Love. It’s a beautiful feeling. And it’s the worst pain one can experience. But “Love Actually” is a celebration of both sides of love. Longing, happy marriages, and crushes, and oh so much more. Deep down it’s a dedication to the people of 9/11, as the introduction declares, and it’s plenty resonant in the all-star tribute with a humongous cast of talented actors from Liam Neeson to Colin Firth right down to Martin Freeman, Elisha Cuthbert, and Billy Bob Thorton. In this episodic Capra-esque fairytale, we meet a large group of people experiencing life and love in all ends of the terminology. There are really too many sub-plots to mention, but I’ll try.
Tag Archives: Romance
Peter Pan (2003)
The millionth adaptation of the iconic kids epic written by J.M. Barrie gets a more faithful, loyal, and perhaps a darker edgier tone this time with the contemporary version directed by P.J. Hogan of “Muriel’s Wedding” who gives incredible and stunning direction this time around providing very entertaining adventure fare for all ages. I love the story of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie created a timeless allegory about the child in everyone, and how it’s always good to reconnect with the magic that made childhood so amazing, not to mention it’s a damn fun fairy tale. P.J. Hogan whose filmography consists mostly of low-key films creates an stunning landscape with Neverland that I haven’t seen in years.
Willard (2003)
“Willard” 2003 has a very Tim Burton motif that just didn’t work and with characters that were over the top, and a love interest that’s under-used, it’s not hard to believe there’s barely a story to see here, especially one that is just comprised of Willard seeking revenge on his enemies through the mice. There’s nothing but filler and mild violence that hardly displays the carnage of the mice who are supposed to be the devil incarnate, the devil in Willard, but nothing is accomplished except a lot of tricks involving rats. This time around, there’s a loon playing a loon, in this case Crispin Glover who is delightfully over the top as Willard himself.
My Life Without Me (2003)
This is a beautiful portrait and character study of life and death, and is pleasantly heavy with symbolism. It also observes one persons attempt at achieving personal goals she never could do, or have the guts to do in their life. The lovely Sarah Polley plays Ann, a workaday woman who is a janitor for a school and goes home to her trailer with her husband and two daughters living a mostly simple life with her overbearing mom and life she’s pretty comfortable with. One day during work she starts getting sick and goes to the hospital where her doctor tells her she has an inoperable tumor and is slowly dying. Somehow Ann seems prepared to face death and the concept of death here, and it doesn’t take much time for her to accept her death and that her daughters may grow up without a mother, thus she begins to really live life while she begins dying.
American Splendor (2003)
“American Splendor” is the biographical film of cult underground critically acclaimed writer Harvey Pekar, a man whose become synonymous with underground comics. What “American Splendor” does is rare, rather than adhering the normal formulas of the biopic with dramatic tones, the obligatory villains and hardships, it’s approached rather with a realistic combination of comedy, drama, animation, and documentary style with interviews along with Pekar’s usual loving sense of self-loathing. “American Splendor” is a film rich with human overtones, and human characters that aren’t appealing to the eye, but are completely realistic.
Sylvia (2003)
While Paltrow does manage to give an inspired performance that shows effort, the problem with “Sylvia” is it romanticizes someone who was obviously stricken with a horrible mental disability. As always, poets and singers who manage to commit suicide are portrayed as people who have done something elegant, a deed such as suicide is portrayed here with such a fantastic and dreamy nature and never does it focus on the sheer extreme results such as misery. This manages to romanticize suicide and takes a woman who had obviously a mental illness and makes her seem as if suicide was a grand gesture to end her misery when in fact it was just sad.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2003)
This is Tarantino’s fourth film after a self imposed hiatus in filmmaking. Originally set to be one whole film, the studios made him split his long story into two films, possibly for franchising opportunities, but who knows? I watched “Kill Bill” with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a child looking onto his first action film, and Tarantino’s first attempt at the action genre, and I was stunned. The “Kill Bill” franchise has become a hit, commercially, critically, and with Tarantino’s fiercely devoted fan base, who have stuck by the prolific director. Tarantino manages to set yet another precedent with “Kill Bill” which is simply a brilliant movie. I admit, I’m not a fan of Tarantino’s, he makes brilliant work and “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” are excellent, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. “Kill Bill Vol. 1” has me re-considering my thoughts, though.
This is the same old revenge flick we’ve seen in every Japanese martial arts film, and western, and Tarantino knows that, and that’s his mission, to make a film of his very own, his very own revenge flick paying tribute to his favorite films, his very own film that resembles a Japanese exploitation saga right down to the theme music, which is beautiful from funkadelic soul, to Japanese pop, to the theme song of “The Green Hornet” that really had me high. This movie is not only a thrill to watch but is also a good game you can play called “spot the reference”. There are dozens of movie references here, and hell, it could make a good drinking game. For every movie reference you spot you take a shot.