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

4 of the 9 plotlines are about rich men pursuing employees

Colin Firth / Hugh Grant / Alan Rickman / who am I missing? Is Laura Linney working for or with her crush? It's been a while since I saw it.

I think we're supposed to think Linney's crush is a putz, that he froze her out because she had to take the call when they were about to have sex. Either because of injury to his sexual magnetism, or because he realised that he'd be sharing her affections - either way, not great.

Notting Hill is not good (says a former bookseller in Notting Hill Gate)

to me it seemed more like it just kind of killed the vibe (she was like crying and stuff) so he bounced. he could have been more supportive but they don't actually seem to know each other that well. it's putzy but not douchey imo.

the body double plotline isn't bad but it's very slight, it's one kind-of-joke stretched out over 10 minutes. also it doesn't seem like a porn movie, would a porn studio hire extra people to stand in for lighting tests?

xxp i was technically including Bill Nighy and his manager - which is obviously played for a laugh, but at the same time, i cant ignore the fact that it does in fact end with bill nighy arriving at his employees house, calling him the love of his life, and watching porn. (also crazy sexual tension in that last scene, i was sure they were gonna kiss)

re:the body double movie, its very confusing because the sex scenes seem to be bordering on x-rated and take place in many different rooms across many weeks of filming, but with what appears to be a major budget and large professional crew.

a decent porn movie?

that's the worst kind of porn movie

Wikipedia sez: "John and Judy are professional stand-ins for films. They meet doing the sex scenes for a film for which Tony is a production assistant."

The way that all of the stories are interconnected is the worst mid-level worst, just make a compilation film u coward.

blame martin mcdonagh for that

"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.”

These are ten stories of people set about nine months before they all found themselves as passengers on those fateful planes. You might as well say that that it was their... Last Christmas.

(Too dark?)

This is terrible, this script.

Just meaning to say that I also find this 9/11 bit quite inappropriate and stupid. Obviously people would rather call their loved ones than the people they hate when they know they're about to die.
I haven't seen this movie apart from the first ten minutes in German overdub, multiple times every Christmas I spent with my in-laws in Germany, as it's always on TV then. Never felt tempted to watch on.

I mean the quoted dialogue is terrible.

"can we imagine that many of the passengers on that fateful flight might have regretted, in the end, not driving home for christmas?"

look i know it was in november but

I've been thinking about this and any way you slice it, being in a plane about to hit the twin towers and deciding to call your arch enemy to really let them have it is a baller move.

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore!"

lol

The Freeman plot is def not porn - they’re stand-ins for lighting/cinematography on what we have to assume is let’s say a post-basic instinct mid/high budget 90s erotic drama.
And yes the linking is so half arsed for that, also the KK/Lincoln/Chiwetel plot (airport friends of Firth and Lincoln runs the gallery where the Rickman office party happens). I think… only the middle-class middle-aged plots (Grant/McCutcheon; Rickman/Thompson/Makatsch; Neeson/boy) are effortfully bound.
Saying more nice things about this monstrosity I have repeatedly faced: McCutcheon really works and yes! Lúcia Moniz is properly charming.
Oh I’d never noticed till this watch that the Firth/Moniz plot is not set in Portugal - it’s Marseilles/South of France. Like there’s some particular freedom of movement/migrant labour thing going on that I can’t unpick.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/16/richard-curtis-admits-regret-over-weight-jokes-and-lack-of-diversity-in-films

he recently apologised, while getting interviewed by his daughter, for doing fat jokes, body shaming women and not having black characters in a Notting Hill movie at Cheltenham literary festival. But all the dodgy shit, that's fine!

*other*

You know I am full Stockholm-syn on this dark monument that I will be forced to watch and interpret and decode and rewatch and reinterpret and recode and rebuild for the rest of my life but About Time is a straight piece of shit.

I think I was blinded by love for Colin Firth when I decided his creepy pursuit of a woman he'd never spoken to was cute.

Give Moniz agency! She’s in too!

the linking woof mentions i can forgive- richard curtis and all like him know only those fifty people from college or work upon whom they rely for getting gigs like richard curtis has

Yup yup I get where his attention goes based on background - successful politician, director of ad agency, man with a very particular set of skills - but I felt myself noticing that Freeman and Marshall were basically badly attached sketches this time out.

Oh, the Tall Guy is actually not a bad film by Curtis. It predates all this dreck by several years and features Jeff Goldblum doing a stage musical of the Elephant Man called "Elephant!" (I haven't seen this in over 30 years so it might be terrible actually)

So as I try to summarise it in my head L,A is basically the real people have interesting dramas and aren’t the other smaller people funny and charming. Art (Bill Nighy) exists in a disturbing liminal space which is neither one nor the other but provides a background texture that eventually collapses into a queer/porn space which the film turns away from.

I think Linney complicates that - she's not an important successful man, but the film cares about what happens to her.

Oh, the Tall Guy is actually not a bad film by Curtis. It predates all this dreck by several years and features Jeff Goldblum doing a stage musical of the Elephant Man called "Elephant!" (I haven't seen this in over 30 years so it might be terrible actually)

about time is maybe the creepiest film ever made. change my mind

look i know it was in november but

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Wednesday, December 27, 2023 2:10 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this was fantastic

Oh I’d never noticed till this watch that the Firth/Moniz plot is not set in Portugal - it’s Marseilles/South of France. Like there’s some particular freedom of movement/migrant labour thing going on that I can’t unpick.

France, along with Switzerland, has traditionally been the main target of immigration for ppl from the Portuguese mainland - especially during the dictatorship, when it offered working class people a better chance at escaping poverty and political dissenters a safe space. If it had been set in Portugal the idea of Moniz speaking zero English would've been too ludicrous for words - a second gen immigrant living in France I can accept, though she would speak fluent French and her Portuguese would probably be a lot less good than it is in the film.

Portuguese men also 100% do not kiss each other ever, I had to unlearn this toxic masculinity kissing my French relatives on the cheeks.