An American slacker (Brittany Murphy,
8 Mile;
Girl, Interrupted) abandoned by her boyfriend in Tokyo finds her calling in an unlikely place: a local ramen house run by a tyrannical chef who doesn't speak of a word of English. Undaunted by the chef's raging crankiness, Abby convinces him to teach her the art of ramen preparation...and despite hilarious clashes of culture and personality, she learns how to put passion and spirit into her life as well as her cooking.
Stills from The Ramen Girl (Click for larger image) From the director of Madonna: Truth or Dare, this delightful comedy about the rocky road to true love stars Brittany Murphy (8 Mile, Just Married) as the free-spirited "Jacks." An assistant at British Vogue, Jacks adores fixing up her friends, but when it comes to finding the right guy for herself, she's totally clueless. Love comes knocking at her door when she meets sexy photographer Paolo (Santiago Cabrera, TV's Heroes), but will she dare to let her guard down and let romance in? An ultra-modern romantic comedy that portrays heterosexual and homosexual relationships with an openness and candor deemed either deserved or shocking depending on one's point of view,
Love and Other Disasters! explores the complex difficulties inherent in modern rela! tionship s while poking fun at those relationships and the business of movie making. The straight "British Vogue" assistant Emily "Jacks" Jackson (
Sin City's Brittany Murphy) and the openly homosexual Peter Simon (
Brothers and Sister's Matthew Rhys) are best friends who live together with a familiarity that's usually reserved for the closest of family members. Bathroom chats while one takes a shower and the other sits on the toilet are commonplace in this household and that same openness extends to discussions of their romantic and sexual relationships with the same or opposite sex. Jacks' usually accurate "gaydar" fails her when she meets photographer Paolo Sarmiento (
Heroes' Santiago Carbrera) and thus begins a complicated relationship between Paolo and Jacks in which Jacks attempts to set Paolo up with Peter without his knowledge and Paolo yearns for a relationship with Jacks while assuming that she's romantically involved with Peter. Add into this unusual lo! ve triangle an ex-boyfriend James (Elliot Cowen) whom Jacks is still sleeping with out of pity; Jacks' emotionally distraught friend Tallulah (Catherine Tate); an elusive David Williams (Will Keen) who Peter bumps into and declares the object of love at first sight even though the two have never actually met; and a host of other farcically odd characters and the stage is set for a romantic comedy unlike any other. On top of it all, James is struggling to write a screenplay that reflects his own reality, but is finding honesty hard to adhere to in the Hollywood business of movie making. Guest cameos include Gwyneth Paltrow and Orlando Bloom. Viewers will find this modern twist on the classic romantic comedy quite funny and entertaining as long as they are willing to put aside any homophobic tendencies and laugh at the absurdities of the world we live in.
--Tami HoriuchiStudio: First Look Home Entertain Release Date: 12/01/2009 Run time: 89 minutes Rating: RBritta! ny Murphy (don't Say a Word) and Dakota Fanning (I Am Sam) shi! ne brigh ter than all the lights of Manhattan in this delightful New York fairy tale. Co-starring Marley Shelton (Never Been Kissed), Donald Faison ("Scrubs") and Heather Locklear ("Spin City"), Uptown Girls will make you laugh, cry and laugh again! Molly (Murphy) is a partying rock 'n' roll princess whose money just ran out. Ray (Fanning) is a fussy nine-year-old girl whose last nanny just ran out. Only Ray's way-too-busy mom (Locklear) could think that hiring Molly would be the perfect setup for both girls. But as this unlikely pair faces everything from control issues (Ray's, of course) to temper tantrums (Molly's, of course), they discover that sometimes your best friend can come from the place you least expect!Brittany Murphy uses her ditzy/sexy combination to maximum effect in
Uptown Girls. Molly Gunn (Murphy) is an heiress living off the estate of her dead rock star father--until an unscrupulous accountant embezzles everything and Molly has to get a job. After a failed! attempt at retail work, Molly finds herself as the nanny for a prematurely humorless and rigid little girl named Ray (Dakota Fanning,
I Am Sam), whose music mogul mother Roma (Heather Locklear) hardly ever sees her. Meanwhile, Molly woos an English musician who's trying to get a record contract from Roma. Unsurprisingly, Ray teaches Molly to take some responsibility for herself, while Molly gives Ray the opportunity to become the child she is--but despite the formulaic quality of the story, the two actresses play off each other well, and something unexpectedly touching emerges. Also featuring Marley Shelton (
Sugar & Spice).
--Bret FetzerIn this tense, stylish noir thriller, Terry (Danny Pino, TV's Cold Case) follows his fiancee, June (Brittany Murphy, The Ramen Girl, 8 Mile), to a seedy hotel where she's meeting another man. Drunk and distraught, Terry calls best friend Julian (Mike Vogel, Cloverfield) and reveals that he's holed up across the hall fro! m the lovers with a stolen gun and murder on his mind. A chill! ing cat- and-mouse game ensues, forcing Julian to risk his own life to keep his friend from doing the unthinkable.
