My bird insisted on dragging me out to see an squawking, gobbling turkey of a film last night. I'll give you a clue - it stars Hugh Grant.

"Love Actually" on one level manipulates the simplest sentiments of the audience, on another is just incompetently written, and on another is profoundly morally worrying. At the start of the film a man marries a woman with the level of schlock only Richard Curtis can deliver. By the end she is making eyes at his best friend for the sake of a halfway happy ending.

I knew it was going to be bad from the moment Mr Grant delivered a little lecture on the telephone messages left by 9/11 victims. From then on it was downhill all the way.

Perhaps the single worst moment is a woman's visit to her brother in a mental hospital. Apart from the utter unreality of the situation, this the most sickening attempt to to inject "authenticity" into a film I've ever seen.

Throughout the film, everyone is a cliche and lives a cliche'd life. Their houses are mews cottages, or bachelor studios, or the crisp warmth of a Heals catalogue.

All in all it was an experience that left me feeling kinda soiled inside. England isn't like this is it? Say it isn't so!

Tim

[This message was edited by Tim Jones on TUESDAY 02 December 2003 at 16:38.]

[This message was edited by Tim Jones on TUESDAY 02 December 2003 at 16:42.]

I'm willing to accept it's bad, but surely it can't even be in the same class as the American remake of Get Carter?

Regards
Steve

Or the Italian Job!

P

Do Americans believe that England and the English are as portrayed by Mr Curtis?
Tony

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Do Americans believe that England and the English are as portrayed by Mr Curtis?
Tony

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Probably no more than Brits believe America and Americans are as portrayed in various media.

"Can we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear? They've got to have them in Texas, 'cause everyone's a millionaire..."

jay

I'm sure that Love Actually is putrid, but it cannot be worse than Star Crash (from the late 70s) or, worse yet, Armageddon.


"The universe is change, life is opinion." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I just cannot understand why the Sound of Music was so popular. I found it plain bloody tedious.

Regards

Mick

Forest Gump springs to mind but probably the worst I've seen was one about a party in a U-Boat that then got sunk. The plot and the acting sank faster than the submarine.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

Tell us Tim, what did her outdoors make of it?
I can't imagine that anything with the title "Love actually" could be anything remotely watchable anyway - much like that gushing girlie simpering bollox that was "Truely, madly, deeply" - along the same putrid lines I guess.

Rash -

What I wanted to see was the reprint of "All Quiet on the Western Front". But my old lady insisted on going to see Hugh's celluloid turd. I suspect her motives were partly sadistic. But by the end of the film she had to admit this had turned to masochism. Even she, chick-flick enthusiast, was aghast. This weekend, I will be choosing the film...

Incidentally, someone mentioned 'Armageddon'. And it was that film that sprang to mind as I curled into the foetal position in my cinema seat, precisely because of the sentimental manipulation factor. The thing about Armageddon, however, is that I swear it does this in a tongue in cheek way.

Tim

I always exclude anything that is low budget from my worst films list, so here are a few that have no excuses for being so dire;
Braveheart
Matrix Reloaded
Highlander
Face Off
Mission Impossible

Also, there has been a disturbing trend for the US to re-write history in their films - usually to take credit for the actions of another country or to make the actions of another country look much worse than they were. U571 and The Patriot come to mind in this category. Perhaps we brits should make a film about how we had the first man on the moon?

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Perhaps we brits should make a film about how we had the first man on the moon?

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But even the Americans haven't been there .It was all just done from an old movie set.

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Originally posted by Todd Arola:
I'm sure that Love Actually is putrid, but it cannot be worse than Star Crash (from the late 70s) or, worse yet, Armageddon.


"The universe is change, life is opinion." Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_

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Ah, but Armageddon was very funny, well maybe the the film itself wasn't funny but the fact that it was a film was funny, I laughed most of the way through.

Matthew

Movies I think are crap:
Pearl Harbour
U 571
Independence day
Most american horror movies (very predictable, and not frightening at all)
Disney movies (pathetic, cheap sentimentalism)

Rob.

Isn't there a film called "First Men in the Moon" (based on a Jules Verne story) in which a pucker British chap (David Niven?) is clearly shown to have made the first moon landing?

And the shadows, stars, Clangers, etc were all in the correct proportions. Unlike the 60's American effort.

Tim

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Originally posted by Tim Jones:
Isn't there a film called "First Men in the Moon" (based on a Jules Verne story) in which a pucker British chap (David Niven?) is clearly shown to have made the first moon landing?
Tim

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It was actually Lionel Jeffries with Edward Judd and a pile of other middling British actors from the early sixties. Mindlessly enjoyable stuff for a wet Sunday afternoon.

Last year´s Solaris must rank as one of the most inane, meandering and pointless movies, particularly given the talent of its director (Soderbergh).

Solaris was strange - I almost thought that I was watching a good film, but I somehow lost interest half way through. I had forgotten about Pearl Harbour, though - it was (and is) truly dire.

I know old Shuggie Grant. He's a great bloke, as well as being a serious and talented actor - even if he has made some (OK, loads of) shite flicks.

Alan

Alan -

perhaps you could ask Mr Grant do do us all a favour and show us what a talented actor he is by choosing a decent script in which he does not play a decent but slightly gormless public schoolboy.

Thanks.

Tim