REVIEW: All About Steve

25 01 2010

Sandra Bullock got a lot of press for her movies in 2009, and it has followed us into 2010 as well.  She chose three distinctly different films: a romantic comedy (“The Proposal”), an inspirational sports drama (“The Blind Side”), and a more off-beat comedy (“All About Steve”).  And in each of these movies, she portrayed a wide range of women.  In “The Proposal,” she played a woman who discovers that she needs more than corporate success to fill the void that a family leaves.  In “The Blind Side,” she has received acclaim for her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mother on a mission to give opportunity to a deserving child.  Most people are so enamored by those two that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the scorned “All About Steve,” where Bullock enters more familiar territory by playing a bumbling klutz who falls madly and hopelessly head-over-heels for a guy who couldn’t care less about her.

Despite what you may think the movie “All About Steve,” it’s hard to take great fault with Bullock’s performance.  She makes the best of a horrifically written character, refusing to lay down and die.  By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that the goofy crossword puzzle crafter Mary belongs in the same league as Gracie Hart (“Miss Congeniality”) or Lucy Kelson (“Two Weeks Notice”) – and it shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as the racist Los Angeles housewive Jean Cabot from “Crash.”  We can wonder all we want about why she chose this movie, but it’s total face plant is not her fault.

Blame unimaginative writing.  Blame pretty much everyone else in the cast who is in this movie to collect a nice paycheck – I’m talking to you, Thomas Haden Church and Bradley Cooper.  When even Ken Jeong, the highlight of “The Hangover” with his hilarious Leslie Chow, can’t invigorate a movie, you know that things are pretty darn bad.  D /


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REVIEW: The Proposal

8 08 2009

I hate re-runs, so I will spare you my rant on the predictable nature of the romantic comedy.  And although it is caught up in some typical clichés, “The Proposal” manages to succeed in spite of them.  The movie provides decent fun for all, offering many solid laughs.  Sandra Bullock makes a welcome return to the genre where she belongs, and she has great chemistry with Ryan Reynolds, who is surely headed for Hollywood superstardom.  The way that they are able to play off of each other’s energy is really what makes the movie work.

Margaret Tate (Bullock) is an uptight book editor who treats her workers like garbage, especially her dedicated assistant Andrew Paxton (Reynolds), who has aspirations to inspire people with his own writing.  But Margaret has a problem: she has put off her immigration lawyer in favor of her work so many times that her application to renew her visa is denied.  To avoid deportation, she forces Andrew to marry her on the threat of ruining his career.  After three years of being Margaret’s assistant, Andrew knows everything about her.  She, of course, knows nothing about him.  To change that, they go to Andrew’s grandmother’s 90th birthday weekend celebration in his home state of Alaska.  Margaret’s big city working girl attitude clashes with the slow small-town attitude of Andrew’s family.  At first, the family is puzzled by his engagement to the woman he loathed.  But eventually, his mother (Mary Steenburgen) and grandmother (Betty White, TV’s “The Golden Girls”) accept it, but his father (Craig T. Nelson) cannot.  As time goes on, Andrew and Margaret begin to open up to each other and realize that there is something different than expected behind their working exteriors. Read the rest of this entry »


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