mannerisms between he and his late father. Von Sydow rightfully received Extremely Loud's only nomination although he ultimately lost the Best Supporting Actor fight to Christopher Plummer. I then had to wait until the film's conclusion for something else to grab me namely Sandra Bullock's time to shine as Oskar's mother Linda. Throughout the film Linda had been somewhat of an afterthought but Bullock proved why she'd been cast in the movie during the revelation that her character had been ahead of her son the entire time. The story of Linda's meeting of all of the Blacks was more engaging than anything that Oskar had done during the entire film and it made me wish that we'd have had more of her on screen during the film. Aside from Bullock and Von Sydow everything else about Extremely Loud was felt cloying from the overblown score to the focus on subjects that the producers knew that the Academy loved. I do feel I've been spoilt a bit after watching Hugo, a film with two fine child actors, but I think that if Oskar had been cast more successfully then I would've enjoyed Extremely Loud a little more. Horn had in fact been cast after producer Scott Rudin saw him on a game show and I bet that he regretted his decision after seeing the finished product. Thankfully Horn has now returned to his studies and is putting acting on the back-burner for the time being and let's just hope that his skills have vastly improved if he ever decides to darken the big screen again.
After one film in which I felt she was over-rated and one film in which she wasn't given the chance to shine, I'm glad that Sandra Bullock's talents were finally on display during Gravity. The film is another rare example of the Academy honouring a sci-fi movie, something that still rarely happens despite the increased number of Best Picture nominees. Gravity saw Bullock nominated for her second Best Actress award for playing Mission Specialist Ryan Stone, a biomedical engineer who is currently on her first NASA Mission. The film concentrates on Ryan's predicament after her shuttle is hit with debris from a Russian satellite killing everyone but her and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski. From there the plot of the film sees Ryan and Matt's mission to get to the International Space Station with a limited supply of oxygen between them. Gravity is very simplistic in nature with Alfonso Cuaron's script, which was co-written with his son Jonas, feeling very basic in nature. Ryan is a character who has gone into space after essentially losing everything as her daughter was killed aged just six years old. Meanwhile Matt is the classic veteran who is on his last NASA mission and is eager to return to Earth. I felt it was quite clear what was going to happen to each character but the ride to the finish line was still expertly plotted. Cuaron's Oscar winning direction was one of the main draws of Gravity due to the fact that he made every moment count. At just ninety minutes, Gravity is one of the shortest Best Picture nominees but its running time is one of its strengths as it adds to the intensity of the situation. Eventually separating herself from Matt, Ryan's endeavours continue as she's forced to go it alone and endures several life-threatening situations. The first time I watched Gravity I was literally biting my nails during the final sequence as I waited to see if Ryan would make it to Earth in one piece.
The fact that Gravity had such an emotional impact on me is a credit to all of the team involved in the film. The Academy agreed with that statement awarding Gravity with seven of the ten Oscars it was nominated for that night. Gravity became one of a number of films that won multiple awards without getting the Best Picture nod only beating Cabaret which won eight but lost out to The Godfather. Gravity's wins included two successes in the sound category which to me was one of the movie's key aspects with the silent nature of the space playing a big part throughout. I personally felt the use of sound added to the dramatic effect of the film with Ryan's voice coming slowly into the film as it began. Steven Price's Oscar-winning score was similarly moving as it echoed Ryan's struggles perfectly and added even more tension to the film's final scenes. Whilst she didn't win an award for the film, a lot of praise has to go for Sandra Bullock for being extremely captivating in a film in which she was on screen for every frame. Bullock's facial expressions were perfectly judged as she made the audience sympathise with a woman who still grieving for the daughter she'd lost. Aside from Bullock, the only other cast member with a sizeable role in Gravity was George Clooney who to me seemed to be channelling Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear. Clooney's charisma was fully exploited in the role of Matt although he came good when he had to act as a mentor to Bullock's rookie astronaut. There was a lot of confusion when Gravity took home the award for Best British Film at that year's BAFTAs especially as it's a film with two big American stars and is directed by a Mexican. However the award-winning Production Design and Visual Effects were all done in several English studios. I do believe that Gravity perfectly exemplifies the skill of the British Film Industry who worked tirelessly to recreate the zero-gravity atmosphere of the movie. I would go as far as to say that Gravity probably deserved to win the Best Picture award over that year's victor as it's an example of great film-making that contains a compelling if basic story and perfectly utilises modern day cinematic techniques.
Next time we focus on the most recent foreign language film to receive a Best Picture nomination.
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