Perfect cast and a good story

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

So many good looking women in this movie. If you are a swirl guy watch it.

Originally published on Jan. 31, 2006:Guess who's coming to dinner? Sanaa Latham and Simon Baker, but the meal is a rather unappetizing one.It's "Stella Gets Her Groove Back" meets "Jungle Fever" in this modern tale of an African- American woman who has it all – looks, body, success, brains, ambition – everything except an IBM (Ideal Black Man). Kenya (Latham, "Alien vs. Predator") is a smart, beautiful account lawyer climbing the corporate ladder in a white man's world. After a recent promotion, she moves into her first home in an upper middle class section of Los Angeles.Having just broke up with her Muslim boyfriend, she is now cocooned in her work and moving chores, despite the attempts of her slutty best friends to set her up with a man as quickly as possible.She is then set up on a blind date (that she does not want to go on) with Brian (Baker, "Ring 2," "Land of the Dead"), a handsome, muscular man, who also happens to be white. Embarrassed and a bit racist, she excuses herself from the situation.Attending a friend's party, she raves about the garden's landscaping, only to discover it was Brian's handiwork. Reluctantly, she takes his card and later calls him to transform her barren backyard. As usual, in films like these, a love affair slowly develops between the two seeming polar opposite individuals (she's subdued, prissy and anal retentive; he's a free spirited nature lover), but complications arise soon enough.All of Kenya's friends tell her she should not get involved with someone not of her race, while her mother (Alfre Woodward) openly disdains the relationship. Negative comments are made about Brian's ethnicity as if being white is somehow an unbelievable evil. Who wrote this script, anyway, Louis Farrakhan?!In addition, Brian does not always understand her constant obsession with being black, and, after making love one night, he makes an innocent remark about Kenya's hair (saying she should take out the extensions and be more natural), and she goes ballistic over it (yeah, I didn't quite get her reaction, either) and throws him out.Meanwhile, her lawyer brother (Donald Faison, "King's Ransom," TV's "Scrubs") introduces her to another attorney, Michael (Blair Underwood, "LA Law"), and those two hit it off, based on their common occupations and race.Still, Kenya misses the electricity and spontaneity she had with Brian, but should she buck her parents, friends and peers by actually getting serious with a Caucasian, or be safe and stay with her own kind?It is interesting that most of the black characters are successful (lawyers, doctors, judges, etc.), while the one white lead is a gardener. It's a welcome diversion from all of the films in which a black is either a rapper, a thug, a drug dealer or a prostitute. We've come a long way, baby.Directed by Sanaa Hamri (it's her feature debut), "Something New" is a compelling diversion, at times, and boasts decent performances from the leads, but seems to have trouble deciding whether it wants to be a deep drama about racial division in this country or a smart-aleck jivefest.I also could not help thinking that if the situation were reversed, with a white woman wanting to date a black guy (like any Julia Stiles film), would the negative comments about HIS race be as tolerated? I think not.

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It takes a subject that is gaining more acceptance in the every day world but some people still view it as taboo - interracial relations. The movie handles the situation in a very good way, not degenerating into some kind of exploitation movie but really deals with the relationship between the two stars and between the African American Woman and her family. Simon Baker (The Mentalist) and Sanaa Lathan are fantastic in this movie. Lathan plays a well to do black women who suffers from not having a relationship. Reluctantly, she agrees to go on a blind date only to find out that her date is White (Baker) and the date ends fairly quickly. The two meet a few weeks later and a relationship is started. Lathan has to deal with how this relationship will effect her family. A well done movie dealing with a touchy subject in a great way. Highly recommended.

This movie is the most insulting film to black men since Griffith's "Birth of a Nation". It is unbelievable to me that this was even made it today's world. I could give two craps if a black women dates, marries, or gets banged in the ass by a white man but how dare this writer & director portray black men the way they do. The black men in this film are over sexed driven jerk headed creep jobs. The one so called perfect Black man played by Blair Underwood is so creepy ANY woman would run from. I have 4 sisters who are smart and college educated who are married to 4 good black men who don't compare to any of the black me in this crap show. I am a black educated NON-CREEP normal man and this film really offended me because it makes it seem there are no options for Black Women and this just isn't true. Black men have enough problems in this country, we don't need crap propaganda like this out there to make things worse. And what the hell??? A Black High society cotillion, I don't think so!