Little Black Book

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Little Black Book ★ 2004 (PG-13)

You know times are tough for actresses of a certain age (in this case Hunter) when they are reduced to playing eccentric mentors to the pouty blonde flavor of the moment. That would be Murphy as Stacy, who wants to be a broadcast journalist but is slaving away at a lousy daytime talk show hosted by Kippie Kann (a slumming Bates). Maybe things will go better in her romance with sports agent Derek (Livingston). Oops, shouldn't have peeked at his Palm Pilot, which lists his glamorous, maybenotsoexgirlfriends. Since Derek doesn't talk about his past relationships, Stacy sets up “interviews” with three of the gals (Maran, Jones, Nicholson) to check out her possible rivals. Eventually, her snooping and her job converge into one big mess—a fitting description of the movie. 95m/C DVD . US Brittany Murphy, Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates, Ron Livingston, Julianne Nicholson, Stephen Tobolowsky, Kevin Sussman, Josie Maran, Rashida Jones, Jason Antoon; D: Nick Hurran; W: Elisa Bell, Melissa Carter; C: Theo van de Sande; M: Christophe Beck.