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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
offbeat romantic comedy, 25 February 2005
7/10
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

The provocatively titled "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones" is a tale about sexual frustration involving a man addicted to porn and a woman with a decidedly more conservative view of making love. The curious twist is that it is the woman who wants to get down-and-dirty in the sack and the man who finds himself unable to rise to the occasion.

Michael is an aspiring photographer who works as a security guard at a local parking garage. Jasmine is a successful ad agency executive who has sworn off both men and sex since her last abortive relationship two years ago. The two find themselves falling in love with one another but hit a rocky patch when Michael turns out to be impotent - at least when it comes to having to perform with a flesh-and-blood human being.

"Love, Sex and Eating the Bones" starts off as a sub-par, utterly conventional romantic comedy, but just when you're about to give up on it, it takes a daring and much appreciated detour into some previously unexplored territory. This is the first film I can remember to feature impotence as a major plot point and the first to acknowledge the detrimental effect that pornography can have on real-world relationships. That the film does so in the context of a romantic comedy in no way diminishes its value and, in fact, makes the topics more palatable and approachable than they might otherwise be. Moreover, the film is blessed with two extremely likable stars as its protagonists, Hill Harper and Marlyne Afflack, who tackle the tricky subject matter with charm and grace. Some may see the humor in the film as vulgar and crude at times, but I tend to think of it as realistic, accurately capturing the ways in which couples talk and deal with one another in the modern world. This turns out to be a better film than one might initially suspect.

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
The Smartest, Freshest Urban Black romantic comedy I've ever seen!!, 24 August 2003
8/10
Author: vagrantfilms from Toronto

Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, should not be as good as it is. With the recent crop Urban, Black Romantic comedies and Dramedies, By all rights a film like Love, Sex and Eating the Bones could have easily fallen flat like recent efforts. But this film delivers in the smartest, sexiest and funniest ways. Veteran short film maker and documentarian David "SUDZ" Sutherland makes the transition to features with the ease. Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, embraces the cliches and plot points of a paint by number romantic comedy and infuses them with a love and humour, that could make this film a sleeper breakout worldwide hit. Take this as a tip if you are looking for a must see film, this really, is it!!

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely Fabulous!, 14 March 2004
9/10
Author: ldr1swak from LA, Cali

Saw this @ the 12th Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles @ the Magic Johnson's Theatre... and LOVED IT!!! "...Bones" was funny, poignant, heartbreakingly sad & erotic (in a fun/nasty sort of way)... I felt the Hill's portrayal of no focus w/ his photography & h is pain & sadness & deep, intense love... what a great job. The film offers a most realistic portrayal of a situation that many men & quite a few women have no doubt experienced-quite realistic & very much "oh-no-I-know-this-is-not-happening-to-me". When it plays in your neighborhood, GO SEE IT!

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely delightful, 10 September 2003
7/10
Author: mtrubic from Toronto

Hill Harper plays Michael - a porn addicted man who, after starting a relationship with a celibate woman, wins a contest to do a sex scene with his favourite porn star.

This small independent film (2.5 million dollars) is absolutely delightful. It's a sure sign that innovative and imaginative films need not come from Hollywood.

This is the Toronto director's first feature film after his award winning short film.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
User rating is too low on IMDb, deserves at least a 7, 30 December 2004
7/10
Author: tvalstar99 from Holland

This is a nice relation drama/comedy flick.

After all the films I've seen in the past months it is nice to see a movie that has a convincing story and is situated in a place thats looks like it is on earth. Man meets woman and they fall in love. The comedy about it is that the leading character, Michael, only gets a hard one if he watches porn. Too bad.

But his girlfriend makes a big fuzz about it. Enough stuff for director and writer Sutherland to let us feel with Michael and maybe understand its problem (hey, thinking of it is alway hornier than doing it. Forget it, I had this discussion with my friends and we agreed about it). His lover Jasmine is not very into the porn and she sees it as a big problem. But hardly talks about it and lets poor Michael onto his own. Hey, it is the millennium, talk about it, pay a shrink for him! All is fair, this movie is very nice. It's interesting, funny and the main character Michael is likable and all actors do a great job. Ik give it a well deserved 7.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
It's a smart, fresh and funny romantic comedy (with a dumb title)., 13 February 2004
10/10
Author: janeminett from Toronto

This is a movie for everyone. You'll walk out with a smile on your face, but it's not your typical dumb, cheap, formula, romantic comedy. OK OK it has a mostly black cast, but it's not about race. And sorry, but no, it's not about porn either. I don't care what your color or age or sexual hangups are, you'll see people you know in this movie. It's smart and funny. My husband enjoyed it just as much as I did. Really looking forward to the next movie by this director. The only bad thing about this movie is its title. It sounds sinister (eating the bones?!). I think it means getting the most out of life, but it gives the wrong impression. Just go see it!

