everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Awesome Movie

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I have to start by saying who gives people the money to make this garbage. What I thought was an interesting plot line with the mystery of a secret list of women that you have slept with and will sleep with until you die might have some potential. At the same time in another universe there is a Man Killer about killer man after sex named "Death Nell". Nothing more to give away but for a movie with some class actor it fell short of being a good movie. It's corny a little nudity, sex with a leper, and sex with lesbians. Sounds good right ??? WRONG. Please Simon Baker, stay on TV until a decent script comes up. I wouldn't watch it unless there is nothing better outside like a hurricane.

When you're making a movie and the best thing about it is "The Facts of Life" Mindy Cohn's performance as a lesbian secretary, you've got problems.Sex and Death 101 is a movie that tries to tell one-and-a-quarter stories. One full story is about Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), a guy who's all ready to settle down and get married when he gets a list in his e-mail. The list is the names of all the people he's ever going to have sex with but while there are 101 names on the list, Roderick has only had sex with 29 women so far. So over the next year, Roderick uses the list as a guide to boink his way through the other 72 names. The quarter of a story concerns Death Nell (Winona Rider), a woman who's taking men that have been abusive or disrespectful of woman and putting them into comas. I say it's a quarter of a story, because even though you know Roderick and Death Nell will be getting together, her role is barely more than a glorified cameo.Firstly, this film is a great example that you shouldn't make a whimsical romantic comedy with a writer/director who not only doesn't understand women, he doesn't even understand men. There's a scene where Roderick and his two guy friends are talking and watching a football game. There's a big play, the guys jump up to celebrate, then fall into a pile on the floor where they lay next to each other and talk for about a minute. Guys don't lie next to each other on the floor and have conversations. Young girls may do that. Straight men do not. I don't even think gay guys do that, and that's the level of understanding Daniel Waters brings to the story.That lack of wisdom doesn't completely cripple the film, because understanding human behavior isn't necessary if none of your characters are real human beings in any sense of the word. The characters in Sex and Death 101 are clever, colorful and occasionally funny, but there's not a single moment when you actually feel anything for any of them. The movie deals with the implications of knowing which women absolutely will and which absolutely won't have sex with you in a detached fashion, but then forces poor Simon Baker to ridiculously overact when the story suddenly dictates that Roderick have an emotional crisis by falling in love with a girl who's not on the list.There is some decent female nudity in the film, but not from any of the big name actresses (not even Mindy Cohn) and it's all in the first half, before the story gets all wrapped up in the mysterious entity that sent the list to Roderick and how his story is intersecting with Death Nell's. And maybe I've never noticed it before, but there's something seriously off about Winona Rider's nose in this movie. There are these very odd double ridges on the bridge of her nose that I don't recall ever being that distinct before.Fundamentally, the trouble with Sex and Death 101 is that it lacks balls, and I don't mean male nudity. The subjects of predestination, exploitation and manipulation it deals with are fairly dark…but the movie always keeps them at arm's length. It's too delicate to mine the laughs out of the raw pain of Roderick's predicaments, so the humor never rises above the sitcom level, with the jokes telegraphed so clearly that you can see them coming during the movie you watch before you watch Sex and Death 101. So, it's not an unfunny movie, but it is one that you laugh at almost as much as you laugh with.

A black comedy that commits the cardinal sin. It isn't even mildly humorous. The plot is preposterous. Winona Ryder has come down to this??? If it's a choice of watching this "film" or getting open heart surgery, select the latter. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I happen to like Simon Baker a lot, but his considerable charm is stretched to the limit. I guess I am masochistic and I wanted to force myself to stick around until the (very) bitter end, but at the 75 minute mark I just couldn't take much more and I ripped through the balance at 2x and 4x speed. I slowed down to standard speed for the big finish which is so stupid, I wanted to take out the DVD and fry it in the microwave. If I didn't get my point across, this picture is partially rotten with scattered patches of terribleness.

Continuing with the thought that sometimes movies may honor its title, and that may save them from being bad or make them even more terrible than they are, I present to you the latter of the examples. Like "Boys", where Winona Ryder also plays a part, "Sex and Death 101" makes true justice to its title. The thing is that with a title like "Boys" there are interesting things to be said, but "Sex and Death 101"…That's all there is: sex and death.If I want those things, I can easily find them in a lame erotic film. For those who think that sex can be justified in a film and so on, I tell you that I agree; but there's nothing justifiable about the use of sex or even death in this film. "Sex and Death 101" tells the story of Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), an entrepreneur who's about getting married and receives an email with a list of every women he's had sex with and will have sex with. Any guesses? Right! They're 101 women. From that moment on, and I'm sorry if I spoil the ride for you (but all of this and more is in the unappealing trailer, if you've watched it), Roderick leaves his soon to be wife in a ridiculous scene and starts doing what probably any man would do; except that he does it in every scene and the only scenes that are not about it are about their friends (a fat, lesbian secretary and a bunch of married guys) trying to stop him with whatever excuse they find. At one point, writer/director Daniel Waters (I hope he has nothing to do with Mark) runs out of these excuses and the need for a closure takes his film to the utter bottom. But that's not everything Waters' made of as a writer. There's a woman called Miranda (the charming Leslie Bibb) who's apparently on the list but touches Roderick's heart; which leads Waters to create a joke that consists on everyone asking: "Have you f***ed her yet?". Another thing that's supposed to be funny is when his secretary makes Roderick check if her name is on the list.Oh, and there's "The Machine"! How could I forget such original invention and the origin of Roderick's problems? It's an empty space with a strong white background, and it has a crack in the wall. From that crack, it spits cards that apparently know anything anyone would like to know. The guy who controls the Machine, a possible Morpheus without glasses, says it may be an oracle but he's not sure. If you thought I had forgotten that the Great Winona Ryder plays a part, I hadn't. How could I when she's second-billed and she's not even a supporting character but a mere excuse to finalize the movie? She appears in only one scene, and gives (as convincingly as she can; it's not her fault that the script is so poor) a speech that pretends to justify the time we've wasted and fails.And Simon Baker can do better. Better than a simple smile and a cocky narration. A narration that pretends to know everything about sidestepping clichés but in the end narrates us the most convenient ending. I hate that.