After seeing some rather heavy faire at our local cineplex recently, we decided to take in a light romantic comedy at home the other night. At least that was what we thought we were getting with All About Steve, teaming America’s sweetheart, Sandra Bullock, up with Bradley Cooper and Thomas Haden Church and the producers of one of Sandra Bullock’s prior hits, Miss Congeniality. Well, we were wrong, as there is nothing remotely romantic or funny for that matter about All About Steve.
Film
I really don’t want to sugarcoat things here, this film is a train wreck and other than the last 10 minutes, very difficult to even watch.
The film stars Sandra Bullock as Mary Horowitz, who writes the crossword puzzles at the local Sacramento, CA paper. She never has a date and her parents, with the assistance of Steve’s parents, set her up on a blind date with Steve (Bradley Cooper), a local field cameraman for a Sacramento TV station CCN. When they go on the blind date, Mary simply attacks Steve sexually in his van right outside her parent’s home and freaks Steve out.
Quite naturally, he tries to do everything he can to get away from her. Mary, meanwhile, creates a crossword puzzle all about Steve that results in her losing her position. However, in her delusional state, she sees this as a clue from above that she and Steve should be together and she sets out to stalk Steve, following him and his news team around the country. While the materials that accompanied the review sample of the disc describe her as eccentric but lovable, they couldn’t have been farther from the truth. As played by Sandra Bullock, Mary is really hard to watch, emotionally immature and just plain weird.
This is a very difficult film to watch and I caught myself cringing and looking away from the screen during most of the film as Mary is just that disagreeable a character and is greatly overplayed by Sandra Bullock who is just awful in this role. The only really funny parts of the film are the sendoffs of the cable news media and TV news personalities in general which are liberally sprinkled about during the film. While most of the film is dreadful, the last 10 minutes or so are much more watchable and involving but not enough to save the film. If you are fan of train wrecks, be my guest and rent this film. The rest of you should skip it entirely.
Video
Unlike the actual film itself, there is a lot to like about the look of the film and the encode. The film features a natural color palette with bright and bold colors and excellent skin tone rendition. Black level, while consistent, is not as deep as the best looking films. For the most part, detail and clarity are excellent. However, where the look of the film falters is on the area of sharpness during any low lit or night time interior scenes which are rather soft in comparison of the rest of the film. This softness is enough of an issue for me to drop the overall rating of the film to a 4 out of 5 stars.
Overall this is a good looking film but a couple of notches down from the level occupied by the very best looking films on Blu-ray. I just wished that the content of the film and the performances, matched the level of the video presentation.
Audio
The audio mix on this film is just about what I expected it to be given the nature of the content. As you may have anticipated yourselves, the sound design is rather front heavy, with most of the sound coming from the front three speakers only with minimal use of the surrounds. There is one exception to this involving the scene with the twister where the surrounds really roar to life, presenting a totally immersive audio presentation of reference quality, placing you right in the middle of the twister with the cast. That was a thrilling scene aurally, but is the only one in the film. While the audio design is otherwise pretty elemental, the quality of the audio is not, boasting excellent overall fidelity.
The dialogue track is also well recorded and well placed in the mix, at times sounding as though the actors were in the room with you rather than coming through a set of speakers. All in all, the audio here is just about what one would expect from this type of film and far from a disappointment.
Special Features
All About Steve is a two disc set, with disc 2 consisting of a digital copy compatible with Macs and PCs and all portable media players. Disc 1, in addition to the feature, contains several rather ordinary and predictable extras, including an audio commentary with writer Kim Barker, the main cast and director Phil Traill.
Also included are deleted and alternate scenes with optional audio commentaries as well as a gag reel with an optional audio commentary as well. There are a ton of optional audio commentaries on this disc as even Bradley Cooper and Ken Jeong’s A Capella Duet extra features an optional commentary. The longest of the extras is the featurette on the making of the film entitled, All About All About Steve, which features interviews with the cast, writer and director.
The extras also include Hollywood Dish with Mena Mitcheletti and a Fox Movie Channel presents Life After School with Phil Traill discusses his career wit film school students. I can’t really say that I found any of the extras to be even remotely compelling and worth a serious look. The release is not BD-Live enabled.
Final Thoughts
All About Steve is a real train wreck of a film. If you enjoy watching train wrecks, you may be interested in screening this film. The rest of you should skip it entirely.