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Cute, enjoyable romantic comedy with folks to care about, 2 March 2006
7/10
Author: ciocio-2 from Dallas, Texas

I'd actually give this movie almost eight stars, if possible, not because it's so terribly fabulous (though I do think it's good--just don't want to over-inflate my ratings), but because it manages impressively much with the small budget it had. Also, I really enjoyed most of the actors in it, and would seek out other performances they do. If you like somewhat off-beat, character-driven comedies, then go in without huge expectations but with an open mind, and you'll probably be glad to have seen this.

I missed the very first few minutes (caught this by chance on the Starz "black" movie channel late at night), and the first few moments I saw seemed mildly unpromising, but with enough feeling of something to come, and potential in the characters to keep me watching. It was the first moment of magic realism (when Jasmine opens Michael's portfolio) that quickly sharpened my interest. There were further moments of such fantasy judiciously sprinkled through the movie, without heavy-handed explanation or drawing attention--just there, with the writer-director trusting audience members to not need spoon-feeding. Mostly, the characters' normal, human problems, joys and such carry the movie nicely.

There may be some validity to others' criticisms regarding stereotypes, but, if so, I think it's not nearly so heavy a problem as some make it out to be. Certainly, there's less of that in this than in many other movies. Also, some of the aspects and situations that have been cited as stereotyped or clichéd are perhaps simply universal, or just common and true to real life. To me, it's all in what a filmmaker does with such commonplaces, how he/she uses them, and Mr. Sutherland keeps it mostly interesting and fresh.

Anyway, especially for a small-budget first feature film, this is pretty damned good work, and worth watching for a bit of character-driven fun.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Thoroughly enjoyable, 14 March 2004
7/10
Author: Dreamer1

Won't bother reitterating what's already been said about the film. It was well worth seeing and though the budget was less than what most Hollywood films spend on craft services, every cent shows on the screen and the dynamics between the leads are sparkling. Ed Robinson (of Barenaked Ladies fame) works well and Kenny Robinson as Robbie, the porn store owner plays suitably subdued which, for a comic, is no easy task. The supporting cast all play well, blending-in and emphasizing without stealing the spotlight from the leads. If I have any quibble with the film it would be that I maybe could've done with a little less of the porn star fantasy but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely delightful, 10 September 2003
7/10
Author: mtrubic from Toronto

Hill Harper plays Michael - a porn addicted man who, after starting a relationship with a celibate woman, wins a contest to do a sex scene with his favourite porn star.

This small independent film (2.5 million dollars) is absolutely delightful. It's a sure sign that innovative and imaginative films need not come from Hollywood.

This is the Toronto director's first feature film after his award winning short film.

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The Young and the Vacuous, 4 July 2007
2/10
Author: groggo from Toronto, Canada wmmacd@hotmail.com

This flick was made in and around my home town of Toronto, and maybe I I took it too personally. So much talent and money was wasted on what is essentially just another formulaic Hollywood-style romance, with white middle-class characters replaced by black middle-class characters faced with the same, tired bourgeois human conflicts that, in the grand scheme of things, don't mean diddly-squat.

According to the DVD extras, the movie is somehow special because it could be a story set anywhere, even Tokyo or Iowa. That's laudable, but couldn't you say the same for countless other flicks in this questionable genre? Isn't that really the problem with these kinds of movies -- that they've been done to death? How many times can you reinvent the same weary conceit? I'm really sick of these movies that show you reasonably affluent characters surrounded by countless friends and support systems who somehow feel the world is collapsing around them because, essentially, they're having problems with sex. Giveth unto me a break.

Love, Sex, etc. is billed at my DVD store as a romantic comedy, and someone should sue for false advertising. It might be a romance, but it's painfully UNfunny, and that's a big problem -- it badly needs an injection of humour. It takes itself much too seriously. The writing is stilted, self-important, and frequently silly, and the actors too often linger awkwardly, as if they yearn to say something meaningful.

The best thing here is Toronto-based stand-up comedian Kenny Robinson (as porn-store owner Robbie), who should have been allowed to exercise his comedic chops to give this film some levity and energy. You know you have a problem when the acerbic Robinson stands around, playing it straight. What a waste.

The premise of this movie (I think) is a guy who, because he's addicted to porn, cannot perform sexually with his girlfriend, who has taken a vow of chastity because she thinks all men are basically, you know, only after one thing. If this movie is any indication, they are. I would like to think that men have a bit more substance, but then again this movie wouldn't have been made if you held to that notion.

Writer-director Sudz Sutherland thinks his work is somehow 'different' (with hints of revolutionary for God's sake) -- showing a film about the common contemporary problem of porn addiction. Maybe so, but with a premise like that, this should have been either a lot more dramatic, a lot funnier, or a lot sexier. The few sex scenes are juvenile and pedestrian, and the actors look embarrassed, as if they'd rather be somewhere else.

I think if you're in the 23-30 age bracket and relate to the pointless, bourgeois, single-minded (i.e. the meaning of life is sex) lifestyle depicted here, you might feel you've found a gem of a flick.

This is Sutherland's first feature. One can only hope he can add more satiric (or dramatic) bite and nuance to his next one.

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