Soon, she meets Joe, played by Djimon Hounsou (Amistad), an electrician/piano player, living upstairs, whom her daughter warms up to. Of course, Gina warms up to him as well, and Joe is suddenly the love interest. Judging by the amount of hooting and holaring the women in the audience were making everytime Joe entered the picture, one could guess our main character would end up with him.

The picture also held a couple of subplots, including the slow acceptance of Lynn, played by Alicia Silverstone (Clueless), a caucasian southerner with a flair for hair. A good friend of Gina's, also quitting Jorge's, Lynn isn't exactly welcomed into a salon filled with African American women. This plot line was very well written and not heavy handed. The development of it was extremely subtle and believable.

Another plotline I enjoyed was the hiring of James, played by Bryce Wilson (Hair Show), who is hired by Gina for his braiding abilities and good looks, to increase the struggling shop's female clientel. The women of Gina's spend most of the picture watching James being overly homosexual, even as Lynn develops a crush on him.

The picture's joke writing was its greatest strength. Story-wise, "Beautyshop" was very familiar and not breaking any molds, but its jokes were new, contemporary and quick qitted, giving the picture is only entertainment value. The movie's interracial messages were also what lifted this picture into quality, as I said, subtle and believeable.

Latifa strapped on a lot of sass for the role, so of course she delivered fine. Silverstone also did well, but her accent was getting on my nerves at times. The supporting cast of Gina's stylists held the salon scenes together, including a very funny Alfre Woodard (Heart and Souls), Sherri Shepherd (TV's Less Than Prefect) and Michelle Griffin (Hair Show), who was very nice to look at. Hounsou also made a nice switch to a different genre.

Bacon was also fun to watch, playing an outlandish character role like Jorge, who I'm sure isn't too far from reality either. I don't use styling services, obviously, since I have no hair, but if I were, I would imagine I'd bump into a Jorge at one of these high end salons. Andie McDowell (Groundhog Day) was also cute, but her character was useless.

Conflict in the plot seemed forced at times, and the big secret as to why Gina's was coming under such fired from the state licensing board was NO surprise. This sets up the picture's overall production value, funny, but not surprising.

Overall, I didn't feel bad about seeing "Beautyshop," but I am more pleased I saw it at a discount ticket cinema. It has laughs and insight, but a lot of guff to weed through as well; a little too much guff for me to give it a better rating.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?

I will tell you that I was not expecting to like this movie. I was assuming that I would have nothing in common with the characters, their stories, or their problems. Well, even though that was true for the most part, I found myself laughing a lot and enjoying this movie much more than expected and recommend it to all.

The story was unoriginal and delivered no surprises in terms of plot, subplots, and character developments. But the acting I thought was quite good and the humor in the movie was very good. Queen Latifa is quite good as a female comedy lead and I hope she continues to do more comedies. For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed Alicia Silverstone. I thought she did a good job with her accent, with Benn confirming this by saying that her southern accent was getting his nerves, I expect that from a northerner, I loved it. She was funny when she was trying to fit in with the girls in the salon, especially when the ladies were screaming "Hollar," (not sure if that is exactly what it was but its close enough,) to the radio and here is teeny tiny Silverstone screaming it in her Georgia accent, cracked me up every time.

The strength of the show was all of the actors. They all played their parts perfectly and after the first 20 minutes, kept me from thinking about the boring script. I found that Djimon Hounsou, Kevin Bacon, and Mena Suvari (American Beauty) all were wonderful and entertaining in their character roles, even if Suvari was typecast as a rich, snobby, b**ch. If I had a problem it was that most of the women were completely typecast, especially the lady who was pregnant with and had two other kids already and had named them after basketball stars. That I didn't think was funny or original as well as Andie McDowell's character was completely unnecessary. However, I will say that I was 'wowed' by Keisha Knight Pulliam, also known as Rudy from TV's Cosby Show, she played a hot young thing and found her to be quite good in her part, even though it was an unoriginal character. But still, its obvious that little Rudy has grown up.

Director Billie Woodruff (Honey) did a good job considering that she only has one other movie under her belt, the 2003 Honey (see Benn's review for that movie.) Billie got more out of Alicia Silverstone than any other director she has had, which tells me either Woodruff is very talented or, the other directors want to have sex with her only. Any way hats of to Billie, keep doing more and getting better.

I recommend this movie. It isn't the greatest movie of all time but will be good for a few good laughs and you will be able to see some quality comedic acting.