Practical Magic (1998)

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman star as two witches in a highly flawed comedy-drama directed by Griffin Dunne. They are sisters trying to overcome a family curse that brings doom on any man they fall in love with.

It’s tonally all over the place – a sort of fairytale crossed with Thelma and Louise, Harry Potter and various horror/supernatural elements. Stockard Channing and Diane Wiest are miscast or misused as two eccentric aunts, and it wasn’t really clear why they were in the film at all. 

The film tries to address the topic of domestic abuse, but it’s a topic that requires a much more sensitive approach than this. The attempts to address it with comedy are inconsistent and grating.

Bullock and Kidman do their best with the material, but cannot salvage an awkward mess of a film.

28 Days (2000)

Comedy-drama directed by Betty Thomas.

Sandra Bullock plays an alcoholic who is forced to enter rehab after her drinking sprawls out of control. After initially resisting it, she eventually ends up coming to terms with a new way of life.

It’s a somewhat sanitised account of addiction. Even at her ‘worst’ moments, she looks fantastic. But – this being Sandra Bullock – there are moments of humour, and it’s always engaging.

Viggo Mortensen is underused as a fellow addict and possible love interest.

Dominic West is (deliberately?) annoying as Gwen’s bad-influence boyfriend, while Steve Buscemi is passable as one of the clinic’s counselors.

It’s nice to see (and hear) Loudon Wainwright, who strums his guitar and sings on a few occasions.

The Net (1995)

Directed by Irwin Winkler, this is a trashy but enjoyable thriller starring Sandra Bullock as a geeky computer expert whose identity is stolen and erased. Jeremy Northam plays the villain who initially seduces her before trying to kill her. 

While it’s very basic in some ways, and we never really learn what the villains were planning to do, there are genuine thrills and surprises along the way. The fairground sequence is highly effective. And it was difficult to predict the ending. The filmmakers wrestle with how to make typing on a computer keyboard look exciting and just about make it work with fast edits and unusual close-ups. 

As always, Sandra Bullock is highly watchable.

Crash (2004)

An attempt by director Paul Haggis to make a multi-layered, interconnected narrative with a general theme about racism. It partially succeeds. 

The ensemble cast’s acting is strong (notably Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon), and the weaving together of threads is expertly handled. What spoils the film is the very intrusive, jarring music that just doesn’t suit the scenes it soundtracks. Also, the visuals seem over-filtered.

The Blind Side (2009)

An intriguing drama, directed by John Lee Hancock and adapted from the 2006 book by Michael Lewis. It tells the true story of American footballer Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron), who came from a poor background and a drug-addicted mother and was taken in by a wealthy Republican family. 

Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne, Oher’s new “mother”, and delivers one of her strongest performances in a complex role. 

Only one criticism: I misheard some of the intro and it sent me down the wrong path. I spent the whole film expecting Oher to fatally injure another player, which wasn’t where it was heading at all. That’s my fault, but I do think the opening moments could have been clearer.

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Described as a romantic comedy, this OK film directed by Jon Turteltaub isn’t really funny at all. 

Sandra Bullock stars as Lucy, a Chicago Transit Authority token collector. She has a crush on a commuter, Peter (Peter Gallagher), who she sees every morning. One day he’s pushed in front of a train and she saves his life. He goes into a coma, and in a blaze of confusion she allows Peter’s family to believe she’s his fiancé. But then she starts falling in love with Peter’s brother (Bill Pullman). 

Whenever Bullock is on screen, she shines. Pullman is also pretty good. The problem is the ensemble case of family and friends – poorly drawn characters with too much screen time. It’s just not very well written. For example, when Peter’s actual fiancé shows up you expect all sorts of amusing misunderstandings, but that event is thrown away and a potentially interesting plot thread merely fizzles out.

The Proposal (2009)

Romantic comedy directed by Anne Fletcher. 

High-powered businesswoman Margaret (Sandra Bullock) will be deported and lose her job at a New York publishing firm unless she gets married to an American. She forces her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to go along with the plan. They travel to his family home in Alaska, where – in trying to convince his family and immigration agent that they’re in love – they inevitably fall in love for real. 

It sounds formulaic but there are some genuinely funny moments and the script is finely tuned enough to sparkle. 

Sandra Bullock is likeable as a hard-edged bully who slowly reveals her vulnerabilities. A ludicrous scene in which a small dog is carried off by an eagle actually works. 

The strong cast also includes Mary Steenburgen and Betty White.

The Lake House (2006)

Romantic drama directed by Alejandro Agresti. It's a new version of the South Korean film Il Mare (2000).

Sandra Bullock is a doctor called Kate. Keanu Reeves is an architect called Alex. The pair fall in love. The problem is that Alex lives in 2004, while Kate lives in 2006.

They communicate through letters left in the mailbox of a lake house in Chicago, somehow bridging the two-year gap but without being able to meet.

Trying to work out the various time/space concepts made my head hurt. It’s great that the film makes you think, but this tends to be at the expense of the storytelling. I wanted to focus on the relationship between the couple, and not get bogged down by the dodgy science. Other films, such as Back to the Future, deal with the conceptual stuff much more neatly so that it can be moved out of the way and not distract from the plot.

