Céleste & the City

I don't know if I can think of a worse movie - from, literally, every angle (writing, plot, acting, music, cinematography). Waste of 120 minutes.

Simple small town girl Celeste Blodgett (Majandra Delfino) moves from Banger, Maine to New York City. She's a recent college graduate with a job at the New York Examiner. Her only local contact is gay cousin Harrison Blodgett (Nicholas Brendon) who uses new name Dana. She believes her interior designer neighbor Kyle Halley (Ethan Embry) is gay due to her hometown friend's opinions about all interior designers being gay. Her entry level fact checker job sucks. Her hero is reporter Lauren Rawley-Simms who has an on-and-off relationship with magazine editor Mitch Tanzer. Dana and his glam squad give her a makeover while Kyle gives her apartment a different makeover.

This is cheap. It's doing the Toronto for New York thing. It's fake 90's New York. The story is formulaic. The title suggests a take on Sex in the City. Majandra does the ugly duckling thing with glasses and transitions into the swan easily. There are no surprises. The humor isn't that funny. Debbie Gibson does have a small role as one of Dana's friends.

This is the funniest movie ABC family has shown in years! I truly loved it. I hope more comedies of this caliber will be aired on that channel. Ethan Embry was great for the role of Kyle, in his past work in other comedies, he has shown his ability to make people laugh and fall for his natural charm. Apart from good casting, the humor of the movie itself was refreshing. The plot was light and amusing, making the movie fun and enjoyable to watch after a long day. Nazemian and Schraft have clearly demonstrated their talent for writing light and ironic comedy, I look forward to seeing what they come with next. Now that they have proved themselves in this genre, I am eager to see their more serious and creative work. I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Imagine Carrie Bradshaw before she met the gals and learned to walk in her manolos. Well thats probably what this movie set out to do. Since it is ABC Family you can expect to see nothing more than Grade C fluff. Yet another case of the pretty, ugly girl ala Majandra Delfino in glasses. Did we learn nothing from the genre spoof "Not Another Teen Movie"? The biggest problem with this movie is the blatant stereotypical gay "CHARACTERS". Just what the world needs to see is some more gay CLOWNS on TV. I look forward to a time when gay characters will be given a little more depth than to simply yell "You Go Girl" every now and then. I say shame on ABC Family--next time they should try and get some input from real living, breathing homosexuals before they put on a gay minstrel show.

A huge lesson that Celeste allegedly learns in this story is that it's wrong to assume you know a person simply based on the stereotypes to which they seem to fit. For example, she mistakenly assumes a male interior decorator friend of hers is gay, thus hurting his feelings tremendously when he tells her he has feelings for her.

Yet this TV movie itself is so peppered with irritating stereotypes that the filmmakers seem immensely hypocritical. Celeste has a number of male buddies in the hair/clothes/appearance industry, all of whom are bumbling, effeminate, militant fashionistas. Her "cute" boss boyfriend, while he seems essentially pleasant and charming for the first 90% of the film, suddenly turns very "boss-like" at the end and turns out to have been cheating on Celeste and using her writing as a way to get into her pants.

Overall this film is incredibly ridiculous. I wouldn't waste your time.