All About Steve

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Rating 2


Directed by Phil Traill

Written by Kim Barker

Sandra Bullock (Mary Horowitz), Bradley Cooper (Steve), Thomas Haden Church (Hartman Hughes), Ken Jeong (Angus), D J Qualls (Howard), Katy Mixon (Elizabeth), Keith David (Corbitt), Beth Grant (Mrs Horowitz), Howard Hesseman (Mr Horowitz) and M C Gainey (Norm) and Holmes Osborne (Soloman)


Mary Horowitz creates crossword puzzles for a local newspaper in Sacramento. She is sent on a blind date by her parents with Steve, a cameraman for a local TV news network, and falls in love with him. Steve, on the other hand, thinks she is crazy and when she loses her job and starts to chase after him across the country he becomes convinced that she is a homicidal stalker.

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‘All About Steve’ is a romcom, a kind of updated screwball comedy and was produced by Sandra Bullock who, it must be noted, is rather obviously too old for the lead role. It has a dismal 6% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 102 reviews and they describe it as “an oddly creepy, sour film, featuring a heroine so desperate and peculiar that audiences may be more likely to pity than root for her.” That is a very harsh summary of the film, although not altogether undeserved. Mary is a peculiar character and for much of the film a decidedly irritating one.

There are all sorts of things wrong with this film and it seems to send out a whole mixture of conflicting messages. It also succumbs to high levels of cheesy schmaltz in the closing scenes, albeit in a strangely idiosyncratic way, that will be hard to stomach by anyone with a cynical bent. This is undoubtedly destined to be to cited as another example of Sandra Bullock making very poor film choices, not that it seems to have any long-term adverse impact on her popularity – she has recently been back at No.1 in the US box office with ‘The Proposal’, which grossed nearly $300 million worldwide, and ‘The Blind Side’, which has so far grossed over $130 million in the domestic market.

I am fully aware of all the faults with ‘All About Steve’. I could easily pick numerous holes in it and pinpoint myriad reasons why it’s offensive. However, I would be lying if I claimed not to have ended up quite enjoying it. Despite my better judgement it occasionally made me laugh.

‘All About Steve’ grossed just under $34 million at the US box office.

Review posted 10 November 2009


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Infamous

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Rating 3


Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, based on the book by George Plimpton

Starring Toby Jones (Truman Capote), Sandra Bullock (Harper Lee), Daniel Craig (Perry Smith), Lee Pace (Richard Hickock), Sigourney Weaver (Babe Paley), Jeff Daniels (Alvin Dewey), Gwyneth Paltrow (Kitty Dean), Isabella Rossellini (Marella Agnelli), Juliet Stevenson (Diana Vreeland), Michael Panes (Gore Vidal), Hope Davis (Slim Keith), Frank Curcio (William Shawn), John Benjamin Hickey (Jack Dunphy), Bethlyn Gerard (Marie Dewey) and Peter Bogdanovich (Bennett Cerf)


When, in November 1959, the celebrated New York author and wit Truman Capote reads an small report in the New York Times about the murder of a family in Holcomb, Kansas he decides to write an article about the crime and its impact on the local community, travelling to Holcomb with his lifelong friend and confidant, the author Harper “Nellie” Lee. He soon realises he has enough material to write a book, adopting a new approach that he describes as a “non-fiction novel”. As his research and writing continues, he becomes increasingly wrapped up in the life of Perry Smith, one of the two men responsible for the killings.

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‘Infamous’ is based on a 1997 book by the late George Plimpton and deals with the events leading up to the writing of Truman Capote’s book ‘In Cold Blood’, which caused a sensation when it was first published in serial form in the New Yorker magazine in 1965, six years after the killings. The film received a limited theatrical release in October 2006 and dealt with exactly the same subject as ‘Capote’, which had been released in September 2005. That earlier film received much greater attention, including the Academy Award for Best Actor for the performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role.

