Simon is a geeky scientist who is not so smart in the Love Dept. He sets his sights much to high and like a typical guy he foolishly lets pretty blonde Jane walk all over him. Enter sweet co-worker Trese and cad roommate Lorenzo and you have a recipe for disaster. Or a really good movie.

Let’s first start off by saying that this was an indie romantic comedy that will hopefully make its way onto DVD in the near future. I caught this at a local screening in Livermore and the theater was nearly empty. That was a travesty. Considering the dumbfucks that shell out millions to see garbage like the very unromantic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or the very unfunny I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, it is appalling to know that a more deserving film like this wouldn’t get the attention it deserves.

There are so many fun characters here. Simon advises Jane to “lower her standards” when he is ironically chasing in his own Quixote-esque pursuit. So pathetic is he that he even keeps a mirror in his front pocket for Jane to use whenever she desires staring at herself. There is the “Chigger,” which is a Chinese wigger, who treats his girlfriend like a doormat. Ironically, he changes his bad ways and she isn’t quite as interested in him anymore. There is the hot roommate Lorenzo (swoon!) who may actually have a heart of gold. I say they do a male version of Pretty Woman with him in the lead. Take that Julia Roberts! Simon himself looks like a combination of a young Jude Law and Ray Liotta. And Riles the borderline retarded football hero is totally bangworthy. Alright, there are a couple of hot chicks too. Jane is a gorgeous gal, but her behavior is disgusting. I’m sure there are plenty of guys who will like her despite that. And I really dug Trese’s alcoholic closeted lesbian roommate Vivian. Poor girl needs some love.

On a side note, I was going to add that these actors were great and I hope to see them in the future, but they must already have decent management I guess. Clayne Crawford (Simon) is in Wristcutters: A Love Story, Judy Marte (Trese) Raising Victor Vargas, fine ass Warren Christie (Lorenzo) i>Bachelor Party 2, Sarah Wright (Jane) in Made of Honor, and John Wynn (Jimmy the Chigger) in Uwe Boll’s sure-to-be hysterical Tunnel Rats. And apparently Kel Mitchell, of Keenan & Kel fame, was in this and I didn’t even recognize him. Huh.

Oh the laughs are aplenty. There is the scene where Simon explains to a kid that it is God’s fault that he missed a basketball shot. Lorenzo’s ex-girlfriend had left him for a creepy Christian who reminded the hell out of me of Preacher Boy in There Will Be Blood. Simon moans that a woman attached by the head to her twin sister somehow manages to get laid more than he does. And then there is the weird Christian hip hop dance (!?!) by a couple of young ladies. But I laughed the hardest during a poetry slam where a gentleman recited, “Paradigms. I drop a ‘Pair of Dimes’ in a meter.” Please tell me I am not the only person that gets that joke (Hint: Paradigms is pronounced like “pair uh dimes.”)

But what gets better still is that we are given insight into these characters especially when you learn of how Simon and Lorenzo the Lothario become best friends. The added backstory makes you care more about the characters. Writer/ director Kedar Korde even managed to throw in a little bit of Columbine shooting-type mass hysteria in the mix. Incidentally, I grew even more annoyed with Simon’s emotionally stunted goals and sided more with the womanizing Lorenzo. At least his intentions were well known.

The film culminates into the perfect confrontation where Jane completely crushes Simon’s heart. I swear I could hear it breaking right in front of me. I dare you not to cringe during this scene. And of course, Simon lets down nice girl Trese immediately afterward and once sleazy roommate Lorenzo redeems himself. And Jane ends up exactly where you would expect an empty, cold-hearted person to be- alone.

But this is where I was unhappy with the film. Following these commonsensical events, the ending was a complete disappointment. I think we are led to believe that Simon somehow manages to get the girl…only I do not believe he deserved her. In fact, it almost made me angry that they ended up together. I would much rather have seen her with Lorenzo. And No, I will not say which girl I am referring to, but it is probably obvious.

