Textuality

Not usually a fan of romantic comedies, but a friend told me I should see it... now I know why. Although it was still a fairly predictable plot, I enjoyed the films attempts to deviate from what is typical in films of this kind. This film, if anything, is a real warning to others...as I think we can all relate to how often we are checking emails, texts, facebook, etc. The film shows two people who are on the far end of that spectrum and are having a hard time juggling a roster of significant others via their cell phones. At first, I wasn't a fan of the male lead ... it's kind of hard to feel for him, but as the film goes along, you can see that he is damaged goods, and needs to disconnect in order to have a shot at a relationship. I can totally relate to this, which made this film hit pretty close to home. The female lead was really cute and talented. And her roster of guys were a riot. Nice to see Eric McCormack from Will and Grace back in action, in a role that I never would have expected him to play. A very talented guy. I'm recommending this to my buddies who could use a good look in the mirror....and a few laughs along the way.

Despite a (very) wooden performance by Jason Lewis, this is a really honest, and amusing look at the mores & communication growing pains of the early 21st century. It's an all-Canadian cast & crew, and looks like a great debut for screenwriter Liam Card. The cinematography and lighting are amazing for a low-budget film, and the musical score is fabulous. In fact, the Ray Charles title song (Hide Nor Hair) debuts with this film -- AMAZING. Living & dying by the sword... "Just Retribution" at its finest, yet ends on a hugely positive & instructive note. There's hope. The bowling-alley scene says it all... should be on the watch-list for SOC 101 or PSYCH 250. Overall, it's lots of fun & worth the watch. MM

The above is a good enough excuse for me to go back over a scene.

However, this isn't the best date movie. It will raise too many questions in your companion's mind and you'll have to guard your phone from snooping forever afterward.

That said, it's not as painfully bad as some reviews would have you believe. The moral of the story is simple. When you find something real, you have to make a hard choice: to back out of all the other fun, fleeting entanglements, no matter how messy it might get - or let the real one walk.

Yes, the male lead is wooden. Most of the characters aren't nuanced. The female lead carries the emotions for the whole cast. She doesn't show a lot of range, but it's there. The most believable to me are the Three Musketeers - I may have met each of them although not under similar circumstances.

But the very awkwardness of the acting and the filming make this little Canadian film a more real portrayal of the confusions and mistaken assumptions and unavoidable wounds of the current e-fueled, spoiled-for-choice world out there. Maybe the real problem with this movie is that it was released five years ago, before quite so many people had grown into and through this inescapable slice of 21st-century life.

It was a pleasure to come upon a new movie which was not jam packed with predictable characters, and stars to sell seats. I thoroughly enjoyed the modern social media undertones throughout the movie, which made it a very hip and relevant romantic comedy for 2011. Kudos to the writer: Liam Card, the humor was edgy and satirical, and the acting was not so shabby. Jason Lewis did a fine job as distressed heart throb/gigolo- really hard to pity a guy who is sleeping with four beautiful women, yet he somehow pulled it off. More importantly, and surprisingly I really thought Carly Pope and Liam Card shined as undiscovered acting gems in the film. I hope to see more of them in the future! Marc Rigaux and the entire production ensemble did a great job, and I will be sure to spread the word (through social media of course). Great date movie!

This is a cute movie, if somewhat edgy. The sound went out a lot, which seems unnecessary. It was sometimes hard to follow what was being said. That's how bad it was. Do we really need that much bad language to tell a story?

I never watched an episode of "Will and Grace", so I'm not sure why I felt Eric McCormack should have been more appealing. I don't even know the man. But here he's supposed to be a jerk, and he does that well.

Liam Card gives the standout performance as Mike, and Carly Pope is quite good as Simone, though I'm not that crazy about her. And Kristen Hager, as Dani, does a great job in the scene where she is showing her own art.

And about the art. Of course, I'm not a person who would truly appreciate art that doesn't look like what it represents. But I would say the artists whose work is shown in this movie are talented.

We saw the romance in the opening credits, but with no audio other than an enjoyable song by Ray Charles. On the subject of Ray Charles, why is one of his biggest hits performed here by someone else, with RAP? And why were we given the impression the music was going to be good? One good song at the beginning, and maybe a few others, and four scenes with nice instrumental music. But for me, the music wasn't that good overall.

A curious choice made early in the movie: isn't art class supposed to be colorful? I'm sure there is some artistic reason for this, but everything looks brown. It's like that TV series a few years back where the detective and his family were in a car accident. If his son survived, everything was blue. Then he would wake up and it was his wife who survived, and everything with yellow and orange. There's a name for this, I'm sure.

Overall, I think this is more than just the ordinary romantic comedy.