Both films deal with Capote’s motivation for writing the book, which he researched in considerable detail, interviewing many of the people connected with the case, including the two convicted killers, and eventually amassing more than 8,000 pages of notes. He did not tape record any of the interviews he conducted, instead transcribing them from memory, and it has been claimed that he deliberately changed some of the detail to suit his own purposes in creating this new style of non-fiction work. He was particularly fascinated by Perry Smith and it has long been rumoured that the two shared a romantic or even sexual relationship during Capote’s visits to the prison where Smith was held, although there is no real evidence to support this.

I had initially avoided watching ‘Infamous’, having already seen the excellent ‘Capote’ and deciding that I did not need to watch two films that dealt with the same subject matter in such a short space of time. However, a friend recommended it to me, making mention of the performance of Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, whose acclaimed novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was published in July 1960. Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel in 1961. I like Sandra Bullock very much and believe she is a much better actress than many of her film choices and has genuine screen presence. Her performance here is quietly impressive and is, for me, the highlight of the film, although the central focus is on Toby Jones as Truman Capote and Daniel Craig as Perry Smith and the relationship of these two pivotal characters. Harper Lee, who has never published another novel after ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, said in 2007, when asked to address an audience at a ceremony she attended, “It’s better to be silent than to be a fool.”

‘Infamous’ makes a distinction between the small community of Holcomb and the impact it (and Perry Smith) has on Truman Capote and his celebrity lifestyle in New York and the society circles he moves in. We see him with the socialite and style icon Babe Paley, of which he once wrote, “Babe Paley had only one fault, she was perfect. Otherwise, she was perfect.” Paley was one of Capote’s “swans”, as were Marella Agnelli and Slim Keith, both of whom feature in the film. Paley and Keith were the inspiration for Capote’s posthumous novel ‘Answered Prayers’, which when some work-in-progress chapters were published in Esquire magazine in 1975 and 1976, resulted in Capote being ostracised by several friends led by Paley.

The scenes set in New York are somewhat stylised, but I imagine this is deliberate to create a juxtaposition with the reality of Holcomb and the real lives of real people that Capote encounters there. His friends in New York seem like caricatures, but that is what they are, jet set socialites and style icons playing a role. I don’t think the film quite manages to make this mix work entirely successfully, but I can see what it set out to do.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays a nightclub singer called Kitty Dean. The original intention had been that she would portray the singer Peggy Lee and the scene in the film when she goes into a kind of trance during her performance of a song to a nightclub audience, including Capote, is based on a genuine performance by the nightclub singer and Broadway musical actress Barbara Cook.

The film boosts a very impressive cast and there are some very good performances. Toby Jones, in particular, manages to avoid turning Capote into a caricature, even though that is what he was in many ways, and perhaps even more so than Philip Seymour Hoffman the previous year, he creates a real person who found himself identifying with Perry Smith. Capote’s childhood was a long way removed from the circles he moved in later on after his successful writing career was established and both films reference this as a motivator for the strange attraction of the contemplative but explosively violent Smith.

‘Infamous’ has a 71% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 135 reviews. It had a production budget estimated to have been in the region of $13 million and grossed $2.6 million at the box office worldwide.

Review posted 11 June 2009



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Miss Congeniality

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Rating 1


Directed by Donald Petrie

Written by Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas

Starring Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, William Shatner, Candice Bergen and Ernie Hudson


I like Sandra Bullock a lot. I think she is an excellent actress, a great film star with genuine screen charisma, and I am very fond of several of her films. However, despite it being one of her biggest hits, I had never seen ‘Miss Congeniality’ – or its sequel, for that matter.

It was shown on television this weekend and although I felt no overwhelming interest in watching it I decided to give it a go. I managed to sit through the first hour, on and off, before I gave up in despair. I near enough hated it. I can’t think of anything good to say about it. I didn’t find it funny. I didn’t like any of the characters. No aspect of the story interested me. Not even the presence of William Shatner, who is usually good value in his own inimitable way, was enough to rescue it. Michael Caine was horribly miscast. Benjamin Bratt's character had no likeable characteristics that I could discern. Even Sandra Bullock herself didn’t help.

This isn’t the first Sandra Bullock film that I haven’t liked, but it is the first one I have actively disliked – and that includes ‘Speed 2’.



