Dear Sandra Bullock:

How are you? I am fine. Nothing too new ‘round these parts; it's been a quality summer, one in which I ate my weight in mussels and drank a far heavier person's weight in tequila. But I'm really looking forward to the upcoming equinox. Why, you might be wondering? Because, with a couple of exceptions, summer movies pretty much sucked. Not just "Oh, that certainly was a disappointing way to spend my afternoon" sucked, but "Maybe I should find a new line of work" sucked. And believe it when I say that your latest film, "All About Steve," was the topper, the rancid icing on the stale cake, and without question the 98 most grueling minutes of the warm-weather season.

Now, you seem like one of the nicer movie stars, Sandra Bullock - no bizarre scandals, no public freak-outs - and your involvement on the business side of successful vehicles like "Two Weeks' Notice" and "The Proposal" has proven you to be a relatively savvy producer...until now, anyway. Starring in an awful film is one thing; being intimately involved in its construction is another.

"All About Steve," as you know, revolves around your Mary Horowitz, a Sacramento crossword-puzzle designer with oodles of book smarts but apparently zero knowledge of interpersonal relations. Unafraid to come off like the minutiae lover that she is, the sunny Mary spouts off factoids with a geeky sibilance until her innocent victims find a way to either walk away or shut her down. And rather than a pocket protector or taped-up glasses to illustrate her social misfittery for us, Mary wears candy-apple red go-go boots at all times. This truthfully seems more compulsive than adorable.

Part (intended) romantic comedy, part road movie, "All About Steve" waddles into gear when Mary goes on a parent-arranged blind date with news cameraman Steve (recently minted star Bradley Cooper) and gets so horned up by his white-toothed beauty that she misinterprets his desperate excuse to end the evening as an invitation to follow him around while he does his job covering the big stories. So Mary stalks Steve all over the American West, inexplicably encouraged by the smarmy on-air talent (Thomas Haden Church, who can do self-serving in his sleep) as well as a Whitman's Sampler of equally quirky rubes, two of whom (one is the strangely charming DJ Qualls) accompany Mary on her disaster-filled quest for true love and actually appear to enjoy her nonstop barrage of trivia.

You must have rubbed your hands raw with glee after the astonishing box-office take of "The Hangover" this summer put Cooper and Ken Jeong (so ill-used here; what gives?) on the Hollywood map, since a release date in the cultural wasteland of early September doesn't exactly fill anyone with hope. But of course the uninspired mediocrity is not all your fault; blame could be extended to the clichéd script of Kim Barker ("License To Wed"?!) along with the non-thrilling direction of Phil Traill, as well as the lighting person who made you look like a baseball mitt. And don't get me started on the unsubtle lesson-learning or the film's final scene, intended to whisper "Empowering!" but instead screaming "COPOUT!"

Listen, Sandra Bullock; though I've never described the comfort of footwear as "ten friends on a camping trip," there aren't many people on the planet who could appreciate better than me a story about a starry-eyed word nerd utterly attached to an awesome pair of boots. And while I have trouble envisioning anyone who could play the annoying Mary in a way that would make this movie tolerable, you are completely wrong for this. Besides the fact - and forgive me for saying so - that you're too old for the role, you've made a career of playing the proverbial Girl Next Door, so buying you as obnoxiously crazy is as difficult as spending time with Mary.

And I don't know if you saw the same movie I did, but Mary has psychological issues that a forced third-act epiphany doesn't begin to cure. I know it's supposed to be a comedy, but some things just aren't funny. You know, like "All About Steve."

Better luck next time, Sandra Bullock.

Love,

Dayna