Favorite Plotline in the film [i]Love Actually[/i]

Yeah, I never thought about it at all.

yall dont have to agree with me not trying to be whiney here its just... something that bugged me

he has a kind of contradictory public image, curtis, in that he spends half his time doing charity work, mostly in africa i think, and for real, i think, not like bono. (more recently he did an absolutely terrible spot for some climate-change thing.) so there's that, and the right dislikes him for it. but the left dislikes him even more, for making films about the upper-middle classes. i wrote something when 'love actually' came out about what a strange film it is, politically, especially coming out six months after the iraq war. (though the politics aren't limited to that: it's all about the school.)

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the entire film is worth it for Linney's brief dance when she pulls that guy.

"I know there's a bit of us that would like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. But the difference between a good film and real life is that in real life there's the next day, the next year, the next lifetime to contemplate the ruinous consequences of easy applause." Tony Blair, 2005.

not sure which one to vote for. maybe the Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman one, which was maybe the most emotionally involving one for me, or maybe the Hugh Grant one, since that had the 'fittest' 'bird' that i'd 'snog' or 'shag' in the movie.

My mom adores this. Don't Joni Mitchell's deep-voiced reinterpretations of her classics appear? Mom became a Joni fan.

The Emma Thompson/Joni scene is pretty great

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I don't understand what happened here

but Rickman/thompson is good enough that I am not complaining

But the NAKED PPL? ugh.

quite cute how all the americans be loving martine mccutcheon.

fuck you buddy

lol

I just rewatched this for the first time in years. no weird racism that i could tell in Egg/Keira storyline, naked people just rubbish, Laura Linney and Emma Thompson own this entire thing. Liam Neeson and weird kid not as annoying as I remember

the entire film is worth it for Linney's brief dance when she pulls that guy.

Totally.

Oh yeah I watched this again over xmas & just thought about it now (because of that 'lovable loser' thread - thinking about competing value claims, and how Linney's plot is rly moving because she goes for altruism/duty/family above the romance sentiment that fuels abt half the film, and most other romantic comedies - it's a very old-fashioned tone to be hitting in what seems a blithe romp, do. the Rickman/Thompson plot)

BUT ANYWAY

I wasn't paying enough attention at the end, so I have a question. Egg, Keira and thing run into one of the other chars at the airport (egg is slightly behind Keira and thing): has Egg come to meet Keira/Thing at the airport? Or has he been away with them? ie is he stuck being a third wheel or have they set up a menage?

but the context is r-curtz made a film called 'notting hill', set in an area synonymous with afro-caribbean-british culture, and again didn't really cast any black people

Also synonymous now with the kind of old Etonian twats who now govern us, so I would forgive him if it not for the fact that's he's Richard Curtis and should never be allowed to write anything in any form ever again.

re Egg, I think him and Keira & Chiwetel are all mates with Colin Firth and come to meet him back from his honeymoon, no? Think he's just a third wheel, showing Keira doesn't hate him for being creepy stalking dude and they are all still mates.

Right. That makes sense. I was only half-watching at that point: felt like either it's a bit of a dismal resolution for Egg if he is 3rd-wheeling (no way is he getting over her that way, but then I suppose the wages of secret stalking is unhappiness) or that the film is a bit odder than it seems and was willing to imply a v unconventional set-up as a happy ending. Shame it's the former.

i like how the "homewrecker" stereotype character wears a literal devil costume to the company christmas party

there are good things about this movie.

i like the part where the guy tries to seduce his best friend's wife but the movie is totally supportive of him

i also like how tony blair fires or demotes a subordinate after she is sexually harassed by bill clinton but she forgives the charming dissembler anyway (via love)

i like how colin firth goes to "portugal" but really he travels through a time warp and ends up in the parts of the "the godfather" that take place in mussolini's italy

very offensive portrayal of wisconsinites as sex crazed anglophiles

voted genocide narrowly over dogshit

voted genocide narrowly over dogshit

― oh, amazonaws (wins), Friday, June 24, 2016 8:53 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

somebody explained the plot of this movie to me a couple of years ago and i just didn't believe them.

watched this for the first time this weekend and wife and i were absolutely floored by the opening monologue, cant believe nobody prepared us for:

"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling love, actually … is all around.”

it was a long time ago and i dont want to nitpick but i would say that when it comes to the idea that love is all around us, the planes being flown into the twin towers is maybe a... flawed example?

