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The 7 Best Sandra Bullock Comedies, Ranked

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The 7 Best Sandra Bullock Comedies, Ranked

If watching the trailer for upcoming comedy The Lost City (starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe) has you aching for a good Sandra Bullock-led laugh, look no further. Just watching that trailer once is enough to make you nostalgic for all her best comedic performances so far. She’s had some truly iconic roles in the films that made our list, and while we left some of her biggest hits like Speed and Practical Magic off because they seemed to fit better into other genres, there are still seven absolutely charming comedies you have plenty of time to check out before The Lost City makes its debut.

7. Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous

Of the seven funniest Sandra Bullock comedies, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is probably the weakest. And it has nothing to do with anything lacking in Sandra’s performance. Trying to duplicate the magic of that first, iconic film was probably a mistake, but there are some genuinely hilarious laughs within this movie’s 1 hour and 55 minute runtime, which makes it worth your while. Especially so if you’re in the mood to watch Gracie save her bestie, Cheryl Frasier, again, or if you’ve recently watched Miss Congeniality and must complete the duet.

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6. While You Were Sleeping

What’s a girl to do when she saves a man from an oncoming train, his family mistakenly thinks she’s his fiance, and then she falls in love with his brother? That’s exactly the question Sandra’s character is facing in While You Were Sleeping, a somewhat Christmas-y movie, that plays around with a funny, yet convoluted love story. This one is especially fun if you are looking for a throwback Sandra film or have a special affinity for Bill Pullman or Peter Gallagher. It’s always interesting to watch an actor’s early roles and While You Were Sleeping comes just eight years after Bullock’s first credited work, so it’s early enough to really give you a good idea of where she started.


5. Ocean’s 8

Just as I would classify all the Ocean’s movies heist comedies, Ocean’s 8 definitely delivers on all fronts. The cast is incredible, the action riveting, the comedy, hilarious. The comedy side of things definitely falls heavily on the head of Sandra Bullock, with substantial help from a few of the other experienced comedic actors, including Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, and Anne Hathaway. There’s just nothing like a good caper to bring out some truly hilarious hijinks, even if you find yourself giggling with glee at the situation more than the written jokes. Let’s face it: it’s hard not to have a smile on your face throughout most of Ocean’s 8.

RELATED: ‘The Unforgivable’ Director Nora Fingscheidt on Working With Sandra Bullock and Figuring Out Where and When to Reveal Key Information

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4. Miss Congeniality

Back in 2000 we needed the laughs that Gracie Lou Freebush, sorry, Gracie Hart, delivered as she went undercover in the Miss United States pageant to bring down a suspected serial killer. From seeing her physical transformation into a true contender for the title, to watching as she dismantles the expectations of a good contestant (pizza and beer the night before the show?), Sandra Bullock made Miss Congeniality a true classic, and not just as a female-led comedy. The movie is impeccable, with supporting cast members like Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Benjamin Bratt, Ernie Hudson, William Shatner, and Heather Burns bringing their best to the table, helping to elevate the insanely genius comedic skills Sandra Bullock always delivers.

3. Two Weeks Notice

While Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant don’t work together often, their pairing in Two Weeks Notice is absolute perfection. Hugh plays his needy, rich, arrogant property developer, George Wade, in the truest of Hugh style. His dry delivery and immaculate timing pair nicely with Sandra’s penchant for brutal honesty and incredible physical comedy. Her character, Lucy Kelson, is the spirited, socially conscious crusader of George’s nightmares. She literally lays down in front of wrecking balls and chains herself to historic landmarks to stop developers in their tracks. Watching these two play characters so diametrically opposed to the other, but also unable to resist the other, is that special magic that only the best rom-coms find. If you haven’t had a chance to watch this duo on screen together, now is the perfect time to do so. They compliment each other so well and it makes for one hell of a great movie.


2. The Proposal

Arguably her best rom-com to date, 2009’s The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds, Betty White, Mary Steenbergen, and Craig T. Nelson is original concept gold. While the print romance genre is chock full of fake dating and fake marriage stories, those adaptations don’t always make it to the big screen. This story showed why those tropes can be incredibly compelling and so much fun to watch. Start with a threat to a valued career, end with two people who accidentally caught feelings along the way and you are on your way to what makes romantic comedies worthy of their own genre. The highway of movies that tried to take their lead characters from enemies to lovers is littered with examples of terrible chemistry, forced storylines, and general awkwardness, but The Proposal runs the gauntlet and comes out the other side with a terrific movie to show for it in the end.

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1. The Heat

While not technically a rom-com, and maybe more a buddy comedy, The Heat is some of Bullock’s finest work, bar none. Alongside Melissa McCarthy, we get to see another interpretation of an FBI agent, this time the perfectionist, pain in the ass who lives for the job; the one who makes everyone’s lives miserable because she wants to follow protocol all of the time. That is until she meets a local Boston cop who has no regard for rules as long as she keeps scooping bad guys off the street. The chemistry between these two has us wondering how it’s possible they don’t work together more often. While we don’t need The Heat II, McCarthy and Bullock should definitely find another original comedy project to work together on in the near future. Their interplay is the highlight of the film, dwarfing the storyline, the supporting cast, and even the snappy dialogue. And seriously now, if any movie deserves a sequel, this one could definitely have supported one. There’s enough crime to investigate in Boston that these two could certainly have partnered up to take down another major crime ring or a serial killer or something.


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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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