"Just making sure." - The Crazies (2010)

“Just making sure,” says Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) in a matter of fact tone as he pumps lead into the dead bodies of a woman and boy infected with a secret biological toxin that turns people into murderous “crazies.” Now, that’s a clever survivor – unlike many stupid, so-called survivors who fail to make sure a zombie is dead, or stand around to see if a bite victim is going to get better, as many have in the plethora of zombie or zombie-like movies released in the past ten years. "Just making sure." I like that - and I laughed out loud. If you’re going to watch another zombie-like horror flick, you might as well have quick-shooting good guys. The Crazies has that plus more.

Often gripping, The Crazies follows your standard zombies-caused-by-biological-weapon plot. The government fucked up. The plane carrying their killer virus to a disposal site crashes near the peaceful Iowa town of Ogden Marsh. People get infected and start shooting, burning, sawing, and impaling fellow townspeople. Government steps in and tries to contain the disaster – and you know what that means. So Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), his gorgeous wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), and Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), try to escape before the final dust off.

To embellish the standard shocks and gore, you have the radiant, kick-ass Mitchell – one of my favorite horror/sci-fi heroines. (She acquitted herself well in Pitch Black and Silent Hill.) I love how her beautiful eyes turn cold and determined when she head-shoots a hideous "crazy." In addition, the film features some artful cinematography of wide-open Iowa farmland and empty two-lane roads disappearing into the distance. This worthwhile little horror entertainment opens with a gripping appearance of a shotgun-toting farmer at a high school baseball game, and it also includes a terrifying scene involving a "crazy," a pitch fork, and panicking victims lying strapped to gurneys.

"Fill your hand you son of a bitch!" - True Grit (1969)

(In anticipation of the Coen brothers’ remake of the 1969 movie True Grit, and inspired by the Film Doctor’s in-depth analysis of themes in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man (2009), I offer this review of the original True Grit.)

In the late 1960s John Wayne teamed up with veteran action-adventure director Henry Hathaway (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Call Northside 777, Garden of Evil, Nevada Smith) and performers Glen Campbell (What a quaint time the 60s was – that the likes of country singer Glen Campbell could be a significant audience draw!), Kim Darby (She was an unknown; but I remembered her at the time from her touching role as a young girl doomed to die in adolescence in the Star Trek episode “Miri” ), Robert Duvall – with the accompaniment of a rousing musical score by Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven) – to make a faithful adaptation of the Charles Portis novel True Grit. John Wayne’s performance as Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn, the overweight, alcoholic, eye-patched U.S. Marshall known for shooting first and asking questions later, won the Duke his first and only Oscar for Best Actor. Yes, he overacts at times. Yes, he deserved the Oscar for his superior performance in The Searchers or The Shootist - or both. But within this elegiac, beautifully-filmed Western adventure about vengeance and shattered innocence, Wayne performs in some memorably touching as well as hilarious moments, and the film is a dramatic look at a time in history when it was getting tough to be an outlaw – and just as tough to be a lawmen dealing ruthlessly with the ruthless.

When her father is murdered by drunken ranch hand Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross takes it upon herself to hire the shooting Marshall Cogburn to track down the killer and bring him back dead or alive. Mattie, a parsimonious, obsessive-compulsive “little priss” has a very tough and determined side to her. She tells the sheriff of Fort Smith, “I will not rest until Tom Chaney is barking in hell.” That’s a great line. And she’s tough enough to stand up to Marshall Rooster Cogburn, that “drunken gabby fool.” She gets what she wants when it comes to horse dealing, to the extent that it drives horse trader Colonel Stonehill (Strother Martin) to say, “I have just received word that a young girl fell head-first into a fifty-foot well… I thought perhaps it was you.” She also wants to accompany Rooster Cogburn on the manhunt, along with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (pronounced La Beef) (Glen Campbell), in pursuit of Chaney for shooting a Texas senator off a porch swing. Thus, Mattie Ross embarks on the adventure of her life.

But it is an adventure that turns traumatic and robs Mattie of her youth. In her mind, it should be easy to catch Tom Chaney. Just ambush him on the road, beat him senseless with sticks, and tie him up. Her conception of the undertaking is like a kid’s game, like the play-acting she suggests for their first night camping out. But violence and death come abruptly and shockingly when they come upon a cabin harboring two men connected with “Lucky Ned” Pepper (Robert Duvall), the notorious outlaw Rooster “shot in the lip” once upon a time. When Moon (a young Dennis Hopper) threatens to give in and divulge what he knows, Quincy (Jeremy Slater) chops his fingers off with a hunting knife and stabs him before Rooster shoots Quincy. Blood and fingers everywhere, and that night as they wait in ambush for Ned’s gang, Mattie seems sobered by the ghastliness of death.

Alhough the first half of the film, filmed more claustrophobically in the town of Fort Smith, consists of sparring and joking amongst Rooster, LaBoeuf, Mattie, and the hapless characters who come in contact with Mattie's Puritanical rigidity, the exteriors of the second half of the film, with the grand and belittling Rocky Mountains standing in for the Winding Stair Mountains of Arkansas, sets the story in a radiant fall that suggests the declining of all things. Dazzling shots of brilliant yellow aspen leaves make it clear that winter is coming. The nights are cold. Youth and the day when a man like Rooster could get away with arresting someone without a warrant or killing someone without cause are waning. Young people can die, too – as seen in Moon’s death and in the death of fair-haired, “little boy Billy,” a member of Ned’s gang who came from a good family. Even the ruthless outlaw Ned Pepper, wonderfully played by Duvall as a snake-eyed, mean little man, knows his outlaw days are numbered. “I need a good judge.”

Overweight and short of breath (he had lost a lung to cancer), John Wayne is well-suited for his role as an indolent alcoholic. The eye patch covering his Civil War wound suggests a pirate or outlaw. Indeed, Cogburn’s sordid past is in keeping with the film’s look at the ironies of justice and injustice. During the Civil War, he rode with Missouri guerrillas. After the war, he robbed a bank in New Mexico. Cogburn is quite a character, and Wayne takes his portrayal of the shooting marshall into the realm of caricature.

But John Wayne's presence, as in most of his films, gives the film solidity, definitely buoying up Glen Campbell’s terrible acting by siding with Mattie and making the foolish Texas ranger the brunt of Cogburn’s jokes. When the Texan makes a mess of a wild turkey with a Sharps rifle, Cogburn observes to the disgusted Mattie, “Too much gun.” When the Texan ruins the ambush by shooting too early and hitting Ned’s horse instead of Ned, Cogburn concludes, “Well, La Boeuf, you’re quite a horse shooter.”

Kim Darby is not a great actress. When Darby plays scenes with Campbell, it’s a bit like watching poor high school performers merely reciting lines thinking about what they’re saying. But Wayne brings the best out of Darby, and together they develop a tender father-daughter rapport that embellishes three particularly poignant scenes. In two of the scenes, Cogburn tells Mattie of his wild and wayward life, and Mattie begins to see the good in him, getting over her prejudice that Cogburn is a despicable low-life, merely a tool for her to use to get what she wants. Later, she is significantly impressed when Cogburn faces four outlaws all on his own and boldly tells Ned, “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch.” What ensues is one of the most beautiful and thrilling long shots in the history of Westerns: Cogburn charging the four outlaws in a meadow surrounded by aspens bright with autumnal yellow.



"Fill your hands you son of a bitch."


That said, I don't see the recent commentary suggesting that the Coens want to make their new adaptation of the novel more from Mattie's point of view - that the 1969 is all about Rooster Cogburn. Not so. The opening scene and the last scene are from Mattie's point of view. The first scenes of the film follow Mattie as she goes from place to place in Fort Smith inquiring into the death of her father and arranging his burial. We first see Rooster through Mattie's eyes as a mean cuss (he rough handles a prisoner) and a remorseless killer (he talks in court about his career shooting suspects). Throughout the film, as Rooster talks about his life, Mattie's condescending attitude toward this drunken lout changes to one of endearment and respect.

Wayne’s last scene with Darby is one of the most touching scenes in any Western. Mattie has narrowly escaped death, and she meets Cogburn in the family cemetery on her ranch to bid him farewell. Mattie’s offer of a place next to her grave suggests that Mattie doesn’t see normal womanhood and marriage as her future. Fall has faded; it’s winter now.

Standing in his classic Michelangelo’s David stance, one knee bent, Wayne as old Rooster is touched. He tells her that that place in the cemetery should be for her kin, and besides, he might be old, but he wants to avoid death as long as possible. Cogburn, the man of dubious morals, keeps plodding on in life. He has a new horse that can jump a four-rail fence. “You’re too old and fat to be jumping horses.” You’re wrong there, “little sister.” In the film’s final image, Cogburn does it. He jumps a fence, hat held on high. Cogburn moves on in life. Mattie stays behind, injured, mournful.

Looking Forward to the Remake:

So it looks like the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit is in the filming stage. Although the original holds a special place in my heart because of my love for John Wayne and my nostalgia for the thrilling experience of seeing it in theaters upon its release, I am really looking forward to he Coens' take on the story. We need more Westerns. The cast looks great. Apparently, Jeff Bridges plays John Wayne; I mean Rooster Cogburn. I can’t think of a better choice. Matt Damon takes over Glenn Campbell’s role, and Josh Brolin plays Tom Chaney. Actually, Brolin would also make a great Ned Pepper. Relative newcomer Hailee Steinfield will play Mattie Ross. And you can’t go wrong with Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) in charge of cinematography. Oh, yeah, and the Coens direct.

I’m not going to miss it!

The Directors Joel and Ethan Coen


John Wayne and Jeff Bridges (most likely) as U.S. Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn


Matt Damon as Texas Ranger La Boeuf - Josh Brolin as Murderer Tom Chaney


Hailee Steinfield as Mattie Ross

Thoughts on Shutter Island

Here There Be Spoilers:

What I liked about this movie –

The grand dramatic entrance: Shutter Island opens as a ferry emerges from the fog, taking Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels to Shutter Island mental hospital. As he and his sidekick, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are driven to the hospital’s imposing gates, the musical score is an ominous, dramatic theme heralding Teddy’s descent into hell. At first I felt the music was overblown, but as a dramatic moment it is one of the best in the film.

Out in the storm: Snooping around for clues to the whereabouts of a patient who has supposedly disappeared, Teddy and Chuck find themselves in heavy rain in a woods that starts to fall down around them. They take refuge in a crypt. Spooky, yes, and very dramatic.

Michelle Williams plays Teddy’s dead wife as a sultry beauty with a deep sadness about her. Her presence is wonderful, and the dreams in which she appears reminded me of the flashbacks to the soldier’s wife, played by Miranda Otto, in The Thin Red Line. As Otto is in Malick’s movie, Williams is hauntingly seductive.

Leonardo DiCaprio always delivers a solid performance. I love his intensity. I’ve read articles suggesting that Scorsese should end his partnership with DiCaprio. I disagree.

DiCaprio is supported by a wonderful cast. Ruffalo is perfect as the laid-back film noir sidekick, offsetting Teddy’s stronger emotions. If a film involves a cover-up, or a perceived cover-up, you can always find Max Von Sydow (as in Minority Report) – or Ben Kingsley – and this movie has both of them, and here both play doctors, a pair of Gothic horror Frankensteins in a sinister castle. Once again, Jackie Earle Haley shows his talent for playing an emaciated weirdo, and Elias Koteas provides horror with his ghastly, stitched face. I don’t know if this is intentional direction on Marty’s part, but Koteas looks and sounds like Robert De Niro playing one of his psycho roles.

Scorsese’s art direction and cinematography are always excellent. He knows how to evoke an ominous, threatening atmosphere with artistic lighting and atmospheric shots of corridors, doorways, and cells juxtaposed with the opulence of the doctors’ parlor and dining room.

The spiral stairway reminiscent of the stairway in Vertigo: In the same way Scottie (James Stewart) overcomes deep fears and ascends a twisting stairway to a revelation, Teddy climbs toward a revelation of similarly dramatic impact. I cringed from the tension and atmosphere, but I also cringed because I knew I was going to get pretty substantial proof regarding what is going on at Shutter Island – and I didn’t want the revelation to be what I had suspected since –

- The massacre at Dachau: I enjoyed the visceral effect of this surrealistic scene. I loved the shot from the point of view of the German prisoners as the shots approach them down the line. But it was here – and this scene comes rather early in the film – that I began to suspect that Teddy was possibly insane and deluding himself regarding the strange happenings on Shutter Island.

What I didn’t like about this movie –

The film loses tension as it moves along ponderously into too many mysteries. A little tightening would have maintained the suspense which starts to leak away as the storm goes on too long. In particular, the dream in which Teddy is embracing Dolores (Williams) in a shower of ashes goes on too long. It’s a wonderfully haunting image – but its length weakens its impact.

The big revelation that Teddy has been on the island all along as an inmate and that his investigation into the disappearance of an inmate and into his suspicions of some sort of pernicious cover-up of evil experimentation is all self-delusion: I knew this was coming since the Dachau massacre scene. The massacre happens in such an unrealistic way – a sparse rank of soldiers with M1s could hardly mow down a thick block of prisoners in such a methodical way. There was a shooting of unarmed German guards at Dachau, but it didn’t happen this way. Then, as other scenes seem surrealistic - the power of the storm, for example - my suspicions grew.

So as Teddy climbs the lighthouse stairway, I expected the whole "reality" of the film to be popped like a bubble. It’s my problem, I admit – my problem with how I perceive cinematic narrative. I guess I’m so geared to perceiving cinematic action as a story that is happening – unless it’s an obvious flashback, dream, or illusion. That most of what we saw is an illusion just feels like lazy plotting to me and a cheap twist ending.

As I said, I loved Teddy and Chuck’s grand, dramatic entrance – but when I discover at the end that this scene that I accepted as reality never happened, then the whole drama of the film is popped for me in the same way my conception of what is going is burst for me.

It’s also a disappointment to me when I see that a film has missed a greater dramatic potential. As Teddy climbs the stairway, I cringed from the established tension, but I also cringed, knowing that I was going to learn that Teddy is deluding himself. I actually uttered, “No, no, no, no!” But I was also suspended by the possibility of a much more dramatic twist: the doctors convince him to accept his insanity and then, resigned, he’s ready to be led away – but then he sees, and we, the audience, see it with him, some slip-up on the part of the doctors that indicates that he is not insane. That he is right. There is a cover-up of dastardly experiments.

Finally, we come to the last scene in which Teddy talks about whether it’s better to live as a monster or die as a good man. I initially took this as a possibility that the end can be taken ambiguously – that, indeed, there has been a cover-up, Teddy is not insane, and he realizes there’s no hope – he might as well get lobotomized. But I have Googled interpretations of this ending, and it’s pretty clear that there is no ambiguity.

But, okay, so he’s going to be taken off to get a lobotomy. Well, then, why would an orderly bring the instruments (the sharp pointy thing sticking out of the towel – this was not a syringe in case he needed to be sedated) out into the garden? Aren't the instruments ready for him in the operating room? I think I was sharp enough at that point that I didn’t need to be shown the instrument in order to conclude that they were going to scramble Teddy’s brains.

Two for Valentine's Day Weekend

Okay, so I got it backwards. I saw The Wolfman on the 14th and Valentine’s Day on the 15th, but my wife didn’t mind me abandoning her on Valentine’s Day because her birthday is on the 13th. That’s her day, and the 14th gets short shrift. We exchange cards. I get some chocolates to eat at the movies.

The Wolfman, a satisfying entertainment full of growls, slashing claws, and hairy CGI werewolves, makes the clever choice of setting its story in the Blackmoor and in London, England, in 1891 – as a classic monster tale should be. There’s something about the dank moor, the dinghy pubs, the shadowy mansions, and the coal-smoke shrouded London skyline that’s just the right setting for a tale about werewolves.

The Wolfman also chooses a cast of performers well suited to the Gothic genre and the Victorian time period. Benicio Del Toro is perfect as Lawrence Talbot, the hapless victim of a werewolf attack; he already looks dark and wolf-like before CGI sets in. Anthony Hopkins is wonderfully hairy in beard and long hair as Lawrence’s lycanthropic pop. Emily Blunt, fetching in those tight bodices, does a solid job of playing the beauty that thinks she can tame the beast, and Hugo Weaving taps his inner Agent Smith to play a no-nonsense Scotland Yard inspector investigating the slaughter of villagers by madman or beast.

