Linda Goodwin Movies
Three strangers find their lives reflected by proverbs they find in fortune cookies at the same Chinese restaurant in this episodic comedy-drama. Chuck (Pierre Brault) is a divorced father who has trouble getting through to his son (Mark Bastianelli) or his mother (Elaine Klimasko). Hoping to encourage his son to try something new, Chuck buys his boy a violin, but the youngster doesn't have much interest in the instrument. His mother, however, is another story; she picks up the fiddle and masters the instrument with remarkable speed, and her music speaks of the deep emotions she refuses to share with her son. As it turns out, the violin itself also has a rather remarkable history to tell. Elsewhere, Ho Fook (John Ng) is an interior designer who professes to be an expert on the art of feng shui, even though he displays no gift for it in his own home, and Marshall (Dan Lalande) is tired of paying alimony, so he puts himself to the task of finding a new spouse for his ex-wife (Loraine Ansell), though given her bitterness this may be no easy task. House of Luk also features Pat Morita as the proprietor of the Chinese restaurant that's the nexus point for the film's three stories. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Pierre Brault, Dan Lalande, (more)
"Christmas Can Be Such a Bitch" was the tasteful advertising tag line for this updated and revised TV-movie adaptation of Dickens' oft-filmed fable A Christmas Carol. This time around, Victorian penny-pincher Ebenezer Scrooge as been transformed into a beautiful, imperious, foul-mouthed pop singer named Ebony (Vanessa L. Williams). Lording it over her staff in general and her long-suffering manager and former boyfriend Bob Cratchett (Brian McNamara) in particular, Ebony intends to callously exploit the Yuletide season by staging a charity Christmas concert "on behalf of the homeless," an act of "generosity" designed mainly to up her popularity and increase her own bank account. Inevitably, on the eve of the concert, the contentious Ebony is visited by a number of spirits who persuade her to change her ways before it's too late. Chilli of TLC is seen as the ghost of Ebony's former singing partner Marli Jacob while Duran Duran's John Taylor shows up as the Spirit of Christmas Present. No better or worse than any other "improved" version of the Dickens original, A Diva's Christmas Carol was filmed in Montréal and telecast over VH1 on December 13, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi




