To Hell with Love Movie Review

The day after the deadline for this book, Karl Kozak sent me an unsolicited video of his first film by priority mail. It's about a guy in San Diego named Alan Rigatelli (nicely played by David Coburn) who's always a little late. He gets fired and robbed on the same day and, worse yet, his girlfriend leaves him and he leaves the only copy of his first novel in a taxi. His married brother Andrew (Michael McCafferty) is always running Alan down, but what does HE do with a pretty paralegal (who's also an ex-hairdresser and an ex-telepsychic) as soon as he arrives at San Francisco's Fairmont hotel for a legal convention? And Alan's cousin Nick (Corey Michael Blake) is alone in San Diego for a day and already he has a job as a head cook and a date with a girl named Maria (Julie McKee)! Life has dealt Alan a dirty deal, as we can tell from the nicely constructed black-and-white home movies of one of his childhood birthday parties. Random stuff happens to all three guys, a bit far-fetched maybe, but you can't always make up this stuff. Sometimes, life's just unfair and funny and strange. Karl Kozak can write and direct on a budget, his cast (which also includes Natalie Williams as Julie, Alan's infamous girlfriend who splits with ALL the dishes, and Kate Parselle as taxi rider Sarah Franklin) can really act and To Hell with Love is really funny. Within six months of its premiere at Santa Monica's Dances with Films Festival of the Unknowns, To Hell with Love attracted a domestic distributor (Panorama Entertainment) for theatrical release in April 1999 and a foreign distributor (PorchLight Entertainment) as well. Fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you…. (And thanks, Karl, for using Coit Tower, not the Golden Gate Bridge, in your establishing shot of San Francisco!)

1998 98m/C Karl Kozak, Corey Michael Blake, Kate Parselle, Michael McCafferty, Julie McKee, David Coburn, Natalie Williams; D: Karl Kozak, David Coburn; W: Karl Kozak, David Coburn; C: Victor Lou; M: Scott Harper.