Too good for words.

"Little Black Book"('s) third reel probably doesn't rival the missing footage from Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons"*, but after seventy-five minutes of laugh-free, clockwatching tedium, this imaginary pilot for "Ally McBeal Gets Isn't a Lawyer Anymore", gets good; really, really good. Barb(Holly Hunter) turns into Christof(Ed Harris from "The Truman Show), and orchestrates an uncanny reenactment of what passes as entertainment on daytime television. There must've been a lot of compromises to make "Little Black Book" accessible to a teen audience, but lucky for us, the-powers-that-be-who-make-everything-suck, didn't dilute this fifteen-minute aria of pathos and rage. If you don't storm the exits when Brittany Murphy breaks into song, "Little Black Book" rewards you with "A Little Black Comedy", that's closer to the spirit of Dogme '95(a film like Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration") than Harmony Korrine's "Julien Donkey-Boy". Alas, in keeping with the spirit of this film's schizophrenic nature, the-powers-that-be-who-make-everything-suck, can't resist slapping on a happy ending. But it's a fake one, if you're astute. Stacy's good fortune only satisfies her professional life; her personal life isn't recuperated, which means she's an opportunist, and no better than Barb. But don't get me wrong, you have to put up with a lot before this ship is righted. (*based on a quote from the late Gene Siskel) … Expand

Duh its a chick flick no one said it wasn't. But it wasn't so predictable...in the end she doesn't get everything she wanted and I like that. That is real life.

Sleazy Jerry Springer-esque concept with little concern for ethicality or legality. Circumstances were reminiscent of a 1995 Jenny Jones Show incident, when one guest (Jonathan Schmidt) murdered another guest (Scott Amador). Only saving graces are Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates, and star Brittany Murphy (whose career may not recover from this debacle).

The spectacularly misfired climax of this obnoxious "chick comedy", set in the world of Jerry Springer/ Ricki Lake trash talk shows, will lend some understanding as to why their ambushed "guests" occasionally feel the need to vent their frustrations with a gun; hell, after sitting through this for two hours I felt like shooting something! Brittany Murphy was at one time a fairly likable pretender to Lucille Ball's throne; with two pictures (Uptown Girls and this) she has morphed into an embarrassing amalgam of tics, twitches and cutesy-poo mannerisms. She plays an aspiring talk show assistant who blends her personal and professional concerns disastrously by misusing her position to spy on her boyfriend's past squeezes when she discovers that he actually had the gall to have actually had a life before meeting her. Since it's clear that no children or STD's were involved, his past relationships are none of her damn business, and Murphy's acts of espionage are those of a potentially dangerous psychotic who should be arrested. Period. It becomes obvious to the powers that be behind this junk that the ethics-and-decency-challenged screenplay, written by TWO WOMEN, no less, has been glorifying and worshipping incredibly abhorrent behavior, so they tack on an unconvincing narration by Murphy deriding her actions after the fact. (Moviegoers beware: for every Shawshank Redemption that uses narration beautifully and artistically, there are at least half a dozen other films that employ it as a sort of last minute Hail Mary pass. Have I made it clear that this is no Shawshank Redemption?) There's a whole lot more to hate about this film (a five-minute "comic" scene in which every word spoken in it begins with "k", followed by another focusing on the knee-slapping topic of female genital warts; the misuse of those wonderful actresses Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates, who at least respond with utter professionalism; the abuse of Carly Simon's lovely music as soundtrack blanket and Lazy Screenwriting 101 character-explaining device; the gall of this film to repeatedly compare itself to the endlessly superior Working Girl, in which Melanie Griffith's trickery was at least employed in genuine self-defense against a real threat as opposed to an insanely imagined one). But wait: just when you think the movie's sunk as low as it can go, it introduces an element that both temporarily redeems it and plunges it miles and miles lower. That element is one of the previous girlfriends, played with astonishing dignity, warmth and charm by the radiant Julianne Nicholson, an offbeat, freckled, slightly buck-toothed megacutie that makes you wonder why men's magazines feel the need to airbrush their subjects' supposed imperfections instead of realizing that they often make them look even more beautiful. Her character and performance are so genuine and appealing that she almost simultaneously moved me to tears and left me shaking with rage when, not knowing Murphy's true identity and after performing two amazing acts of kindness to her, she confesses to Murphy how much she loves and misses her ex---and we all know that Murphy's going to screw her over anyway. I was ready to give this movie a big fat zero until a friend correctly reminded me that if I liked any element as a movie as much as I liked Nicholson, then doesn't the film warrant at least a 1, even if I utterly despised everything else? Well, OK then, here it is: but the fact that one of the best supporting performances is a year is trapped in a movie that I STILL can't conscionably recommend to anyone may very well be the most loathesome thing of all about this utterly loathesome film.… Expand

Good for a chick flick.

I thought this movie wasn't very good. Tacky ending, plot, beginning, and purpose. It had some funny humor that is probably all I liked about it.

A whitty but, at times, boring movie. The scripts surprising wisdom is underminded by the somewhat unlikeable lead characters. Who are we supposed to be rooting for? Also, the "twist" seems out of place. I'm still wondering if it was supposed to be a twist or not. Maybe the "twist" was a big satirical joke, but I didn't get the punchline. The movie is fortunately redeemed, albeit late; the ending was just too feel-good and non-typical of a chick flick that I've got to recognize that there is something here not found in most comparable films. A lil' bit of wisdom.… Expand