The latest in an endless series of shallow, superficial movies about what a shallow, superficial town Los Angeles is, Desperate But Not Serious is a leaden concoction about a pair of spunky party girls (Christine Taylor and Paget Brewster) out for a wild night on the town. Taylor's goal for the evening is to locate her blandly perfect lost beau (John Corbett), a search that entails sass-talking to uppity bouncers and lots of witless put-downs (at one point, Brewster accuses a rival of being a "suck-ass gofer") but precious little humor or subtlety. Directed by Bill Fishman (Tapeheads) with all the wit and sophistication he brought to 1994's Car 54, Where Are You?, Desperate keeps the cutesy, overwritten one-liners flying as the girls ricochet from one fruitless, Mad TV-level set-up to another. Trying to coast on its nonexistent charm, Desperate is itself desperate, at one point rolling out the tired elderly-woman-talking-dirty gag (as seen in The Runaway Bride!) in a pathetic attempt to win laughs. A featherweight trifle that moves with the dexterity of a sedated hippopotamus, Desperate has all the fizzy appeal of a five-day-old cup of warm champagne.