Portrait

I was "lucky" enough to catch this playing on Amazon.com's start page--yeah, it seemed weird to me too--and I somehow find myself here offering its first review.

The production quality was good and I thought the actors did decent enough jobs in portraying their, somewhat exaggerated, stereotypes. I won't give it away but the ending was a huge letdown. In that final moment when (hopefully) everything should come together nicely and we can all revel in its cleverness, it was all exposed as a bad rehash of a stale concept, overall poorly executed. I do have other issues with the "moral of the story" which I won't go into here.

From where I'm sitting, not a worthwhile production. 4/10

Regardless of the content of these newest releases from Amazon.com, I cannot help but be fascinated by the format of these short films.

So, you ask, what is so exciting about these mediocre productions? Just wait until the credits start to roll. Here we see product placement at its finest. Products finally take their rightful places alongside actors as characters in the cast. Actors' names are hot-linked to their IMDb pages and each product is linked to its Amazon page. This, my friends, is the future of TiVo and DVD.

I knew that someday we screen-agers would see the seamless integration of television, computers and consumption. This is a huge first step, and while the idea is somewhat intimidating, I personally can't wait!

I really like Amanda Detmer, and did not even know this was her. I saw this short on Amazon.com, and then watched it more times. I really like it. It shows that you don't have to be thin and perfect to be beautiful, that beautiful comes in all shapes and sizes, as long as you have self confidence, and know your beautiful, then it will shine through. Great Job Minnie Driver also. Like previous posters have said some comments are really funny. My personal favorite is " Some say if you cut her open you will find a heart of gold, and if not, well at least you cut her open. I suggest everyone check this one out. Amanda Detmer is just really good, and shows that she can do good as herself, or in a fat suit, or plus size.

this is a really cute short little film. It's very light and very funny. Everyone plays their character really well and that's good because u start loving Amanda Detmers character. and you automatically hate the others in such a short period of time! It reminds me of high school. but in an office. It's definitely a good fairy tail story to real life story. Very cute and it takes like what? 5 minutes of your time! check it out. even if it was a bad movie (and i'm not saying it is) it's like 5 minutes. This film can be found at amazon.com. It took me awhile to find it. But it's worth it. Also, if you go back to a page called "minnie driver's holiday page", you'll see like a clip of her talking about the film, her cd, and her charity organization thingy.

Well, here we are with another story about how fat is ugly and if you're beautiful on the inside then you deserve to be skinny. Not to take a to cynical view of things, of course. Anyway, its a pretty cute movie. All the characters are cutely outrageous, and just AbFab enough to earn your grudging respect. Of course, you smile as well when the head meanie (played by Minnie Driver) gets what's coming to her. Amanda Detmer is cute and nice as the chubby and then beautiful Esther, showing an exuberance that is very welcome. And the omnipresent narrator engages with her (Irish?) accent, and witty comments of all those involved. My favorite part is the description of Caroline: "This is Caroline, she has effectively slept her way to the middle", during which a slew of pictures flash by, including Minnie Driver's character, followed by the crack of a whip. So, all in all, funny, uplifting, and reassuring, if you're not fat, of course.