Buxees Singh

Disclaimer: Normally, I dislike predictable, cliche-laden romantic comedies which are riddled with plot holes. Every criticism I have read is substantially correct. I loved _One Small Hitch_. I have watched it daily for almost 3 weeks. Part of the reason is that the cast and production staff clearly liked the script and had a lot of fun making it; those attitudes comes through in their performances. Although there are numerous implausible coincidences and such in the story, the characters and situations ring true and the actors give the entire movie emotional integrity. The movie actually takes some time to give the supporting character some depth. There is even some genuine wisdom in a couple of monologues. (The two from "Max" and "Giselle".) Honestly, _One Small Hitch_ was such a joy to watch that I would have had no problem with it running 2 hours if it had cleared up some plot details. Daniel J. Travanti takes his MacGuffin character and raises him to part of the heart-and-soul of the film (not a surprise). The performance of the supporting cast are uniformly excellent; however, if you don't like more theatre-like performances, they might strike you as slightly OTT. Shane McRae is solid as the male lead, "Joshua Schiffman". But the find of the movie is Aubrey Dollar as the female lead "Molly Mahoney". Her performance is positively scintillating -- even negative reviews acknowledge her. The scenes with her and Rebecca Spence as her sister-in-law "Carla Mahoney" are particularly stupendous. She is the rest of the heart-and-soul of the movie. I can't believe how much I love this movie. I am going to take it out of the DVD case once I am done with this review and watch it for the second time today. That's 20 times in 17 days.

I liked this movie. The set-up is unique: Mitch, a sex-obsessed journalist (Michael Donneger) loses his job and tries to get a job at another magazine by following around a high-end escort Natalie, a.k.a. Victoria (Lyndsy Fonseca) and writing about her. She is a Summa Cum Laude Stanford graduate. Predictably, they learn about each other, she helps him, he helps her, they fall in love, and so on. In spite if the formulaic plot, this movie has some things that I really liked. Lyndsy Fonseca's performance is close to flawless. Every bit of dialogue, every action she makes, etc., is absolutely convincing. She is great and elevates the performances of everyone around her. Any plot strains just dissolve in her presence. The movie makes great points about the double-standards American society has about gender. In particular, it positively savaged the cyber-bullying and doxing that women must deal with in situations where men can get away with just a lascivious grin. I appreciated that this movie hit on a legitimate issue and showed how it can affect an otherwise innocent person. If you like comedic romantic dramas and find the above points intriguing, then I recommend this film. It could have been trashy and exploitive, but instead entertained me and generated a lot of discussion with my friends.

_Hello Sister, Goodbye Life_ is a solid film. It is based upon the 2003 book _Same as It Never Was_ (a.k.a. _Olivia's Sister_) by Claire Scovell LaZebnik; the teleplay is written by Nell Scovell (her sister) and Alan Mark Levy. More on this later. The movie was shot in New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina and is dedicated to the people of that city. The set-up is a rough one: Olivia "Livvy" Martin (Lacey Chabert) is a bitter, selfish, sarcastic, 21 year-old college student. After her distant father and step-mother are killed in an accident, she learns that she was named the guardian of her 7 year-old half-sister Celia (Sammi Hanratty). Reluctantly, Olivia takes on the responsibility and, predictably, makes a complete hash of things to begin with. To compound the problem, Olivia's over-the-hill-model mother (Wendie Malick) moves in. The only stable positive, nurturing influence on Olivia's situation is her late father's friend Dennis (David Ramsey), who is an "uncle" to Celia; on the other hand, her boyfriend Joe (Adam Kaufman) encourages her selfishness and negative feelings. There are numerous changes from the book which simplify the plot -- especially the romantic aspects -- and take the most bitter edges off the characters to make them more sympathetic, make the story more palatable to ABC Family, and to make the movie run in under 90 minutes. Because the author's sister co-wrote the adaptation, I presume the changes were largely in what Ms. LaZebnik's idea of the spirit of the book. Even so, the drama still bites and the humour from the characters and situations is largely preserved, albeit not as prevalent.