Stills from Across the Hall (Click for larger image) At first glance,
Across the Hall has the look of one of those "stylish thrillers" with little substance below its glossy veneer. But there's more to this story, which director Alex Merkin and screenwriter Jesse Mittelstadt expanded from its original incarnation as a 2005 short film. Danny Pino costars as Terry, an insecure, short-fused guy who's convinced that his girlfriend, June (Brittany Murphy), is cheating on him--so convinced, in fact, that he has followed her to a funky hotel (one of those spooky places with few other guests and an oddball porter oozing portentous nuttiness) and booked the room across the hall from hers, where he stares through the peephole, armed with a gun and very bad intent. Jesse calls his best bud Julian (Mike Vogel) and confesses what he's up to, which sets in motion a series of plot twists, some fairly predictable (viewers g! ood at such things will certainly see them coming) and some no! t at all . The action jumps around in terms of both time frame and point of view, but Merkin, who was also the editor, makes it all work. And while the film has its share of timeworn tricks and devices (including cell phones ringing in all the wrong places and the old "did he take the elevator or the stairs?" bit), not to mention a couple of overly convenient plot developments, Merkin handily maintains a kind of noirish tension throughout its tidy, 90-minute running time. Stylish indeed--but good, too.
--Sam GrahamFrom best-selling author Nora Roberts! Cilla McGowan (Brittany Murphy,
8 Mile) is a former child star in search of a more normal life. She buys her grandmother's farmhouse in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to restore it from ruin. Her hope for serenity is soon shattered by haunting dreams of her famous grandmother, who perished in the house over 30 years ago. Cilla finds comfort in the arms of handsome neighbor Ford Sawyer (Jason Lewis, TV's
Sex and the Cit! y), who must protect her when the dark visions and family secrets spiral into a real-life nightmare. The hit thriller also features film legend Tippi Hedren (
The Birds).The life of a lonesome caretaker (Toni Collette) is turned upside down when she stumbles upon the body of a murdered girl. This discovery may provide closure for a forensics graduate student (Rose Byrne) whose sister went missing when she was a child. A housewife (Mary Beth Hurt) Makes a disturbing connection between the body and her own husband (Nick Searcy) which leads her to take dark and decisive action. A mother (Marcia Gay Harden) desperately searches for answers about her runaway daughter s life and finds answers in one of her troubled young friend (Kerry Washington). A volatile young woman (Brittany Murphy) goes on an odyssey to get a birthday present to her little girl. Together, these stories paint a devastating portrait of seven women whose lives are linked by a single act of violence a! nd a desire for change.Director Karen Moncrieff has created sh! ort vign ettes to show how one murder can affect a plethora of people both related and unrelated to the victim, in her chilling feature,
The Dead Girl. The film unfolds with quiet repose, like a series of photographs, as the viewer learns from various points of view how Krista (Brittany Murphy) was murdered, and by whom. Opening with the most disparately related segments, the viewer meets Arden (Toni Colette), slave to her abusive mother (Piper Laurie). Arden, full of hatred that manifests as self-mutilation, is equally scarred by her discovery of Krista's body. Next, we witness Krista's grad-student sister, who, with her knowledge of forensics, combs cadavers for physical clues to find her missing sister's body. The second half of the film is more affecting, with better pacing and more pointed plot, since one sees the motivations behind the serial killer's crime, and later, Krista's mother's devotion to solving the mystery. As the victim's mother meets Krista's old friend, As! hley, and discovers the she left a daughter behind as legacy, there is a sense of rebirth that feels satisfyingly redemptive.
The Dead Girl's cinematography reinforces the pervading melancholy so completely that the film itself begins to symbolically represent Krista's dead body.
--Trinie DaltonMary Walsh delivers boyfriend Kevin to a hospital for routine outpatient surgery. But when Mary returns to take him home, he's mysteriously vanished. An administrator can find no record of him, and a police search turns up nothing. Increasingly frantic, Mary's taken to staff psychiatrist Dr. Bensley, who pronounces her unstable. Now she must not only find her missing boyfriend, but prove her own sanity as well. When a stranger informs her he knows Kevin's whereabouts and demands a $10 billion ransom, she has one hour to comply and her boyfriend's life hangs in the balance. Forced to embezzle the money from the bank where she works, Mary soon discovers the shocking truth! behind the disappearance. Now time is running out and she mus! t take m atters into her own hands to save herself.Though at times an agreeable thriller,
Abandoned will sadly gain notoriety as the final film credit for its lead, actress Brittany Murphy, who died prior to its home video release, though this unfortunate circumstance may lead some viewers to seek out the film. What they'll find is an unremarkable bit of suspense involving Murphy's search for her boyfriend (Dean Cain), who appears to vanish from the face of the earth after checking into a hospital for routine knee surgery. Old pros Mimi Rogers and Peter Bogdanovich pull out the stops to suggest that Murphy is delusional, while detective Jay Pickett (a veteran of director Michael Feifer's lengthy string of low-budget serial killer biopics) and cult favorite Tim Thomerson offer support; the result has its moments, most notably in a chase through the bowels of the hospital, but never rises above the level of made-for-TV or direct-to-video movie. Murphy is fine, though the role is! fairly glum and keeps her from displaying her trademark sparkle; completists who wish to see her entire CV are most likely to be the film's core audience. The DVD includes the original trailer.
--Paul Gaita
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