The local villagers certainly need Scotland Yard's help. I got a special kick out of one scene in which the angry villagers think that a docile-looking CGI bear belonging to a band of gypsies is the beast responsible for recent eviscerations and decapitations. The villagers are set straight when the full moon sends the local werewolf on a killing spree.

Sudden starts pumped up by excessive sound bursts are employed unnecessarily here. (In fact, they should be banned from all horror films.) The art direction successfully sets a tense, spooky, Gothic atmosphere, and the film is expeditiously paced, gripping, and includes a steam-powered London omnibus that gets toppled and attacked King Kong-style. It also includes the classic research-lycanthropy-in-dusty-leather-volumes scene that is trite but fun.


I saw Valentine's Day with my daughter, who is a walking encyclopedia of pop culture, and I thought it would be fun spotting the stars. The two young women sitting behind me obviously knew their share of pop culture because they sighed whenever a handsome male star made his appearance. I bet they watched a lot of television. I do not exaggerate when I say that they incessantly uttered a pair of synchronized “Ahhhs” at every corny, sentimental moment in the film – and there were quite a few of those. At first I found them irritating, but when a number of other groups of young women began uttering similar “Ahhhs,” and when a teenage girl yelled out something like “Yeah, baby,” when Taylor Lautner appeared on screen, I settled back and accepted this as an audience participation sort of experience. So when Jessica Biel, who plays a sports agent who hosts a lonely hearts dinner every February 14th for her dateless friends because she’s always alone on Valentine’s Day, I blurted out, “Why?”

Valentine’s Day is like Pulp Fiction. It takes place in L.A. It follows the concurrent stories of numerous disconnected characters. A lot of the disconnected characters end up connected at the end. There the similarities end.

Valentine’s Day is exceedingly silly, but I have to admit it is genuinely funny without being crass, and I laughed out loud a number of times, especially at Jessica Biel, quite hilarious as the awkward workaholic who never has time for relationships.

The rest of the stars do their part effectively. Taylor Swift plays an irritating teenage ditz. She’s probably had a lot of experience with that. Anyway, ditzy teenage girls are supposed to be irritating. Taylor Lautner threatens to take his shirt off. The audience got tense. Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts play passengers sitting together on a plane. I don't understand why Julia Roberts is such a big star. Anne Hathaway plays a struggling poetry major who makes money doing phone sex. A cat’s rough tongue takes on new meaning. Her shocked boyfriend is played by Topher Grace, who gets some laughs out of his conservative guy from Muncie, Indiana, routine. Shirley MacLaine is old.

Ashton Kutcher, as the owner of a booming florist business, provides the central thread that links many of the subplots, and he’s best friends with the best kind of best friend: Jennifer Garner, I mean, Julia, played by Jennifer Garner, a woman who learns the shocking truth about her lover on Valentine’s Day but who also learns that the best love just might be your best friend. Ahhh! Kutcher also engages in some very funny jokes on airport security lines as he races against time to try to stop Julia from getting hurt. As far as movies about Valentine’s Day go, this was a good one.

The Drama of Looking - The Rains Came (1939)

I recently enjoyed Jason Bellamy’s visual analysis of carefully considered close-ups in Hitchcock’s Psycho for its insightful examination of Hitchcock's dramatic use of close-ups as well as for its serendipity, for I had just purchased The Rains Came on DVD, not just because I like any movie that interrupts vain human longings and petty frictions with a rousing earthquake and flood, but because I adore the film's black-and-white cinematography, and I especially admire one beautifully filmed and edited scene that includes the same sort of judicious use of close-ups for dramatic effect mentioned in Jason's post. In addition, the scene includes a fine example of the drama of looking - the simple visual device of a character looking at and seeing an object that has dramatic significance - a device also mastered by Hitchcock in many of his films.

Clarence Brown's The Rains Came (1939), one of the numerous films of the British-in-India genre popular in the 1930s, features Myrna Loy as Lady Edwina Esketh, a notorious high society woman who finds new meaning in life and a chance to change her ways when she falls in love with a handsome Indian doctor played by Tyrone Power. George Brent plays Tom Ransome, a cynical alcoholic, similarly outcast in India by his notoriety. But the film’s famous set piece is the earthquake, followed by a flood, that devastates the state of Ranchipur and changes everything for Lady Edwina and Tom Ransome.

