the audience applauded

Powerful

Load of rubbish!!

I'll tell you why so serious

There are so many films in the Direct to Video market that is just utter garbage, but there are a few movies that are a diamond in the rough. Lip Service is a fantastic film about the music industry as well as a decent Romantic Comedy.The plot of the movie is about a record producer named Roger (Peter Outerbridge) is asked to produce a record for an up and coming super star named Sunni (Kari Wuhrer). The issue is that Sunni may be one of the worst singers around so Roger needs to find a way to cover up her voice. He finds a soccer mom named Maggie (Gail O'Grady) in a bar and gets her to do the vocals. Sunni becomes an instant superstar while Maggie does not get any recognition. At the end of the film Maggie ends up being the star and Sunni is no longer famous.The humor of the film is very campy, but it uses that to its advantage. At the end of the film Roger asks his friend Buddo (Jerry Ciccoritti) for help to mute Maggie's tracks during Sunni's debut concert. Roger uses one of the funniest lines ever conceived in my opinion to get Buddo to help: "She baked you cookies." Buddo has a montage of Maggie giving him a cookie and he accepts Roger's proposal to take down Sunni. The line itself is funny, but the montage is the icing on the cake or the chocolate chip on the cookie.The Romance between Maggie and Roger was very unique in my opinion. It is not your tradition Romantic Comedy where the two leads eventually fall in love and live happily ever after. It is a Traditional Romance in the real world from my perspective. Maggie and Roger have great romantic chemistry together, but they never act upon it. Roger did kiss Maggie and she fantasized about him while cleaning the house, but apart from that they never acted on their emotions towards one another. At the end of the film Roger is caught in a sex romp with Sunni and ends up being single while Maggie is still happily married. The romance in this film reminded me of Once, but on a less bittersweet note. In Once I wanted the two leads to be together, but I knew it was impossible. In Lip Service I was fine with Roger and Maggie never getting together.Lip Service was surprisingly a fantastic film. I found it in a dollar rack in a Dollar General. I thought it was going to be a campy version of Showgirls, but I liked this film a lot more than I thought I would have. If you have a chance to find a copy of this movie you will not be disappointed.For the full review go to my site: http://www.thriftymoviecritic.com/reviews-1-5.html

I like this film basically because of the songs. The opening sequence was what hooked me. I think it's funny how one song can be either made great, or destroyed by the wrong singing voice. The storyline isn't bad either. It appealed to me because of its Cinderella theme. It's funny and sexy, but somewhat preposterous at times. But it's all in good, clean fun. I love the singing voice used by Gail O'Grady. It's a voice that meshes well with the songs used in the film. It's a good movie to stay up late for when you don't have to go to work tomorrow. Though the script could have been better, all in all, I enjoyed it and I would like to see it again.

I enjoyed this film more than I thought but I was also annoyed by some aspects of it. The protagonist, Roger Deacon, is the main problem. The problem lies not with the actor Peter Outerbridge but with the way he is portrayed. This is the man who betrayed his naive and shy forty-something Martha Stewart look-a-like protégée, Maggie Stanley, by gaining her trust then letting her think she cannot have a recording contract because he is committed to promoting the talentless, Sunni, the mistress of a powerful record company boss to whom Peter is indebted. When Peter redeems himself for Maggie at the end it feels a bit contrived and hollow, as if Peter's hypocrisy can be absolved by an act of honesty. But by also exposing a talentless Sunni in public he humiliates another woman, all for the sake of exposing a truth he chose to conceal as a ruse in the first place. Thank heavens we can sympathize with Maggie, a passive housewife too shy to make a fuss even when she realizes she has been conned by Peter. The music is quite good for a TV movie in spite of the mismatch between Maggie and her supposed voice. The only thing that puzzled me was the fact Maggie only recorded 3 tracks for Sunni's album. The ending was a little abrupt though, and more could have been said about the appearance/reality theme. Yet there were many sharp lines satirizing the superficial values of the record company world.

Because I knew this was a VH1 Original, I knew not to expect much of the movie. I was right. This movie tells the story of washed-up record producer, Deacon. Deacon's jet plane back to the glamour he once knew arrives in the form of Sunni, the new "it" girl of Golden Records with the body of a goddess and voice comparable to nails on a chalkboard. Deacon takes on the project of producing Sunni's record, convinced he can make her voice sound reasonable using studio magic. This plan fails to work. Enter Maggie Stanley, a housewife blessed with a beautiful singing voice while cursed with a severe case of stage fright. Deacon decides to replace Sunni's voice with Maggie's, and chaos ensues from there when Sunni's career rises farther than Deacon ever wanted to. Realizing he is in love with the very married Maggie, Deacon's conscience takes hold of him, instructing him to tell the truth about Sunni, much to the chagrin of Lowell, a record exec at Golden who wants to keep this secret under lock and key.Peter Outerbridge, an actor I had previously never heard of, shines as Deacon, a down-on-his-luck, believable, and very lovable character, who, despite having experienced the highs of fame and fortune and the lows of bankruptcy and flops on Billboard, still manages to find a kindred soul in the stage fright-stricken Maggie. Kari Wuhrer, as Sunni, brings an extremely annoying sense of innocence to her character, who is supposed to come off as a shrewd businesswoman in a Barbie doll package. Gail O'Grady gives a so-so performance. She has delivered a better performance because she been given better scripts to work with. The whole thing movie is lacking in its sense of direction, especially with the romantic "quadrangle" involving Sidney Golden, Sunni, Deacon, Maggie, and Stan, Maggie's husband. So much more could have been explored between Deacon and Maggie. Perhaps the writer took the route he did to keep Deacon's "good guy" image.If you happen to catch this movie between back-to-back Behind the Movie marathons (isn't that what they ALWAYS air on VH1?...), go ahead and kill some time, but don't make a point of watching it.