Let’s get one thing out of the way – if you are part of a group of Practical Magic superfans who have been given a private gift of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in the same frame together, I’m very happy for you and I promise to watch the movie for the first time sometime soon and Lainey will have your reunion incantation coming up in just a bit.

In the meantime, though, a bold statement – Sandra Bullock is criminally underappreciated. 

Remember when you were a kid and your favourite babysitter would come over? I was a paranoid kid who assumed terrible things would happen when my parents were out of my sight, but there was this one babysitter who could walk in the door with the right combination of reassurance and cool. Like you were going to be totally safe and well-fed and put to bed but before that happened you’d learn about a cool new band and discover how to cuff your jeans the way you could never figure out? It’s exciting and also completely secure. 

That’s Sandra Bullock at the Oscars.

She shows up. Everyone up to and including Roxane Gay herself marvels at her style and the surgical precision of her part. Then she does these chill red-carpet interviews and presents an award by herself, and deftly does a comedy bit which is self-effacing while managing to make an ‘oh wow women get old’ joke not as screechingly offensive as I would have found it otherwise, and…

She’s so goddamn chill. Like you know that if Jimmy Kimmel had been suddenly abducted by aliens and Sandra had to host the rest of the show alone, she would have done it without breaking a sweat and have landed all the jokes. She drips with confidence and doesn’t take herself too seriously and I find myself wondering why we’re not getting as much of her as we obviously need? 

As I’ve said before, there’s no phrase I loathe quite like ‘Old Hollywood Glamour.’ But I’m really into been-around-the-block Hollywood ‘got this’, and I want to hang out with Sandy and buy her a drink and have her tell me stories about all the times she found herself pulling bullsh-t and went ‘naah, you’re too cool for this’. Which I assume is what’s going to happen when I race to see Ocean’s 8, or when I run into her in the hotel lobby and manage not to trip over my words getting out a perfect no-effort-involved joke. 

What? It could happen.