Little Black Book (2004)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

hyped garbage

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I can't really understand why this film only rates 5.2. I can only assume people look at the cast list and assume that so many big names should produce something magical.OK it is a mostly predictable chick-flick, and the technology has dated a bit but the premise is as tidy as you can expect. The twist at the end probably bites just a little bit too hard and maybe that is why people vote it lower than it really deserves?But take a step back and look at it without those little niggles and look at what the rest of the film is built up from:Brittany Murphy is just the right mixture of hot and crazy, the voice-over track of the inside of her head is great, and the use of the Carly Simon music to match her moods as both soundtrack and incidental music is inspired.Holly Hunter (how is she 46 when she films this, she looks about 30?!) as the friend with a twist and Kathy Bates as the Springer-style TV host are both perfection in their roles. And the unknown Kevin Sussman is fantastically lost as a caring but overwhelmed geek nearly a decade before getting his Big Bang role as Stewart the comic book store owner. The boyfriend is just enough of a cheat that we can let him go without feeling bad about it. The ex-girlfriends are believable. And it all runs back round to the Carly Simon soundtrack, and … well… you don't get Diane Sawyer as the cameo at the end!

"Little Black Book" is like a light-weight character study more than a romantic comedy. The late Brittany Murphy is in the lead, and I enjoyed her and the introduction to her character. I also enjoyed all of the supporting actors. I enjoyed it so much upon first viewing, that I bought the DVD.After multiple viewings though, the so-called charming aspects become quite grating. It's very manipulative and when its true colours show through, you see how much is not to like. Although captivating, the main female characters don't have many good qualities, too controlling and dominating. The minor female characters are paper-thin and boring.The screenplay manipulates us too much, and our empathies (if we actually have any) are forced from where they would naturally lie. I do like the overall story of Murphy's character, but then it's no longer a romantic comedy, and there's not enough to recommend "Little Black Book".

This movie is terrible. It is a toe-squirming example of the pointless sludge Hollywood is so keen on – there is no message, no edge, no beauty in it. It's not even funny.I don't understand why they insist on blowing perfectly good money away on awful sugary films like this. This story could have been pretty good in the hands of the right people, but here it's told just so smoothly and dishonest, hatefully playing with your emotions, and actually succeeding in making you well up, but leaving you feeling hollow and sick.One of the major lows is the girl that plays the main character: she is just obnoxious… overacting, showing no real emotion (the way she was standing there with her face covered in snot and tears without wiping it off – I felt like slapping her in the face, I actually shouted at the screen. And then there was that terrible dog and the way she talked to it), awful! You don't for one moment believe that she even loves her boyfriend.The rest of the cast was actually rather good (did I detect hints of fear in some eyes sometimes?), especially the girl with the freckles, though Holly Hunter was fairly annoying.To each his own I suppose, but i cannot see the value of this vehicle.

**Spoiler is not especially spoiling.** Wanting to see this film since noticing the one-shot poster at the theater, I nonetheless figured it was just because of Brittany's looks. Since I pretend to have too much self-respect to see a film based on that alone I didn't watch it until the DVD was too cheap to pass up, and I'd heard that it wasn't just another boppy romantic comedy.By waiting so long I almost missed out on a really good film. It certainly isn't just another romantic comedy. In fact, Murphy channels Drew Barrymore in a quaint mix of His Girl Friday styled patter and modern over-obvious humor while the film packs a punch with a dark side spearheaded by Holly Hunter, whose performance unifies a character of such scattered motives and needs that the result is downright bewitching to behold.The film isn't a girl-catches-guy-cheating (oh, but really he's not, happy ending, wahoo) story. It's a girl catches (the) reality (of) cheating story. You can hear the screenwriters' gears stripping with the otherwise useless voice-overs by Murphy to keep the audience going with the film as it trashes expectations. Had I been on a date, I might have thrown popcorn. But truth is the film is deep.Does Stacy (Murphy) come to find out how slick and untrustworthy men are, or does she really just come face-to-face with "knowing too much," and learn how decisions become unmakeable in the light of too much understanding about how we always know too little about what's just beyond the life we lead? The main character here is flawed, lovely, likable, and gets genuinely hurt not just by her man, but by her eating of the forbidden fruit, symbolized by the Palm Pilot little black book. It's not simplistically knowing that her boyfriend is "still out there" with other women, but it's knowing (and respecting or even liking) the personalities of those women. Here Julianne Nicholson really comes to the fore with a portrayal of ex-girlfriend Joyce, who bonds tightly with both Murphy and the audience.Bonding, in fact, happens everywhere. The energy within the cast is remarkable. Hunter's bond with Murphy is so compelling that given their age difference there is a slight sexuality to it...sort of as if Hunter's extra years grants her a worm-hole to masculinity that she slides through with a school girl's youthful vibrancy.By breaking the genre the film is, in a sense, necessarily flawed. Knowing that, the final ending is at once corny and recognizably required to stop the audience from burning down the concession stand. But given a chance to see Hunter enraptured at the end as she creates her life's great piece of performance art makes the broken promise of the one-shot that attracted me well worth suffering.