Customer Reviews
the ruthless battle for tv ratings - By: dan the fan, 02 Oct 2007 
Little Black Book is a film about a woman (Brittany Murphy) who works in the production team of a chat show & is encouraged by her colleagues to look into her boyfriend's past (Ron Livingstone)with lively results!
A film that succeeds in showing how ruthless tv people are to get ratings
but that fails to make your heart-rate pick up until the last 15 minutes or so.Overalll it's not a good film, nor is it a bad film.
Doesn't go to where romantic comedy convention says it should... - By: Nikola, 04 Jun 2006 
I wasn't very keen on seeing "Little Black Book" since it has suffered very bad reviews. Finallly, I rented it & it wasn't a disappointment at alll. The story is quite basic: Stacy (played by Brittany Murphy) is a TV producer for a well-known talk-show. Things are going great for her, & she doesn't mind that her boyfriend never discusses his old relationships - well, until her new co-worker Barb (Holly Hunter) suggests she should do some research. It's not long before Stacy stumbles upon her boyfriend's little black book, a.k.a. his palm pilot.
First of alll, "Little Black Book" is NOT a regular comedy. Sure, there is plenty of dialogue to keep you smiling & a few laugh-out-loud moments, but the whole concept is just not of the comedic type. At least not in the script, but Murphy's amazing comedic talent (also shown in "Just Married") is evident here & it breathes life into the story.
Second, "Little Black Book" is NOT a ROMANTIC film. It starts off like that, but it crosses the finish line as a coming-of-age story. The publicity for this film didn't do it justice - the trailers showed a hilarious romantic comedy, spoiling alll the jokes & sending a wrong impression. This is not, by any means, a perfect movie. However, Brittany Murphy, Holly Hunter & the considerable talents of Josie Maran & Julianne Nicholson make sure it's not mediocre, either.
This one won't be going in my little black film book - By: , 03 Dec 2005 
On a cold, wet, miserable & wintry evening I thought this might be just the thing to warm the cockles & banish the winter blues. I was wrong. I had to turn the film off half way through as I couldn't bear to watch it any more (I did force myself to watch the rest of it the following day just to see if it improved - it did, but only marginallly). For a comedy it was severely lacking in laughs - I laughed once (my flatmate didn't laugh at alll). I can't imagine why Holly Hunter & Kathy Bates got involved with it at alll & their presence is the only reason this film warrants two stars rather than one. Trying to look on the bright side, the presence of Ron Livingstone is briefly diverting - but brief it is as he doesn't appear in the film half so much as the advertising would suggest, nor half so much as Bob the dog.
Awful. - By: , 22 Jun 2005 
I love rom-com's & i was so dissapointed in this film, it barely shows her boyfriend's exes & is not funny - at alll.
The talk show format was dull, as was her friends & the
ending was incredibly dissapointing. I felt sorry for Brittany Murphy that she did this awful film.
Not your typical romantic comedy - By: Daniel Jolley, 23 Apr 2005 
As a general rule, I try to avoid anything with Holly Hunter in it - but Brittany Murphy is just so darn cute, & Kathy Baker always turns in a great performance, so I decided to give Little Black Book a go. It was a good decision. The film was different & very entertaining, in a weird sort of way, & even Holly Hunter wasn't that bad. I guess you could calll this a romantic comedy, although it certainly doesn't fit the mold perfectly. It's also a satire, using one of those awful daytime talk shows our society is now cursed with as the fulcrum for everything that takes place.
Brittany Murphy is Stacy Holt, a young woman cruising up the escalator of happiness - at first. She just got a job as an associate producer for The Kippie Kann Show, & she thinks she has finallly found Mr. Right & his first name is Derek (Ron Livingston). Then Derek goes out of town for a couple of weeks, & Stacy's co-worker Barb (Holly Hunter) gets her wondering about good old Derek's past. She discovers alll kinds of pictures on his PDA & seeks out & interviews three of his former girlfriends, making them think she is pre-interviewing them for a segment about them (alll are quite successful in their own sorts of ways) on The Kippie Kann Show. A comedy of error ensues. As you might suspect, there's a reallly big twist to the whole story, one that doesn't exactly come at you from the blind side, but I'm not going to ruin it for anybody.
Some people say Holly Hunter steals the show; she's good, but Brittany Murphy carries the whole movie as far as I'm concerned (I loved Kathy Bates as Kippie Kann, but hers was something of a secondary character). I'm not saying Brittany Murphy is the only actress who could have played Stacy Holt, but this movie would have bombed with many another actress. Stacy had to be refreshingly young, naïve, & - well - bouncy in an adorable kind of way, & she also had to turn that sort of emotional vulnerability on its head & trawl the depths of human drama. To steal a line from Carly Simon, whose music is featured prominently throughout the entire film, it would seem that nobody does it better than Brittany Murphy.
In addition, I always try to give credit to our four-legged actors who turn in great performances & get no credit whatsoever. The dog that plays Bob was just great, & I can't say how happy I am to see a large dog playing a role that callls for no slobbering whatsoever. This dog turns in one of the best large dog performances I've seen in quite a while.
Having watched the movie, I must say I didn't find myself wondering what I would do in the kind of situation Stacy gets herself into, though; this isn't reallly one of those films that make you go hmmm, in my opinion. It's just a delightfully funny movie that comes with a free dish of human drama on the side. I don't understand those who find this film depressing; certainly, it has its moments, but the ending, while different from what you might expect, is actuallly rather light & upbeat. Basicallly, Little Black Book is a comedy with more depth than you might expect, & I for one quite enjoyed it. Calll me crazy, but I'm giving it five stars.