This is another one of those rare breed romantic comedies that dares to be…actually funny. I place this in the ranks of Forgetting Sarah Marshall in that it has something to appeal to both men and women. It portrays both genders in a fairly accurate light. And as opposed to the lame rom-coms that focus on one idiotic couple overcoming one simple problem to reach the end goal of living happily ever after, this film showcases an ensemble cast with varying problems. There should be at least one situation the viewer can identify with. (Posted on 5/17/09)

X’s & O’s is a romantic comedy that doesn’t ignore that sometimes, quite frankly, relationships suck. It isn’t always easy and human emotions, desires, and wellbeing can be compromised when everything just becomes part of a game. It shows this through all sorts of point of views: female, male, the invisible crush, the confused and mistreated guy who in turn does some mistreating of his own, those who go on with one night stands to protect themselves, and those who truly get joy from flaunting their sex appeal only for the reason to have the power to mess with the minds of others.

Simon (Crawford) is a scientist who is in grad school and spends most of his time studying and working at the lab researching. Trese (Marte) is a girl who spends a lot of her time at the lab as well. They clearly have a lot in common as they both use science in nearly every aspect of their life and they are both hopelessly waiting on the sidelines unable to have the one they love. Trese wants to be with Simon, but she knows that he doesn’t think of her that way. He is far too concerned with Jane (Wright), his beautiful yet very manipulative ex-girlfriend.. Simon keeps on chasing after the dream that she will be his girlfriend again. Jane refuses to satisfy this notion, yet at the same time encourages it only to toy with him.

After putting up with this for some time he starts to see something in Trese. They start spending time together and soon end up dating. Things seem to be going well until Simon starts to flake out on Trese, not showing up for her poetry performance and not giving her much attention at all. The cause of this is Jane of course. She is not done having her fun with Simon and as soon as she gives him even the smallest inch of hope he is willing to drop everything for her. Lorenzo (Christie) is used to being the more flawed one in the way he treats girls, but watching how Simon is acting is very eye-opening and frustrating for him at the same time. This causes a lot of conflict between them and reveals the truth that he has been having sex with Jane for months.

The cast does pretty well and all of them are believable in their roles. The most interesting performance came from Sarah Wright, who was recently in the film, The House Bunny and is someone I have been looking out for since her charming days as the bubbly dumb blonde, Paige, in the pre-maturely canceled sitcom, Quintuplets. From the beginning she plays the controlling and selfish bitchy Jane very well. Towards the end of the film she really takes her character to a whole new level and reveals herself as pure evil. It is unclear of whether she is yanking Simon around because she really cares about him in some twisted way or if she simply got joy out of watching him squirm. It is obvious that Jane didn’t care about any of the other guys or any freedom it gave her and really didn’t want them for anything other than to dangle them in front of Simon even if it meant wrecking others’ people’s lives with giving them false promises. She might not have been a likeable character, but Wright’s performance stands out because she makes us feel more than other do, even if those feelings are frustration and hate.

Judy Marte gave us a likeable female role in Trese that we could feel for in respect. She was really the only one who didn’t have questionable actions. She was intelligent and didn’t feel the need to hide that. She also was artistic and true to her emotions. Even more so she demanded the respect she knew she deserved. Clayne Crawford did well too. He comes off as a smart and all around good guy who is afraid to let go of a woman that others’ would probably think he is not good enough for. However, as the film goes on we see that he really isn’t a very good guy. He drops the people who really care about him for a woman who just wants to see him miserable. Crawford makes this transition in his character well as we go from sympathizing with him to just wanting to smack some sense in to him. Warren Christie in his portrayal of Lorenzo really took the opposite turn. He slept around with different girls and didn’t really have much of a clue about what he wanted his future to be and was also hang up on an old girlfriend who now won’t doesn’t want anything to do with him. He does a lot of self discovering thanks to Trese and is a much more redeemable character than Simon. As a big fan of Kel Mitchell growing up in his Nickelodeon days, it was great to see him in this movie. He was pretty funny and fresh here, especially in his deejaying and dancing to a religious jam, putting the energy in to every second of it.

The film also had a sub-plot of an Asian wigger, Jimmy (Whynn) who was constantly . I liked how Simon talked about his concern of an identity crisis with his friend. This seems very logical in someone who doesn’t have a real identity and just picks up someone else’s due to their own insecurities and uncertainties. Things did get complicated with his character particularly through his relationship with his girlfriend. He treated her horribly and after being incarcerated for 2 hours, she is finally put in more control. To keep her he promises to change his ways. By doing this Jimmy becomes “too girly” to her and ends up ruining things anyway. He keeps on trying on different ideas to satisfy his reputation and others, but really just needs to take some time to find out who he really is. Trese was a great opposite example to this. She is a very light skinned African-American and gets comments about not really being black. She is proud of her heritage and doesn’t let others define her, but shows others that she is strong and worthy of respect.

