Love and Other Disasters

good movie that no one knows about
Love and Other Disasters is a film that very few people even know about. I happened to catch it, maybe 4 years ago as part of the Toronto International Film Fesival, when it was one of the movies showing that year. I saw it with two friends and we all enjoyed it very much! It's light...it's funny...it's cute...a great date movie...and has something for all adults, gay and straight alike (as it has a slight gay element) who like a good romantic comedy. After we saw it.... we never heard another thing about it. It never apparently found a distributor, and never was shown in theaters, to my knowledge. About three years later...it appeared on DVD. I have owned a copy since it came out on DVD and we had one of our "Movie nights" at our home with 8 or 9 friends over, and everyone enjoyed it a lot!

What amazes me in the movie business is all of the total garbage movies that get made and shown in theaters every week..... bad, awful, poorly made and poorly acted films that...

Brittany Murphy 1977-2009
It was such a shame when young and vivacious Brittany Murphy died in December 2009 at age 32, depriving the film world of her sunny countenance. Along with the biopic of rapper Eminem, 8 Mile -- 8 Mile (Widescreen Edition) -- this was my favorite Brittany Murphy film.

A few words of disclosure are necessary about this film. "Love and Other Disasters" is a romantic comedy set in London. There is not one original idea in the script and just about every movie cliche to be found in romantic comedies is in this movie to wit:
-- Murphy is a fashion designer with a mixed up love life.
-- She befriends a gay photographer (who is actually not gay) that loves her.
-- There are several other gay male characters in the film with mixed up love lives.
-- In fact, all the characters in the film have a mixed up love life.
-- All the actors are employed in the arts -- once writes a screeplay...

Difficult to dislike
Whatever your taste in good movies, you will like at least some parts, if not all, of this movie. Even if you find it hard to embrace this movie, you will find it even harder to dislike it.

At the risk of being controversial, I will rate this movie above multi-threaded ensemble movies like "Love Actually", "Crash", "Valentine's Day" and "New York, I Love You". The surprise is in a singular actress carrying the entire movie, supported by a cast of relatively unknown but competent actors.

As I am writing this review, James Taylor is coming on "live" at the Oscar presentation (this is Oscar night, 7th March in the USA) with Brittany Murphy being remembered on screeen, and her image reprised at the end of Taylor's solo "In My Life". We will never know if she would earn an Oscar one day, but from her performance in this movie, it is not possible to rule out her future potential. I have watched "Ramen Girl", "Uptown Girls" and the Futurama with Brittany's voice,...

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