Another flaw is that – by definition – too much of the film has to show the two characters alone, talking to themselves. The best moments are those rare occasions when we actually see the pair together – or nearly together.

I really enjoyed The Lake House despite the fact that it fundamentally doesn’t work. Thankfully, Bullock is great, whatever she’s in, and she raises an average drama to something well worth watching – as long as you don't ask any questions.

Two Weeks Notice (2002)

An idealistic liberal New York lawyer (Sandra Bullock) wants to protect a community centre. But her new boss – a womanising billionaire real estate developer (Hugh Grant) – wants to use the land for new property. The pair see the world differently, but soon hit it off. 

Troublingly, there’s no apostrophe in the title (which should be Two Weeks’ Notice). That aside, this is a charming rom-com. Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock have great chemistry together, and a sharp script lets both of them deliver some funny lines. I like the fact that the pair have so much screen time together. Often in rom-coms the story is all about getting the couple together, leaving you feeling that you've missed out on enjoying their relationship. 

Donald Trump has a slightly bizarre cameo, and indeed Grant’s empire seems loosely based on Trump’s own. Singer Norah Jones also briefly pops up as herself.

Premonition (2007)

Sandra Bullock stars in this mystery thriller directed by Mennan Yapo. 

Linda is told that her husband has died in a car crash. When she wakes up the next morning, he’s still alive and it’s as if nothing has happened. But then she wakes up again and he’s still dead. Is she dreaming? Is she losing her mind? This alternating pattern repeats itself, with Linda trying to piece together which of these realities is real while simultaneously trying to prevent her husband from dying. 

There are elements of Groundhog Day and Memento about it, but the premise is intriguingly original and I was fascinated to see how it would play out. 

Premonition touches on themes of freewill and determinism, love and trust, faith and belief. 

The semi-religious aspects that develop towards the end made me wonder if it was funded by the Catholic church.

Hope Floats (1998)

Directed by Forest Whitaker, this is a bland romantic drama that’s not very romantic or dramatic. 

The oddly named Birdee Pruitt (Sandra Bullock) is humiliated on national TV when her husband reveals he’s having an affair with her best friend (an uncredited Rosanna Arquette). Birdee takes her young daughter Bernice (Mae Whitman) and goes to live with her mother Ramona (Gena Rowland) in her hometown of Smithville, Texas. While trying to come to terms with the changes in her life, she falls for former classmate Justin Matisse (Harry Connick Jr).  

It’s extremely uneven. The script is poor and the characters aren’t developed much. That said, there are a couple of good moments – Sandra Bullock does the “throwing up and feeling ill on the bathroom floor” scene fairly well, and the daughter being abandoned by her shallow father felt all too upsettingly plausible. 

There are various oddities in the film:

1. Ramona is a taxidermist, so her large house is full of creepy stuffed animals – a quirk that's apparently unrelated to everything else in the story.

2. Ramona is bringing up another abandoned grandson, Travis, who spends all his time dressing up in silly costumes. Why? It's unclear how we're meant to feel about that.

3. Harry Connick Jr seems sweaty in every scene, even when he's not doing anything.

4. Some of the shots are out of focus – even basic technical stuff seems to have been problematic for the filmmakers.

5. Birdee works in a shop developing photos, but messes up most of them. Meanwhile, her boss says that he likes looking at the dodgier images they are given, which he makes copies of and keeps in a special drawer. That makes him seem pervy and weird, but this thread is never followed up.

There’s an overall strangeness about Hope Floats that’

s difficult to pin down. On one level it seems quite reasonable. But on another level, there's almost nothing about it that actually works.

Speed (1994)

Terrific action thriller. The concept is simple: a Los Angeles city bus is armed with a bomb that will detonate if the vehicle’s speed dips below 50 mph. Cute, funny Sandra Bullock is the passenger who becomes the heroic driver. Keanu Reeves is the cop jumping aboard the bus to save her and the other passengers while trying to defeat the crazed villain (Dennis Hopper). He’s helped by fellow cop Jeff Daniels, who is as reliably watchable as ever.

With exceptional pacing, the film ramps up the tension from the start and somehow sustains it for 111 minutes.

Some of the dialogue is weak, with a silly Bond-like quip about death that could have been skipped, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s so full-on in terms of excitement that you are swept away by the rush of energy. And the blossoming romance story is developed just enough to make you engage with the characters. It’s telling, though, that only Reeves is shown on the DVD cover, despite Bullock being every bit as integral to the film.

Gravity (2013)

This space drama is deeply moving. I’ve seen it three times and every time I found it emotional and stirring in a way that’s hard to articulate. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are perfect in the lead roles, and the zero-g special effects are such that I never for once doubted that these were real astronauts in real peril. How did they film it?! My heart was pounding. I’ve heard a couple of people complain that the film “has no plot”, and I simply cannot understand this criticism. “Sole survivor of space disaster tries to return to Earth” seems like a pretty strong storyline to me. Perhaps what they mean is that the film is unusually focused – we are isolated up there with Dr. Ryan Stone, without distraction – and doesn’t follow the conventions of a standard drama. No sub-plots. No chitter-chatter between minor characters. And maybe that’s exactly why it stands out as being so exceptional.