The inability to let go of the past is a continuous theme in the film. This is true for just about every character in the movie. I was surprised and disappointed with how the film ended. It seemed like Trese and Lorenzo really had the chance to make each other happy and could really be there for each other to make each other’s lives better. When Lorenzo let Trese have an impact on him, he began to let go of the past and for the first time was able to think about a future. Trese really deserved someone like him that she could count on to support her dreams and compliment her very well. This does compliment the theme that love is not perfect, it is messy and it can yank you back and forth. X’s & O’s doesn’t feel like an independent film at all since it doesn’t look or feel it with the quality that it holds up. Writer/director Kedar Korde gives us a very funny film that takes time and looks in to different characters, offering his audience with an appealing film for everyone. In the beginning Simon tells a kid on his Catholic basketball team that him missing the shot was the fault of God. This offers the critique of thanking God for winning a game, but not blaming him when things go wrong is both funny. This was both witty and very realistic, since a friend of mine has even used this argument to me before even with this same basketball example. X’s & O’s gives a voice to everyone in the twists of love and lusting, making it stand out from others and is an all around fun time and a refreshing change to most one-sided romantic comedies.

(Posted on 5/17/09)

First of all, this is a puzzling comedy, and I don't mean it in a bad way, on the contrary, it needs to be seen to be believed. Mr. Korde has made a romantic comedy set up in the real world, in which the camera could be anyone of us looking at our own environment.

But the movies also a local view of how much it sucks to date in San Francisco, California, considered one of the worst cities for dating and commitment in the U.S.

Yeah, it's not that easy to get "action" in an environment where everybody wants everything as soon as possible, and at the slightest mistake you get dumped for good. "You're not what I want" is the phrase most people tell their partners before a break-up or the end of a one-night stand. Later, they complain they're lonely and there's not too much to choose from. Well, you'll see exactly that in this movie.

This one is a romantic comedy with a twist in which the people we root for might not be the role models for a normal, healthy behavior. The main character is a lovesick scientist named Simon who has a crush on a beautiful but mean girl (so mean she's capable of telling him she wouldn't give birth to a baby because she's not the maternal type, but she spends most of the time mating like a rabbit with every man except Simon.) She treats him like a bathroom mop, and he seems to like it, because he keeps trying and trying. Eventually, he believes, she will fall for him.

There's of course a girl who's really cool and likes him a lot. A very interesting Latina girl named Trese who sees in him a potential match in the same sea of deception that's called the San Francisco Nightlife. She's angry at the world but notices in Simon a beacon of hope. Trese has a roommate too and she kinda, kinda, has feelings for her (come on, it's San Francisco, what do you expect!) The development of the story puts us in a crash course to a potential lame end (the good guy gets the cool girl and the mean girl learns her lesson) but the involvement of Simon's best friend, a player named Lorenzo, avoids an end that would make the movie forgettable or in the same bunch of lame stories like "The Notebook" or "P.S. I Love You." To tell you what Lorenzo does or says to Trese and Simon and his group of friends would be to spoil the story. His involvement and his actions caused by his past -a breakup with a beautiful girl who dumped him for a Born-Again Christian leader- is essentially the "McGuffin" of the plot. Without Lorenzo, the movie wouldn't have had movement.

It seems that men and women have to protect each other of potential damage, in a society that's already paranoid of itself. For men, the friends they think are their real friends are just fake ones trying to harm us and women will just deceive us, so men might as well go on for the ride and see what might come out. Simon finds satisfaction being rejected, Lorenzo finds it thinking about commitment while each weekend he sleeps with one bartender after another -not even thanking them for the fun!

For me, the most interesting character is Simon's friend Jimmy, an Asian kid who's trying to be a gangster (or at least a fake one) and prove his friends he has his woman under his thumb, but a simple twist of fate regarding a barbecue meat theft will make him realize things are very, very fragile in his life. The tables will turn for him as well, but Korde uses his story as a counterpoint to see what might lie ahead if Simon gets lucky with Jane.

Pain happens for a reason in this symphony of deception, but will it conclude on a major, happy note? This movie might be a great date movie for couples who aren't afraid of their own emotions and have nothing to hide. You won't find the kind of comedy you see in "Wedding Crashers" or "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

You might find yourself amused and feeling close to the characters, way more than X's and O's in an endless game. (Posted on 5/16/09)