everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

If it wasn't for West Coast Julie Brown, I probably would have never cared to watch the show. She plays a former child star, Tammi Tyler, who operates a strip mall with lesbian Chinese restaurant owner played by the wonderful Amy Hill. The show was silly at best with stupid plots about killing and sex jokes. The show was dark comedy more like a dark soap opera with comic overtones. The show was filmed at a strip mall in Los Angeles. The show aired it's full season on Comedy Central. The show had it's moments with Julie Brown and Amy Hill who ran the Chinese restaurant with her lesbian lover until she got killed. I remember the actual name of the place, "Wok Don't Run." Like I said, Amy Hill was unforgettable and I wished that she would get more jobs.

I really wonder how this show plays in the U.K. and the rest of Europe. IT IS SO SELF-LOATHING ABOUT BEING AN American(particularly white Americans). That could be a big reason for some of the venom and vitriol expressed here on this board. I love the show but it is with some reservations and I feel it took the easy way out by Spoiler Spoiler:Crashing and burning everything at the end of the second season. Julie slammed the door shut on any hope of reviving the show unless her character lands on a haystack in the middle of some farm. Who knows? It was a funny, raunchy and on occasion, kinda scary show.

In "Strip Mall", the creative team has distilled all the motivators behind American commerce (power, lust, backstabbing, jealousy, fabricating lies) and made them the key plot developers of an amazingly sharp (and FUNNY!!!!!) TV show.The production is over the top, which is where one has to be when looking down to examine the key foundations of our society. This show is slick and gaudy, like a laminated menu from Denny's, and (I have to repeat) FUNNY, FUNNY, FUNNY!!!

In this age where success is the morning and evening star, and standards of personal perfection rise faster than the Dow, I find it deeply touching that the talented and versatile Julie Brown has created a show for all of us who ever felt like life is trying to scrape us off its shoes.Of course I'm referring to Comedy Central's new series: Strip Mall.Unlike some of her other efforts, Julie made this an ensemble work. It's a wise move for a woman whose comedic nuances have been compared to vocal shadings of King Kong. Thus, where she might otherwise fade into the background, she has an outstanding cast who show her to her best advantage.For instance, the Chinese restaurant owner, a broad, tough middle-aged lesbian whose sexy young lover/waitress constantly provokes her jealousy. (The dialogue is adult, so you may want to treat the kiddies to some subway tokens and shoo them away)Julie Brown plays former child star Tammy ("It's TiMI!"), who at an early age butchered...well, you'll see. Other characters include: her confidant, a barmaid who opens every conversation with "I have a plate in my head"; a Russian mafia smuggler running a porn factory; Tammy's husband with the world's largest hemmoroid; an unassuming, reluctant porn director and his friend, a late-blooming camera man... I could go on at length.As a rule, all this would make a show cloyingly rich , like a meal of baklavah and honey milk shakes. But the writing is nimble, and the editing trims the humor to a blur of stinging bantam-weight punches. At first glance it seems like a crude copy of crude shows. Pay attention for five minutes and if you have half a brain you'll discover one of the sharpest and most hilarious parodies you'll ever see.I recommend it to anyone who likes David and Amy Sedaris, South Park, Strangers with Candy or (Movie buffs) Shakes the Clown. I emphatically do not recommend it to anyone who would admit to seeing Patch Adams.