by JOANNE LATIMER and KEVIN LAFOREST

Little Black Book

If you suspect that your significant other is still in love with his or her ex, then avoid this movie at all costs. You'd assume that a fluffy comedy like Little Black Book would teach its leading lady (Brittany Murphy) that trust is essential. Snooping around in her boyfriend's past should lead to her tragic downfall, and her insecurities should be laid bare for the world to snigger. But no. Instead, after betraying Derek's (Ron Livingston) confidence by raiding his Palm Pilot and ripping open his memento box, Murphy is unexpectedly rewarded with the truth: yep, he still loves her.

Holly Hunter plays the evil work colleague who encourages Murphy's paranoia. As daytime television producers, they easily lure Derek's ex's into the television station for fake interviews. The result? Too much information.

Director Nick Hurran (Plots With a View) can't resist pushing his film as an updated Working Girl. He shamelessly places a poster of Melanie Griffith's 1988 hit in Murphy's office at the television station and even casts singer Carly Simon in a bit part for comic relief. The film tries to wave the Girl Power flag while turning Murphy into an obsessive stalker. Hunter gets to re-live her career from Broadcast News, but now she's a sleazy TV wonk who values ambition above all else. The entire charade ends up on TV, live, with Murphy's mouth gaping open. Daytime host Kippie Kann (Kathy Bates) gets her ratings and we get a half-cocked story about digging up trouble. (JL)

Premier Juillet: Le Film

For their first feature production, the INIS alumni didn't go for the self-indulgent pretentious bore-fest one might have expected, nor did they aim for something crassly commercial. Premier Juillet is not a great picture by any means. But if director Philippe Gagnon and his fellow Institut National graduates' objective is to show that they can make a well-crafted and entertaining movie, then they are successful.

Not unlike Québec-Montréal, this movie follows different people going through the same ordeal but, instead of driving on the highway between the province's two biggest cities, the characters in Premier Juillet take part in the typically Québécois tradition of all moving on the same day.

There's a family leaving Montreal for the countryside, to the dismay of their teenage son. A couple moves in together for the first time and quickly find his sloppiness and her control-freak nature causing friction. Finally, we have a trio of youngsters who got thrown out of their apartment after a week-long party and must find new digs in a hurry.

Shot in high-definition and featuring an eclectic score by Stéfan Boucher, Premier Juillet is a lively and amusing but not particularly insightful comedy. The excitement and anguish of leaving one home for another affects each person in a different way, yet the screenplay by Mylène Lauzon and Jean-François Lepage fails to define the characters beyond a few superficial traits. The cast is able to fill in some of the blanks, though, and the movie remains a pleasant summer diversion. (KL)

Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement

Simple-minded and sweet, The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement hasn't re-thought its sketchy premise - namely, that a clumsy American girl would become the crowned queen of a fake European country called Genovia. Princess Mia (Anne Hathaway) is still gawky and director Garry Marshall hasn't given her royal family any edge. Where's the palace intrigue?

Here's the quandary: Princess Mia, now finished college and back from America, must take a husband within 30 days if she is to assume the throne and rule Genovia. Parliament won't waive the 300-year-old marriage rule and the current queen/grandmother (Julie Andrews) is set to retire. Mia has a rival for the crown, Sir Nicholas (Chris Pine), who may or may not be toying with her affections. His steely composure and killer looks only make Mia more flustered, as she pratfalls her way through the castle. Mia accepts an engagement ring from a decent British guy and spends the rest of the film bumping into Nicholas.

This is the kind of movie where the bad guys announce themselves as such and the romantic sparring is a bore. Marshall explains every plot point twice, via the servants' gossip, and poor Hathaway has to pretend that her character is going ahead with a loveless marriage. It'll never happen, we know.

Thanks to Andrews and her secret love (Hector Elizondo), who gives the film ballast with his stoic crush on the Queen, Royal Engagement has its charms. But it's Andrews who steals the movie by singing in her pyjamas at Mia's slumber party. Even the squirmy little kids at the preview screening fell quiet as she belted out a duet and saved the movie. (JL)

Little Black Book and Premier Juillet: Le Film open Friday, Aug. 6 and Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement opens Wednesday, Aug. 11

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