Sandra Bullock Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked"-a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted accolades and superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Sandra Bullock-whose latest project "The Lost City" hits theaters on Thursday.  

Sandra Bullock's Filmography Ranked:

17.Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (D+)

16.While You Were Sleeping (C-)

15.Practical Magic (C-)

14.Miss Congeniality (C)

13.Murder by Numbers (C+)

12.Crash (C+)

11.Our Brand is Crisis (B-)

10.Two Weeks Notice (B-)

9.The Unforgiveable (B-)

8.The Proposal (B-)

7.The Blind Side (B)

6.Bird Box (B)

5.Ocean's 8 (B)

4.The Heat (B+)

3.Demolition Man (B+)

2.Gravity (B+)

1.Speed (B+)

Top Dog: Speed (1994)

Speed is a great example of how delivering a simple film with gusto and precision can be just as rewarding as something with higher ambitions. The only things sitting at this core of this project are narrative efficiency, charismatic characters and pure fucking adrenaline-which was all it needed to blast across the finish line in a blaze of glory and become one of the greatest action thrillers of the 90's.

Lowlight: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of the purest embodiments of shameless, manipulative misery porn that the film industry has provided the world in the last 10-15 years. There's not even a hint of a sincere plot beat or emotion present in this whole exploitative debacle that uses the real-world devastation of 9/11 as the cheese to get the audience into an emotional vice grip that unleashes all of the tragic movie cliches (dead parents, living parent reconciling with small child who lashes out at them because they lost a parent and don't how to cope with the pain, more death) in an attempt to force tears to exit from your eyes. If these events were completely removed from the context that they're presented in here, they'd be very sad, but the carefully curated manner in which they're framed in this completely fictionalized narrative makes the whole movie feel downright icky.  

Most Underrated: Demolition Man (1993)

Outside of the peaks of the Rocky and Rambo franchises, Demolition Man serves as one of Sylvester Stallone's best projects. With its almost prophetic view of the future, a hilarious villain turn from Wesley Snipes and well-balanced mix of intelligent satire and self-aware action movie stupidity, it manages to be a really fun, delightfully loopy movie that has aged exceptionally well.

Most Overrated: While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Outside of serving as the earliest piece of proof that Bullock had the juice to lead a movie, While You Were Sleeping doesn't bring many positive things to the table. The hilariously contrived romance and below average jokes that are sprinkled throughout the cheesy road map it follows to reach its inevitable happy final destination easily overshadow the power of Bullock's charm and Peter Boyle playing a slightly less miserable version of Frank from Everybody Loves Raymond.