American Love

I rented this movie the other night and was thoroughly surprised by how good it was. I'm not a real "indie" sort of guy, but I thought the story was great without being trite or falling into a lot of the traps that sometimes come with a comedy like this. The characters are well drawn and there are some real standout performances, especially from John Stamos, Paulina Porzikova, and the guy who played "Jake" - really funny! The plot covers six main characters and still manages to make perfect sense... all the while being pretty hysterical. Stamos' character has some great lines which I plan on using! All in all, great little movie.

Knots is a clever portrayal of the modern day urban relationship and love triangle genre. It is both poignant and relevant and effectively portrays a range of viewpoint and emotion relating to how people interact with each other both in and out of relationships and how people come face-to-face with their own demons. Scott Cohen and Annabeth Gish give strong performances. John Stamos is brilliant with his character portrayal of a care free womanizer (I can hands down say this is his strongest work that I have seen to date) and the rest of the cast does an overall strong job of rounding out the movie. I thought the movie was well written and directed with a crisp, thorough understanding of mood, pacing and the genre as a whole. Greg Lombardo does a masterful job of allowing the characters to evolve in a way that feels very natural and then gets out of their way allowing them to follow their own path to meaning and discovery. Overall, I think this a meaningful comedy with a strong message that shouldn't be missed.

"Knots" a predictable sex comedy from director of no note, Greg Lombardo. It is short on both sex and comedy, but is almost worth watching because A) John Stamos is actually good in it. B) You get to see Ric Ocasek's hot, Czech wife naked and C) Tara Reid surprisingly doesn't suck in it. The down side? The sex is totally tame and it's really not very funny. The rest of the cast is serviceable. Scott Cohen (from The Gilmore Girls) and Annabeth Gish (from The West Wing) play are bored married couple and Paulina Porizkova plays a vixen that reaps hell into their lives for no good reason at all, but ultimately we don't really care about any of the characters as the screenplay limps to it's obvious, group hug conclusion. "For No Good Reason At All". That would have been a good tag line for "Knots". You have been warned.

This film is an attempt to mix an (American) Office style lead character with a watered down Woody Allen writing style. However, this attempt at dry and edgy fails due to uninspired writing and sub standard acting. It is closer to a feature length episode of 'Sex in the City', but somehow managing even less in the way of intuitive observations about relationships.

I assume women will find this film ignorant and unrealistic and men will find this incredibly dull and unable to relate to any of the one dimensional male characters, so I'm not sure who will enjoy it (but what do I know about women since I'm just a man). What is most confusing is how none of the characters managed to endear themselves to me. This is similar to any other modern romantic comedy about the difficulty of relationships, but fails to make the viewer care if any of the people end up either alone, happy, sad or dead etc. I could be missing the point, and this might be intended as a hilarious roller-coaster of a film, and not anything to do with realistic characters, but if so, it is even further from the mark the mark than I thought. One major point that only deserves a few simple words: the lead character is absolutely terrible.

The good points about this film are that the direction isn't that bad, Stamos is good, the pacing is fine and the plot had potential. This is not a horrible film, its just lacking in the most important areas that this sort of film needs to excel in to be good: believable comedy acting and precise writing.

Avoid, but not like the plague, and instead 'When Harry Met Sally' or 'The Break Up' are much better films that do something similar to this film, but better.

(Titled "Sex, Love, & Lies" on network TV.) The story starts with Dave (Scott Cohen) and Greta (Annabeth Gish), somewhat stale in their marriage, moving to a different apartment in New York. Dave thinks that he paid the movers too much, this place isn't that big once all their things are in it, a strong hint of hopelessness. But he is a straight-arrow faithful guy who loves his wife, but monthly sex with Greta has lost its magic. A host of other old and new friends enter the fray to help Dave and Greta figure it all out, in this very offbeat comedy. Many will not enjoy the loose play with conventional morals. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Dave catches the eye of pretty attorney, Lily (model Paulina Porizkova), but introduces her to friend Jake, and when Lily resists Jake's dinner invite, Dave suggests he and Greta go too, and Lily agrees. At dinner, when Greta seems to object that Dave was out with "the boys", Lily suggests a "girls night out." Later, Dave comes home early to find Greta and Lily in bed, nude! Dave is rightly upset and baffled, the three guys get together to figure out what to do, but Dave is surprised to have divorce papers served to him at work. Angrily, he goes to Lily's law office, and after some histrionics kisses her, and they have wild sex on her desk! Loose lips Jake encounters Emily (Tara Reid) at a bar, tells her about his friend Cal (John Stamos) and his wild sex between meetings with his fiancée, who happens to be Emily. Emily shows up at Cal's, finds a woman, decks Cal -- twice. The three women get together to figure things out. Other things develop and, when Dave goes home to get some things, Greta shows up, they talk, the passion returns, they have the best sex ever, Dave thinks things will be OK between them, but in bed Greta says, "I'm a lesbian." They all go on to Cal and Emily's wedding, after Cal promised fidelity and signed a pre-nup that would give Emily 70% if he cheats on her. But Dave knows (photos of Cal and Lily) Cal can't, and speaks up to halt the wedding. Lily calls Jake so he can comfort and leave with Emily. Dave and Greta sit in a pew and talk, "Friends?" "Friends." "Good", says Greta, "because I'm pregnant."