thesar-2
Sarah Michelle Gellar is so much like Drew Barrymore in the sense of: even if their movie's terrible, they're always so cute, adorable and has so much charisma and talent, you want to rate the movie even higher.Sadly, she was the only bright spot on this lousy 90s rom-com. While there are multiple problems here, the main one involves magic and earning nothing. I had no problem the movie was centered around some magic spells from some actor they only paid for an hour's worth of scenes until he mysteriously turns into a crab, but since the entire romance and a restaurant owner's success is only built around said magic, no one earned anything that should've come on its own.Basically, as Amanda's (Gellar) restaurant is about to fold, she meets a Crab-man who uses some kind of off-screen spell to make her cooking excel and her and a shallow man fall in love. No real explanation is given or accepted by anyone and when unexplained events occur, Amanda just brushes them off. Only her man, Tom, thinks things are odd.Since no one learns any kind of lesson, improves themselves on their own or feeds the crab that strangely stays alive for weeks without food or water, it's hard to get behind our characters we're supposed to care about.Again, Gellar gives her all. She's talented, charming and even she can't save this. No reason to see this, even if you're a Gellar fan. I have a strong feeling she'd agree with me on this one.***Final thoughts: Haven't heard of this movie? Well, neither have I and I study movies like I'm always trying to pass the movie bar. Since the fantastic How Did This Get Made? podcast covered this, I had to watch it so their show would make more sense. And speaking of which, I hope they do make sense out of this mess.
SnoopyStyle
Amanda Shelton (Sarah Michelle Gellar) inherits her late mother's restaurant but not her skills. The rent is raised and they are about to close. A mystery man sells her a magical crab. Tom Bartlett (Sean Patrick Flanery) runs a high-end department store and he's adding a new expensive restaurant. He and his unstable girlfriend Chris (Amanda Peet) are going to check out a high class chef when the mystery man drives his cab and drop them off in front of Amanda's restaurant. Amanda's food starts effecting her patrons in unusual ways.This is more on the level of a lesser Lifetime movie. Flanery doesn't have enough charisma which limits the romantic chemistry. Despite having some great supporting actors, the material is nowhere good enough. Also, I'm uncertain about how the magic works on the food and its effects on the people. I don't understand Tom and Chris acting up after eating her food. The comedy doesn't really work. There is a possible food-porn movie but it's not filmed well. The elements of better movies are here but none of it really works.
jmdforsmg
I really loved this movie so it really surprised me to see so many people who had a problem with it. It is just the cutest chick flick with great humor. I think the acting was done so well and the sets did well for the movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar did great in the movie as the struggling chief and Sean Patrick Flannery who plays the guy who just cant figure out whats going on.I hate that this movie is so underrated and I still don't understand why, its my favorite romantic comedy.The Chick flick element is great so all girls and some men should love the great acting and the range of emotions that all the characters go through as the emotions are the key and main element of the movie.9/10
milo_rad
This movie had a terrible plot, bad camera work and horrible production design. BUT having said that, the main actor (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Did a spectacular job of being able to pull off a remarkable performance in the worst case scenario of movie making. She was able to sustain her reputation in the entertainment industry and did not let this movie become an undoing of her professional career merely just an experience which she has learned from. The Director and Producers were seriously wrong for thinking they could pull of a movie with such a little attention and compassion for it. If they took the time to edit the script re shoot a few scenes especially the final dinner scene with the fog (i mean that was cheap), and worked on the sets, this movie could have been great. But as it is, the only thing that was good about this film was the performance of the main actor Sarah Michelle Gellar, and if she wasn't in it, this movie could be named worst movie ever in 1999.
AD
