College Movie Project: Christmas Movies!

Fall 2003: Love Actually 



Movie Facts:
Directed by Richard Curtis
Google Genre: Comedy Drama/Drama (redundancy, it also repeats itself) 
Movie Tagline: Love actually is all around. 
Actors: This was one of the first of one of those movies with 9 million actors you know and love. Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, and Emma Thompson- love them all!!! They're fun and British and delightful. 

Before Rewatch: 
Christmas movie! I probably saw this 3 times in the movie theater I loved it! It's fun and light hearted. It's a Christmas tradition. I doubt I've skipped watching it a single year since it came out and probably watched it multiple times. For a while I was in charge of  our Christmas movie playlist so this was always on there...along with Apocalypse Now...but mostly this. I love this movie and can always watch it. 

After Rewatch:
I don't get all the hate for this movie, besides the unrealistic airport scenarios and the fantasy aspects of it I still love it! Bill Nighy is delightful, Kiera Knightley is gorgeous as usual. I still scream at the Alan Rickman character for being a total idiot! What is wrong with you!?  Laura Linney's sister character is also horribly annoying- why does her brother how such unbelievable access to a phone...

"Would we call her chubby?" Thank you Hugh Grant! So this was Fall 2003, this was probably the first time I was ever consciously aware of the whole people calling NORMAL sized women fat OMG. I remember totally not seeing this or understanding it before then. I'd always heard and listened to women complain about too skinny women (Ally McBeal was my favorite TV show for a while) but I guess I hadn't really seen it till then. I remember thinking the Natalie character looked amazing, she was pretty and totally not fat. I had a friend who I totally thought looked like her (She really did) and I told her and she got so offended because she said she was fat- SHE IS NOT FAT your freak! Anyways side track...

Funny to think about any national leader being able to do what Hugh Grant does unnoticed. So if it was today there would immediately be photographers following the motorcade and finding the Prime Minister at a local school. 

This movie is endlessly quotable too- "there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?" or "And I'm sorry for all the cock-ups, my cabinet are absolute crap" or " Don't buy drugs, become a popstar and they give them to you for free!" 

Love this movie will rewatch...proabbly at least one more time this year before Christmas...it's on the holiday rotation. 

Fall 2005: Rent 

Movie Facts:
Directed by Chris Columbus 
Google Genre: Drama/Romance (ummm how about Musical?)
Movie Tagline: No day but today.
Actors: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia from the Original Broadway cast and they look and sound amazing! They brought in a few new folks Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thomas and they're fab too.  

Before Rewatch: 
My HS and College BFF Robynne and I went to see this over Thanksgiving break. We were like the only ones in the theater and it was a huge theater over at Huebner Oaks. We were super excited and cried and remember doing Selections Rent in HS. I remember HATING that they cut Halloween! One of my favorite songs, but I still loved it and thought it was awesome. How does Taye Diggs not age? He looked/looks and sounds amazing. Idina, Jesse and Wilson too! They did not age! Adam and Anthony well they may have aged but they still sounded great. But I remember loving it and this was before I was too angry about movie musicals cutting songs (flashforward to my violent hostility with Into the Woods- fuck that shit).

After Rewatch:
Love. Still love it. I have never cried at the end of Rent, I've always cried during One Song Glory, Goodbye Love, Will I...uhhhg it kills me! Also "I'd be happy to die for a taste of what Angel had" I die. Also I want to sing that harmony with someone...

I can't think of any number it really improves on...I enjoy the hallucination in Tango but that's about it. I get annoyed in What You Own with the New Mexico stuff just visually it's excessive. I enjoy Mark being on the roof and stuff but Roger's stuff is distracting. OOOhh Santa Fe the number though I love! I do enjoy it on the subway. And the funeral also kills me. So good! 

"There will always be women in rubber flirting with me!" so true. Such a fun scene. 

Okay criticisms, gonna force myself, the visible breath looks totally fake!  I actually remember listening to the audio commentary by Chris Columbus a hundred years ago and he talked about it - when it was real it looked fake and when it was fake it looked real so funny. But it's totally distracting sometimes. I miss Halloween still. I also miss some of the extra narrative in Rent and Goodbye Love. I'll Cover You while one of my favorite songs totally is over choreographed I don't know what happened there but the fake running is awful. I miss that they don't sing-through the dialogue - recitative. 

This is also probably one of the only movie musicals I have to actively stop myself from singing along to. Most of them I can just watch or have in the background, but this one I start singing along...constantly. 

Previous Movie Posts:

College movie project overview
Fall 2006 - Stranger than Fiction
Clerks 2, Lost in Translation, Sideways and V

Saved and Closer

Kids Movies: Harry Potter, Narnia and Incredibles