Films of this type portray British occupation of India as a matter of fact and a jolly good thing. I digress here, but I’ve often wondered why they were such popular Hollywood fare. While they glorify Queen Victoria and seem to pay tribute to a British sense of order, they boldly accept British imperialism and often portray Indians as caricatures, but when I was a boy I loved them for their action, adventure, and exotic settings, ever since I saw The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), with Gary Cooper, one of my favorite films of the 1930s.

The scene I examine here takes place in the hospital where Major Rama Safti (Power) is treating victims of a bubonic plague epidemic caused by the disaster. In an act of self-sacrifice designed to atone for her wastrel existence, Lady Esketh takes on work there as a common nurse, willing to scrub blood from the surgery floor and tend to plague victims.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A SPOILER:

Lady Esketh pours water for a plague victim ...


Look at the beautiful composition and lighting in this shot ...


She sees the fan coolie faint and she calls for help ...



She sets the glass of water down in the wrong place, nicely lit by the lamp. Note that the "right place" is illuminated on the other side of the frame.



She disinfects her hands. Note the pitcher lit in the background. Thus, we know what she has done wrong and what is going to happen. But the suspense and drama lie in her looking and seeing what we already know and dread.


Back at her station, she gets thirsty and pours a glass of water and drinks ...



She doesn't see the other glass ...



Her eyes fall on the other pitcher without its glass ...


The camera pans quickly ...


Close-up on the other pitcher. Lady Esketh says, "The glass."


She knows - we know - her fatal error, but the suspense lies in her looking for the final evidence of that error ...


She looks and sees the glass and the pitcher, but is it the glass?


The camera pulls around ...


... slowly revealing ...


... the uncontaminated glass - highlighted by reflections of light - behind the pitcher ...


She reacts in horror ...


Then, masterfully, the camera pulls back from the close-up to reveal the whole, tragic tableau.


Only four words have been spoken during the entire episode. The scene builds tension and achieves impact by using the camera to look and see what the character sees. If only more films nowadays took the time to set up shots that achieve as much.

“Well, all right then.”

“Well, all right then,” as Sandra Bullock’s Leigh Ann Tuohy says. I saw a number of animated kids’ movies in 2009. I also saw Avatar. Now I’ve seen The Blind Side, and I no more accept any scene in that movie as reality than I accept any scene in Up or Avatar as anything but fantasy.

The Blind Side might as well have been an animated kids’ movie. Each scene (with perhaps the exception of the scene in which Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock) meets Michael’s downtrodden, crack-addicted mother) looks and sounds absolutely phony.

Yes, I know that the events themselves occurred, but director John Lee Hancock makes no effort to make me believe the events involved real people or occurred in a place that really exists.

Each scene is like a fantasy. The rooms in the house look fake and unlived-in. The wrecked truck looks fake. Everyone in the family is happy. Everyone is so accepting of Michael. The teenage daughter (Lily Collins) is never moody, always upbeat. The tutor Miss Sue (Kathy Bates) is so bubbly with enthusiasm and good spirit. The little boy, S.J., (Jae Head) looks like a computer-animated character in a Disney-Pixar film. Indeed, the college talent scouts look and act like they are animated.

Well, perhaps Leigh Ann Tuohy (Bullock) and her Ol’ Miss grad hubbie Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) look like convincingly real, rich Republicans from the South. (The shot in which Sean lounges on the bed, dressed in khakis, barefoot, made me throw up a little in my mouth.) But everything else from the crisp new clothing that ALL the students at the high school wear to the way the inner city thugs talk is false.

“Well, all right then,” as Leigh Ann would say. I’ve had my say, and now I’ve seen all ten Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and now I’m convinced of how ludicrous it is to scrape the bottom of the barrel to round up ten nominees, and I now know why I will puke if Sandra Bullock wins the Oscar for Best Actress.

From her very first appearance Bullock gives a serviceable performance without any sort of emotion. Her movements are obviously choreographed, her fierce demeanor is a superficial fabrication, and I never felt for a moment that she was a real person with feelings. Note the image below. It is a Hallmark card pose that might as well have been rendered in brightly colored hand-drawn animation with a fluffy white puppy thrown in to balance out the composition.