CUT STRAIGHT TO Bill Nighy doing a wacky comedy version of "love is all around", playing it broad & silly enough for the folks alllll the way in the back row... truly could not believe that these were the real decisions the filmmakers made

Submitting the names of every person itt who repped for the Firth storyline to Portugal's national enemies list.

I feel it in my towers, I feel it in my planes

"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love abject terror

they were all shitposts

The scene with the posterboard guy needs to be widely recognized as Lovebombing, Actually. I would love to read an oral history of who wrote that, what the fuck they were thinking, and what their purported rationale was for having her kiss him. I repeat myself here, but what kind of psycho harbors feelings until their best friend's wedding night, when he executes an elaborate plan to reveal his feelings about the woman his bff just married, directly to her. With posterboards he obviously crafted beforehand in planning this bombardment. And then she kisses him?!?!? Jesus.

it's a sick, sick film

posterboard guy only slightly more toxic & disturbing than the Liam Neeson's kid plotline imo: if you desire a girl from afar, avoid her and spend all your free time alone practicing a random skill. once you achieve mastery, the girl will be so impressed that she will love you. and it works!

i know i'm 20 years late but i cant emphasize enough our whiplash at expecting this to just be an innocuous bit of fluff and instead it almost felt closer to "the room", a constant state of shock and disbelief that every decision, right the opening moments, could be so bizarre and wrongheaded. idk if i've ever seen anything quite like it.

Also, the fact that her husband is black and the film is all, wow look at how right this creep is for her if only she could see and it’s not subtle

I see max pointed this out thirteen years ago, good lad

i kept waiting for some kind of twist in the plotline of the guy who goes to America and gets swarmed by submissive nymphomaniacs but no, thats just what happens... he even brings a sex slave back to England for his friend!

I would love to read an oral history of who wrote that

Emma Freud is often credited as “script editor” on Curtis’ projects, including this, but I don’t think he uses any other uncredited co-writers.

it was a long time ago and i dont want to nitpick but i would say that when it comes to the idea that love is all around us, the planes being flown into the twin towers is maybe a... flawed example?

This is my drunken Christmas party soapbox.

it was fist clenchingly awful when this was in cinemas and its so bizarrely dated now.

it feels like the Curtis wrote the opening scene of people reuniting in airports but late 2002 was still where GeneralPublic+(Emotions/Planetravel)=Sept11 and this was crowbarred in.

The tonal shift into comedic wet-wet-wet cover immediately afterwards makes more sense with a different voiceover.

I've never seen this movie by the way, I constantly hear people fulminate about it and I just like to think of it as something people made up to be mad at

The first time I (English) saw this film was in the flat of my then-girlfriend (American) with her (English) flatmates, and have to report that the "I'm going to America to score some skanks" storyline did not go down at all well.

I've never seen this movie by the way, I constantly hear people fulminate about it and I just like to think of it as something people made up to be mad at

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 26 December 2023 20:51 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Think I have seen seven Richard Curtis films, they are all very bad, but this one is easily the worst because he just packs more in there, value for money if you want something to be annoyed about.

We tried to watch this movie a couple of weeks ago and turned it off about 25 minutes into it because we were absolutely horrified by how terrible it was

its as bad as many romantic comedies but agreed packing in so many of the worst possible parts and none of the insulation is the key

to be honest I would say that some of his recent films like About Time and Yesterday actually annoy me more because he always has (well, buys) a potentially good idea and completely ruins it by being constitutionally unable to imagine the lives of anyone except dim posh people in Southeast England who have lots of money and no real problems.

except that yesterday is the worst idea anyone has ever had tho

Bizarre to me there's a general vibe of "oh of course it's not a perfect film if you look at it from a 2023 POV but we liked it at the time"

It was so fucking shit at the time that my husband watched it on DVD after moving in to a new place on his own near a video rental shop, then immediately phoned me up in horror to rant about how offensively bad it was.

re Yesterday, there's a throwaway line from Richard Curtis's actually very good 1991 movie Bernard and the Genie about memorising some Barry White songs before returning to 2000 years ago. To score some skanks, essentially.

i know i'm 20 years late but i cant emphasize enough our whiplash at expecting this to just be an innocuous bit of fluff and instead it almost felt closer to "the room", a constant state of shock and disbelief that every decision, right the opening moments, could be so bizarre and wrongheaded. idk if i've ever seen anything quite like it.