All About Steve

All About Steve (Sandra Bullock, Thomas Hayden Church, Bradley Cooper) – Hand it to Sandra Bullock.  At age 45, she is still willing to do slapstick, physical comedy.  Roger Ebert likened her performance in All About Steve to the great Lucille Ball.  And I would add that there is a Jerry Lewis quality to her performance here.  That said, this movie is no All About Eve or even the best of I Love Lucy.  From start to end, this is a ludicrous madcap comedy about a giddy, perpetually talking, interminably happy crossword puzzle writer for the Sacramento Herald who stalks the first good-looking guy (Bradley Cooper) she is fixed up with.  Mary Magdalene Horowitz (Bullock) jumps him before he even drives off, but he must stop pre-coitus when he gets a call sending him to cover a big news story for the TV news network for which he works as a cinematographer.  She falls in lust, writes a puzzle “all about Steve,” and then gets fired as a result.  So she heads out on the road to find him as he chases stories along with his vain reporter, played by Thomas Hayden Church.  The rest is all really dumb.  The movie is filled with airhead characters with hearts of gold; parents who are loving and quirky (played by veterans Howard Hesseman and Beth Grant); and parodies on cable news that are priceless.  It would be easy to dismiss this movie as stupid and worthless, but it’s really just a comedic vehicle for Lucy to stomp grapes or inspect candy going down the assembly line.  Viewed that way, it is a 90-minute sitcom – an easy way to spend some time.