Actually
Ok, that settles it. I'm hateblogging Love, Actually upon the occasion of it being ten years since Hollywood shat it at us.
It's been years since I saw it so honestly I don't remember it in great detail except the worst scenes.
Is the voiceover Hugh Grant? It sounds like him. When he gets down in the dumps, he tells us, he thinks of the arrivals gate at Heathrow. Love is always there, he (or someone) is telling us, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, though as I recall this movie, nobody of the same sex, because we are not part of the whole love extravaganza. Which is fine. Anonymous bathhouse hookups vs. love as it is portrayed here? I know which I like better! Meanwhile, did he really go there about 9/11? Romantic!
So first of all there's the plot line about the aging rock star which is the least emetic plot line.
Then there's Colin Firth leaving to go to a wedding. "Did I mention that I love you?" Colin Firth says to a red shirt, in Star Trek terms, who is his wife. "Yes, you did!" WRITING.
Emma Thompson is a sensible mom! They ruin an actually funny line "there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Christ?" with the kid responding, "duh!" You're too young for that sarcasm, and besides, it went out with Mrs. Fiske.
Some guy who is funny looking but I would definitely fuck him is delivering food to people in an office with commentary, and they all want him to shut up and hand over the food, which is his job so you can't blame them.
Martin Freeman is pretending to fuck a blonde woman up the ass. They're like lighting stand-ins for a porn film or something. Meet cute! Actually it's a slightly funny idea. Let's see how they ruin it. I don't remember! It might have been less cloying if they had been actual porn actors. Fuck, Actually.
Now we're at a wedding. I missed what the one guy said to the other but it seems like a lot of trouble to rewind.
Hugh Grant runs England! English politicians: generally that good looking for sure. I think we're about to get to one of two plots about someone fucking the help and it leading to true love without any silly power imbalance causing problems, but I might be wrong. British people cursing, automatically funny, and scene.
Oh hey, hard-to-spell-name is marrying D&D-player's-wet-dream. Who is at their wedding? The person who least belongs in this movie, fine and lovable actor Laura Linney. Well, we all need a paycheck. Also you won't believe this, but someone set up a flashmob for their wedding in the form of a soul-deadening church-friendly arrangement of "All You Need is Fuck." (Sorry, just decided I'm changing every instance of "love" to "fuck" for the duration of this hateblog.) What a piece of luck that 3 of their friends play trombone! Good looking guy who I can't place high-fives the priest, because it's going to be that kind of movie.
Colin Firth comes home early from the wedding and his brother is there looking guilty and makes a stupid excuse for being there with CF's wife who didn't want to go to the wedding. Colin Firth is not exactly a genius. Wife shouts something sexual that I guarantee no living being has ever shouted. "Hurry up big boy, I'm naked and I want you at least twice before Colin Firth gets home!" or words to that effect. I know I'm aroused. Anyway it's years before anyone will invent the awkward turtle, so nobody does that.
Weird Looking Cater Waiter I Would Fuck walks into an awkward comedy trope, insults a woman, then says he's worked out that he can't date because English women are stuck up. As I recall, this later turns out to be TOTALLY TRUE AND AMERICAN GIRLS ALL WANT HIM IN THEM. It looks like he's mostly a tv actor.
Liam Neeson, crackin' jokes at his wife's funeral. As you do. There's a montage of slides with music by the Bay City Rollers. As there is. At a funeral. Nobody actually sheds a tear. She must not have been that attractive.
Cute guy is named Andrew Lincoln. Gay panic = comic relief. Laura Linney's ugly boss shames her for being in love with a colleague and tells her to ask him out. "Think about it. For all our sakes. It's Christmas." Ok, sure. You can put those words together. No rule saying you can't.
The Bill Nighy scenes really do fail to suck as much as the rest. The scenes with Hugh Grant do not. It's sort of his personal assistant that he's in fuck with. (He knows literally nothing about her, of course, beyond what neighborhood she lives in, but is so mad for her he can't deal and has her transferred, hopefully to a different movie. But I'm getting ahead of the, er, "plot.")
I feel like you can very slightly see Martin Freeman's cock in this scene.
Is Laura Linney's ugly boss Alan Rickman? I always forget what he looks like.
Emma Thompson says to Liam Neeson "get a grip. People hate sissies. No one's gonna shag you if you cry all the time." Thanks Emma Thompson, how's your career lately? Liam Neeson has trouble talking to his son. Me, I can't blame him. The kid is 3 or 7 or something. Under about sixteen and what the hell can you say to them? It turns out his son isn't upset about his mother's death but is acting weird because he's in fuck with some girl in his class. Sociopath. "Worse than the total agony of being in love?" he asks his dad in response to something I missed because I don't care.
Hugh Grant takes a break from running England, which doesn't actually look that taxing, to hit on his assistant in the name of not being elitist. She leaves the room and he asks a portrait of Margaret Thatcher "did you have this kind of problem?" and the portrait is like "no, I was mostly pretty busy destroying the future."
Inappropriate Possible Alan Rickman is Inappropriate. His creepy secretary very clearly wants to do bondagey things with him. I wish they'd get it over with.
Cuckolded Colin Firth is maybe a novelist, but the kind with a little cottage on the continent, with staff. More fucking the help! She's Portuguese, the maid, and it looks like mostly she doesn't clean; the job description was more like "must have references and be willing to be a nonsensical plot device." He doesn't speak Portuguese. She looks really unhappy, maybe because she doesn't want to be a maid, or has an intuition that a guy whose wife just fucked his admittedly cuter brother is going to find her wonderfully non-threatening, but also possibly fleetingly so when it turns out she's a person. He keeps trying with the Portuguese and seems put out when she doesn't immediately undress to celebrate his effort.
This is maybe the dumbest but not the worst scene in the movie: He's typing out by a lovely lake and, unimaginably, a wind blows, and half of his book blows into the lake. We know he's a good writer because he's so soulful he's writing on a typewriter so oh well, no more book! She undresses in languid camera-friendly gestures and jumps into the pond, then he jumps in, and absolutely the worst music is playing, she says "who the hell doesn't make copies!" in Portuguese and he says "I really must make copies!" in not-Portuguese and it goes on like that and....and...could this be fuck? Are they falling in fuck?
Oh so this scene. Keira Knightly stops being in Arthurian softcore for long enough to drop by cute guy's house and barges in and says "oh hey, I know you stare at me all the time so I assume you hate me, but could you try to be nice to me?" and he's like "derp" and she grabs a tape (2003? VHS?) of her wedding and the music sounds for a second like Spiegel in Spiegeln which would be hilarious but it's not, and then the video is a grillion shots of her face and RUN, KEIRA KNIGHTLY! RUN AS IF YOU WERE BEING CHASED BY AN ORC IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT CAN CHASE PEOPLE AND NOT SOME KIND OF TREE SPIRIT OR SOMETHING! She sorta slowly puts it together and actually it's the first part of the movie that evokes any emotional response at all in me, because unrequited love really does suck, but also RUN FAR FAR AWAY! HE WANTS TO HAVE YOU STUFFED AND MOUNTED!
Oh ugh. I forgot about this scene. Liam Neeson and his peculiar looking son watch Titanic and reenact the stupid iconic scene. Why god doesn't strike them dead, I don't know.
Colin Firth and his maid keep talking to/at/near each other even though neither of them understands a thing the other is saying. This is cute? They can only show it for like one minute at a time because otherwise both actors would just walk away and find new careers, because nobody would ever, ever do that.
Now Laura Linney gets her plot I think. The hot guy asks her to dance at the...maybe it's an office holiday party? It's hard to tell. There are large pictures of naked people. Maybe he has an art opening? Well, whatevs. There's dancing and it switches to a slow song right as they start dancing, wouldn't you know it. It's like Nora Jones or something because 2003. He takes her home. They're gonna fuck. He's so pretty he's not hot. Laura Linney keeps answering the cell phone when her mentally ill brother calls because she's a decent person, which isn't hot, so her trick hits the road and Laura Linney never gets laid again because she isn't a disembodied vagina. This is truly the most miserable part of the movie.
Ok there's an hour of this fucking shit left. Maybe I'll watch the rest tomorrow.
It's been years since I saw it so honestly I don't remember it in great detail except the worst scenes.
Is the voiceover Hugh Grant? It sounds like him. When he gets down in the dumps, he tells us, he thinks of the arrivals gate at Heathrow. Love is always there, he (or someone) is telling us, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, though as I recall this movie, nobody of the same sex, because we are not part of the whole love extravaganza. Which is fine. Anonymous bathhouse hookups vs. love as it is portrayed here? I know which I like better! Meanwhile, did he really go there about 9/11? Romantic!
So first of all there's the plot line about the aging rock star which is the least emetic plot line.
Then there's Colin Firth leaving to go to a wedding. "Did I mention that I love you?" Colin Firth says to a red shirt, in Star Trek terms, who is his wife. "Yes, you did!" WRITING.
Emma Thompson is a sensible mom! They ruin an actually funny line "there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Christ?" with the kid responding, "duh!" You're too young for that sarcasm, and besides, it went out with Mrs. Fiske.
Some guy who is funny looking but I would definitely fuck him is delivering food to people in an office with commentary, and they all want him to shut up and hand over the food, which is his job so you can't blame them.
Martin Freeman is pretending to fuck a blonde woman up the ass. They're like lighting stand-ins for a porn film or something. Meet cute! Actually it's a slightly funny idea. Let's see how they ruin it. I don't remember! It might have been less cloying if they had been actual porn actors. Fuck, Actually.
Now we're at a wedding. I missed what the one guy said to the other but it seems like a lot of trouble to rewind.
Hugh Grant runs England! English politicians: generally that good looking for sure. I think we're about to get to one of two plots about someone fucking the help and it leading to true love without any silly power imbalance causing problems, but I might be wrong. British people cursing, automatically funny, and scene.
Oh hey, hard-to-spell-name is marrying D&D-player's-wet-dream. Who is at their wedding? The person who least belongs in this movie, fine and lovable actor Laura Linney. Well, we all need a paycheck. Also you won't believe this, but someone set up a flashmob for their wedding in the form of a soul-deadening church-friendly arrangement of "All You Need is Fuck." (Sorry, just decided I'm changing every instance of "love" to "fuck" for the duration of this hateblog.) What a piece of luck that 3 of their friends play trombone! Good looking guy who I can't place high-fives the priest, because it's going to be that kind of movie.
Colin Firth comes home early from the wedding and his brother is there looking guilty and makes a stupid excuse for being there with CF's wife who didn't want to go to the wedding. Colin Firth is not exactly a genius. Wife shouts something sexual that I guarantee no living being has ever shouted. "Hurry up big boy, I'm naked and I want you at least twice before Colin Firth gets home!" or words to that effect. I know I'm aroused. Anyway it's years before anyone will invent the awkward turtle, so nobody does that.
Weird Looking Cater Waiter I Would Fuck walks into an awkward comedy trope, insults a woman, then says he's worked out that he can't date because English women are stuck up. As I recall, this later turns out to be TOTALLY TRUE AND AMERICAN GIRLS ALL WANT HIM IN THEM. It looks like he's mostly a tv actor.
Liam Neeson, crackin' jokes at his wife's funeral. As you do. There's a montage of slides with music by the Bay City Rollers. As there is. At a funeral. Nobody actually sheds a tear. She must not have been that attractive.
Cute guy is named Andrew Lincoln. Gay panic = comic relief. Laura Linney's ugly boss shames her for being in love with a colleague and tells her to ask him out. "Think about it. For all our sakes. It's Christmas." Ok, sure. You can put those words together. No rule saying you can't.
The Bill Nighy scenes really do fail to suck as much as the rest. The scenes with Hugh Grant do not. It's sort of his personal assistant that he's in fuck with. (He knows literally nothing about her, of course, beyond what neighborhood she lives in, but is so mad for her he can't deal and has her transferred, hopefully to a different movie. But I'm getting ahead of the, er, "plot.")
I feel like you can very slightly see Martin Freeman's cock in this scene.
Is Laura Linney's ugly boss Alan Rickman? I always forget what he looks like.
Emma Thompson says to Liam Neeson "get a grip. People hate sissies. No one's gonna shag you if you cry all the time." Thanks Emma Thompson, how's your career lately? Liam Neeson has trouble talking to his son. Me, I can't blame him. The kid is 3 or 7 or something. Under about sixteen and what the hell can you say to them? It turns out his son isn't upset about his mother's death but is acting weird because he's in fuck with some girl in his class. Sociopath. "Worse than the total agony of being in love?" he asks his dad in response to something I missed because I don't care.
Hugh Grant takes a break from running England, which doesn't actually look that taxing, to hit on his assistant in the name of not being elitist. She leaves the room and he asks a portrait of Margaret Thatcher "did you have this kind of problem?" and the portrait is like "no, I was mostly pretty busy destroying the future."
Inappropriate Possible Alan Rickman is Inappropriate. His creepy secretary very clearly wants to do bondagey things with him. I wish they'd get it over with.
Cuckolded Colin Firth is maybe a novelist, but the kind with a little cottage on the continent, with staff. More fucking the help! She's Portuguese, the maid, and it looks like mostly she doesn't clean; the job description was more like "must have references and be willing to be a nonsensical plot device." He doesn't speak Portuguese. She looks really unhappy, maybe because she doesn't want to be a maid, or has an intuition that a guy whose wife just fucked his admittedly cuter brother is going to find her wonderfully non-threatening, but also possibly fleetingly so when it turns out she's a person. He keeps trying with the Portuguese and seems put out when she doesn't immediately undress to celebrate his effort.
This is maybe the dumbest but not the worst scene in the movie: He's typing out by a lovely lake and, unimaginably, a wind blows, and half of his book blows into the lake. We know he's a good writer because he's so soulful he's writing on a typewriter so oh well, no more book! She undresses in languid camera-friendly gestures and jumps into the pond, then he jumps in, and absolutely the worst music is playing, she says "who the hell doesn't make copies!" in Portuguese and he says "I really must make copies!" in not-Portuguese and it goes on like that and....and...could this be fuck? Are they falling in fuck?
Oh so this scene. Keira Knightly stops being in Arthurian softcore for long enough to drop by cute guy's house and barges in and says "oh hey, I know you stare at me all the time so I assume you hate me, but could you try to be nice to me?" and he's like "derp" and she grabs a tape (2003? VHS?) of her wedding and the music sounds for a second like Spiegel in Spiegeln which would be hilarious but it's not, and then the video is a grillion shots of her face and RUN, KEIRA KNIGHTLY! RUN AS IF YOU WERE BEING CHASED BY AN ORC IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT CAN CHASE PEOPLE AND NOT SOME KIND OF TREE SPIRIT OR SOMETHING! She sorta slowly puts it together and actually it's the first part of the movie that evokes any emotional response at all in me, because unrequited love really does suck, but also RUN FAR FAR AWAY! HE WANTS TO HAVE YOU STUFFED AND MOUNTED!
Oh ugh. I forgot about this scene. Liam Neeson and his peculiar looking son watch Titanic and reenact the stupid iconic scene. Why god doesn't strike them dead, I don't know.
Colin Firth and his maid keep talking to/at/near each other even though neither of them understands a thing the other is saying. This is cute? They can only show it for like one minute at a time because otherwise both actors would just walk away and find new careers, because nobody would ever, ever do that.
Now Laura Linney gets her plot I think. The hot guy asks her to dance at the...maybe it's an office holiday party? It's hard to tell. There are large pictures of naked people. Maybe he has an art opening? Well, whatevs. There's dancing and it switches to a slow song right as they start dancing, wouldn't you know it. It's like Nora Jones or something because 2003. He takes her home. They're gonna fuck. He's so pretty he's not hot. Laura Linney keeps answering the cell phone when her mentally ill brother calls because she's a decent person, which isn't hot, so her trick hits the road and Laura Linney never gets laid again because she isn't a disembodied vagina. This is truly the most miserable part of the movie.
Ok there's an hour of this fucking shit left. Maybe I'll watch the rest tomorrow.