Something New (2006)

hyped garbage

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It takes a subject that is gaining more acceptance in the every day world but some people still view it as taboo - interracial relations. The movie handles the situation in a very good way, not degenerating into some kind of exploitation movie but really deals with the relationship between the two stars and between the African American Woman and her family. Simon Baker (The Mentalist) and Sanaa Lathan are fantastic in this movie. Lathan plays a well to do black women who suffers from not having a relationship. Reluctantly, she agrees to go on a blind date only to find out that her date is White (Baker) and the date ends fairly quickly. The two meet a few weeks later and a relationship is started. Lathan has to deal with how this relationship will effect her family. A well done movie dealing with a touchy subject in a great way. Highly recommended.

I think (or i would like to think) the intention was the complete opposite of what the people who wrote and shot this movie really managed to do.This movie is racist ,i believe not by motivation, but by execution. The story has a moral that is expected and politically correct (and boring, superficial, etc), but beside the moral everything else is pretty much clumsy racism, which is ironic since the authors obvious desire to approach a serious issue was so badly written that it gave the opposite effect. And that is, for me, unintelligent writing at its best.It would be OK if they had no intentions of going down the path of the race issue, but they did, and failed. I could make elaborate points in favor of this argument, but it would be stupid to analyze something that is that bad. One example only, Brian has no friends in this movie (even a sociopath should be portrayed with some kind of a social network of his own), which makes no sense whatsoever, especially considering the type of character he plays.

Something New doesn't try as hard to be funny like the other recent Black woman/White guy love story Guess Who. The humor isn't slapstick and both sides are shown respectively. Instead this film devotes to showing realistic challenges of interracial dating experienced on both sides of the color spectrum; however, more so from a professional Black woman in contemporary US society, a rare Hollywood perspective. It includes her frustrations of perceived racism at the work and the "Black tax" Afro-Americans must pay in effort to be as successful as their Caucasians colleagues. I can understand why her love interest wouldn't be able to relate and growing weary of this complaint if she kept bringing it up. I didn't know about the elegant rites-of-passage ceremony (called a cotillion) before this movie and learned more about the history of the Afro-Am version afterwards from a friend.

This is a great movie! So typical of the dating world of "Good" African American women looking for a "Good" man to love and love her. I loved how this movie gave light to stepping outside the box. Not only with race, but new things; thinking, adventure. So many times, we get caught up trying to be "acceptable," trying to be what and who we think we should be and miss out on the real beauty of life, love and who we really are. I can go on and on about all the things this movie brought to light; the reality, but I must say it is awesome, and a reminder to me of what's really important. I have witnessed women "selling out" to what we think is ideal and acceptable and live in misery because of all the needs we lack; the attention, the true love, just to have that black man who believe is Mr. Right. Even Kenya's girl in the movie ventured out and fell for a chef. He wasn't her typical suit wearing professional, "on her level," at first sight, but they hit it off, he was good at what he did; loved it and loved her. This is an eye opener for African American women, and I hope my sisters realize that Mr. Perfect is really Mr. Perfect with his minor imperfections (note: verbal and physical abuse among some other things are considered major), but thinking more on the lines of "list preferences" 10 out of 10 is not always or usually "the one."