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The Net

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Rating 3½


Directed by Irwin Winkler

Written by John D Brancato and Michael Ferris

Starring Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam and Dennis Miller


I count a lot of films that are now widely acknowledged as classics, both by critics and film fans, amongst my favourites. These do tend to be films from an earlier era and not all of them have always been so highly regarded. I am thinking about the likes of ‘The Thin Man’, ‘The Ghostbreakers’, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’, ‘On The Town’ and ‘Touch Of Evil’.

I can spot a “classic” film when I see one, although I might be inclined to question that accolade when it is applied to some films. However, when it comes to films, and indeed actors, from more recent times it seems as if I invariably make choices that are widely derided by critics and film fans alike.

This brings me to ‘The Net’. This is one of several Sandra Bullock films I like. Others include ‘Practical Magic’, ‘Hope Floats’ and ‘The Lake House’.

Many people would argue that the films I have just mentioned are cynical join-the-dots Hollywood popcorn fodder, made for the lowest common denominator, with absolutely nothing to recommend them. The Hollywood studios that produced these films would, I suspect, pay little attention to such criticism. Whatever the general opinion of her film choices might be, Sandra Bullock is a genuine box office heavyweight.

This is no indication of any artistic worth in the films she makes. However, the constant allusions to the death of her career I keep reading about simply seems to suggest that film critics are not very good at paying attention to what is actually going on.

I sometimes feel as if I might just be the only person in the world to actually like ‘The Net’, despite its success at the box office, a gross of $111 million. However, although the 33 reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes result in a 30% rating, which is poor, this is a lot better than I was anticipating. Two good reviews of the film are worth mentioning here.

Roger Ebert opened his review with the comment;

“Perhaps this is simply a charmed period in Sandra Bullock’s life, and soon she will return to earth as an actress at the mercy of her material. Just now, however, she seems able to transcend the genres she appears in – to make us care about her characters even when they’re mired in preposterous dreck.”

He ends the review with the words;

“If Sandra Bullock ever gets a great screenplay, we may need seat belts.”

Michael Dequina, reviewing the film for ‘Mr Brown’s Movies’, wrote, “Irwin Winkler’s thriller is fun popcorn entertainment, thanks in no small part to the always-likeable Bullock.”

These comments get to the heart of why Sandra Bullock films are so popular. She might not feature in the pages of celebrity magazines and gossip rags, but she is a genuine film star in the old fashioned sense of the term. She’s a “Marquee” name who can pull in audiences, despite the old hackneyed myth that female actors don’t have box office appeal.

I’ve always thought Bullock approaches every role the same way; no matter what kind of character she happens to be playing -- in other words, a kind of reversal of method acting. Instead of stripping away and submerging her own personality and morphing into the characteristics of the character she is playing, becoming that person, she gives the character her personality characteristics. Because she is also a skilled actor, this means she can take on a variety of different roles and make us care about each character, whatever their circumstances, simply because she projects a very likeable persona.

It seems to me she is doing what the old Hollywood stars used to do. She plays herself irrespective of the role. It worked for Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne, to name but two.

One criticism of ‘The Net’, apart from the implausibility of the scenario and the supposedly turgid sub-Hitchcockian directing job done by Irwin Winkler, is that the IT-world setting/context immediately dates the film horribly. As Brian McKay at efilmcritic.com put it:

“Stay away from this – unless of course you’re an AOL user with a 28k modem and a Pentium 90mhz, in which case you’ll be right up to speed with this film.”

Here’s an extract from another review, this one written retrospectively in February 2006:

“The Net has aged just as poorly as one might’ve expected; a surplus of dated references to floppy discs and dial-up modems cements the film’s status as a mid-90’s relic.”
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

This exact same thinking has been applied to many other films and TV shows over the years. I’ve never really been able to understand this kind of thinking, although that might just be because the strange world of IT still remains a complete mystery to me, even though it’s something I use every day.

‘The Net’ is my favourite Sandra Bullock film. I always enjoy watching it and not only do the alleged faults not bother me; I can’t even identify their presence in the first place.



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