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By
Castor |
Directed by Richard Curtis, Love Actually is a British romantic comedy that follows the lives of eight different couples during the weeks leading to Christmas in London, England. I’m not going to attempt to give a synopsis but let’s just say the movie is a collection of loosely inter-related vignettes of the eight couples and their respective love story. The movie stars the likes of Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, and Laura Linney. Yes, just look at the movie poster on the left, so many names they could not all fit on it!
Imagine if you were dropped in a giant tub of corn syrup and then rolled around in a big bowl of powdered sugar, that’s how sugary and syrupy this movie is from the very first instant which begins with no less than a voice over. Unlike some, I am not a cynic and I have nothing against cheesy, corny or sugary but this is OVERKILL. Love Actually makes you believe that everyone has love on their mind 24/7 and although that’s obviously not true, I don’t even fault the movie for this. There is nothing glaringly wrong about this movie, it just goes to reinforce all the stereotypes about romantic comedies: overly sugar-coated and cliched premises and characters, fake and unauthentic dialogue and situations, and shallow completely uni-dimensional characters. Running at 135 minutes, Love Actually would benefit from not having as many characters so we can actually stick with each couple longer, especially given the fact that several of the story lines seem completely extraneous (the two porn actors, the dude who goes to Wisconsin for example). The acting is fairly solid but the actors have little time to establish themselves and their characters are all skin-deep stereotypes. Oh the music, the movie is basically a pop song montage after another, talk about overkill!
A charming but ultimately overly glossy, syrupy and implausible celebration of love. Where are the real movies?
C+
Notes: Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language. 135 minutes
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Rating: 6.9/10 (7 votes cast)
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By
Castor |
As this decade is coming to an end, I’ve been loading up on tons of movies so I will be able to make an informed best movies of the decade article a few weeks from now in collaboration with Red from Rediculous ideas. The next few reviews are going to be about movies that have gone way under the radar.
Kinsey, directed and written by Bill Condon, is the portrait of Alfred Charles Kinsey (Liam Neeson), a biologist who made his name with his research on human sexuality and who is widely seen as the father of sexology. At a time when sex was an extremely taboo subject, Kinsey published a book called Sexual Behavior of the Human Male after interviewing thousands of people about their sexual habits. He became a highly controversial figure when he published the female counterpart of his first book. He soon lost his funding and university support to continue his work, and soon after, his health began to fail. People came to question the way he collected his data such as filming couples having sex (even members of his staff having adulterous intercourse) and saw him as an immoral and proselytizing man but was he? Condon takes a look at Kinsey’s background: His repressed childhood, his relationship with his authoritarian and puritan father, and his relationship with his wife (Laura Linney) among others are what lead Kinsey to become the controversial but enlightened figure he is known as, according to Condon.
Liam Neeson is as brilliant as he has ever been, portraying a man obsessed with his work and giving him scientific detachment but also possibly some sort of perverted fulfillment of his own sexual desire. His external intensity is nuanced with internal insecurities and clumsiness. Laura Linney is her usual reliable self and gives a solid performance as the loving wife married to a weird (let’s face it!) man with odd views of love and sex. Peter Sarsgaard is quickly becoming one of the very best actor of his generation. He is playing the bisexual assistant researcher Clyde Martin and let’s just say he gets involved with both Kinsey and Kinsey’s wife intimately seeding trouble among the couple.
Well directed and brilliantly acted bio-pic but not for everyone.
B
Note: R-Rated for obvious reasons
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Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
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By
Castor |
Quick synopsis: Liam Neeson plays former CIA agent Bryan Mills. His daughter Kim goes on a little vacation trip to Paris where she is kidnapped by some Albanian prostitution ring . Bryan Mills, being the biggest living badass in the Western hemisphere flies to Paris to get his daughter back. The viewer follows his adventures as he destroy a good chunk of the French capital, wrecks a few cars, kills a couple hundred bad guys, and retrieve his daughter. All of this in about 93 minutes.
Fast-paced action movie, don’t expect much else. Liam Neeson put up a very good performance, although he didn’t have to do much in terms of emotion except look angry. Very good fight scenes. Weak plot and many holes but who cares?
C
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Rating: 8.0/10 (4 votes cast)
Directed by Richard Curtis, Love Actually is a British romantic comedy that follows the lives of eight different couples during the weeks leading to Christmas in London, England. I’m not going to attempt to give a synopsis but let’s just say the movie is a collection of loosely inter-related vignettes of the eight couples and their respective love story. The movie stars the likes of Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, and Laura Linney. Yes, just look at the movie poster on the left, so many names they could not all fit on it!
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