Live-blogging is dead. Long live Facebooking the Oscars. Or at least according to me and Bill and Ryan. The three of us Facebooked the Oscars rather than live-blogging them and it was quite enjoyable. We were joined by Pax and Rory and Deidre and Neil and many others and this morning I awoke to 42 notifications from late commenters on each of our many updates. However, don't think this means I'll be reviewing the show because that's what the Facebook updates were all about. We updated throughout, and we're all quite pleased that The Hurt Locker, despite it being none of our first choices for Best Picture, won out over the box office juggernaut Avatar (one of the few cases ever where I can use the term "box office juggernaut" and feel that cliche is completely justified) in both the Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow) and Best Picture categories. But I didn't post anything on that. My last update was about Sandra Bulluck in which I, not so delicately, said I liked her despite her sorry rep around the movie blogosphere. I stand by that (and thank all those who agreed).
I haven't seen The Blind Side and don't know if she deserved Best Actress any more than 90 percent of all Oscar winners have ever "deserved" their Oscars. I just know she is a talented actress who has been in
a veritable treasure trove of awful movies and it's all those bad movies that helps sink her reputation. I won't judge an actor for taking the movies that come along to keep her career going especially if that eventually leads to a moment where said actor is accepting an Oscar. Besides, she made Love Potion #9 work, and that's one of the silliest movies ever made. You know what else she made work? Speed. If you've just got Keanu Reeves and his deadpan, no, scratch that, corpse-like delivery, that movie is sunk. Bullock made it work much better than it should have. No, she couldn't save Speed 2 but that's like criticizing an ant for not being able to stop the flow of Mount Vesuvius. Jesus Christ could have stayed on the cross for three years and not saved Speed 2. Humanity, yes, Speed 2, no.So maybe the problem, or criticism, of Bullock is that people think it says something about someone so willing to appear in so many bad films. Something about her taste or judgment. Well, how many of our favorite character actors from the past have appeared in their fair share of stinkers? We remember the great ones and forget the countless duds. Fact is, I admire someone for accepting what roles come along in an effort to keep working because too many actors find themselves atop a shining hill in which only those roles "suitable to their grand talents" will be entertained. Michael Caine taught the post-studio controlled movie world that a real actor takes what comes along and doesn't complain. And Bullock does too. And bully to that!
