Monday, 20 December 2021

A rant about Love, Actually

 This. 100% This.

(Above, Pink News on Love Actually)

(Below, me on the same subject)

I watched Love Actually for the first time last night. My god it is a horrible movie. The article below sums up some of the horror, better than I could. It's such a white, male, unironic exploitative wankfest it's almost unbelievable!
Hugh Grant plays a sympathetic Bill Clinton. Liam Neeson plays Hugh Grant. Colin Firth plays Hugh Grant. Alan Rickman plays a slightly older Hugh Grant. And Bill Nighy plays Hugh Grant looking like Hugh Grant looks nowadays. Every one of them an entitled creep. One of them (Liam Hugh Grant Neeson) even teaches his son how to be an entitled creep. And the bloke out of The Walking Dead, also doing a Hugh Grant now I think about it, is the creepiest of all, breaking up his best mate's marriage then sodding off.
The only women with a storyline are Emma Thompson, who ends up getting screwed over and unhappy; Laura Linney, who ends up getting screwed over and unhappy; and the creepy woman in the office who gets a necklace and an unresolved storyline. And what's with all the women's clothes falling off, including Stacey out of Gavin & Stacey, but him out of The Office & Bill Nighy - and the silent bloke from Laura Linney's office, get to cover their willies?
And I forgot about the Kris Marshall-as-Hugh-Grant storyline. I thought that was bound to be a dream sequence. But no, it was Richard Curtis's teenage wet dream simply made real. What?
What's most inexplicable is that people express to like this film, to even love it actually, and that most of those people appear to be women. How? Why?
Does anyone have anything to say in the defence of this atrocious film?
PS: Die Hard is 100 times more Christmassy than Love Actually. Fact.


When I posted the above on Facebook I got nearly 150 replies:

    • Felicity Harper
      It's a good film exactly because of all that. It doesn't need to be ironic to get its point across - the women ALL have a stroyline - the men are just vehicles to show those storylines.
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      • Kev Sutherland
        Hang on, are you being ironic now? I find it so hard to keep up.
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      • Felicity Harper
        Kev Sutherland No, absolutely not. I can't bear the film, but it IS a good film: it shpws women being exploited by men who think the world revolves around them. Also, it's nonsense to decry a film because it is white and straight - it was made when it … 
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    • Benjamin Francis Elliott
      I think it has what many women want in a romance novel movie in the early 2000s.
      Hugh Grant
      All men acting like Hugh Grant, but in way that you think you can change them… 
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      • Kev Sutherland
        This film was made, of course, 8 years after Hugh Grant's fall from grace with a hooker in LA, and 8 years before Operation Yewtree and #MeToo. The high nipple count dates it as much as the posh bloke privilege.
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      • James Matthews
        Kev- I’m trying understand you, but the more I read, the harder it gets! So, you’re offended by women’s nipples?
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    • Sean Brightman
      The one redeeming feature of that film is that it features British Soul Singer Lyndon David Hall, before his untimely death from cancer.
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    • Steve Day
      Junior Simpson is in it, that's its one redeeming feature.
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    • Roger Poulter
      Is there something about Monday morning, this is the second rant I’ve heard from a comedian friend. You might like this Lin Smith😭😭😭
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    • Frank Plowright
      Very pleased to read this, as Lynn keeps telling me she thinls I'd enjoy it, whereas I'm convinced I wouldn't.
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      • Eli Winter
        Frank Plowright I had been told off by various girlfriends about not watching it for years and finally did bother due to peer pressure, a couple of years ago. 2 hours of my life I'll never get back (I suggest you don't waste your time either - hold you… 
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      • Glenn Miller
        Frank Plowright I saw this shortly after it came out with a GF at the time, the same one who dragged me to 4 hours of David Icke at the Brixton Academy. She wanted to walk halfway through the film. It was that bad.
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    • Dan Evans
      Re the article, The woman in the office can hardly be described as ‘creepy’.
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      • Kev Sutherland
        We were calling her creepy as we were watching it. She does a "gaping legs" mime as she's coming onto him. How uncreepy is that?
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      • Kev Sutherland
        Listen to her lines again, but this time they're read by Dawn French, being seductive. There. That's what we heard.
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    • Dan Evans
      I hardly think Hugh Grant is being Bill Clinton either. He’s implausibly sexless until him and Martine find a genuine connection. Bill was highly sexed and predatory by most accounts…
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      • Kev Sutherland
        And Martina wasn't doing a Monica. And my arse plays the banjo. 🙂
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      • Dan Evans
        Kev Sutherland that story was totally implausible but I think your reasoning is very flawed on this. As I say I didn’t buy it but it was clearly a ‘love’ story
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    • Jem Roberts
      Die Hard is still shit things-go-bang action for boys with tiny willies though.
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      • Kev Sutherland
        It's Chriiiiiiiiistmas! No, wait, that's Slade. As you were.
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      • Paul Gannon
        Jem Roberts even as someone who enjoys the comfort of the first Die Hard, it's the fact it was the antidote to the Stallone/Arnie stuff makes it less "big bangs for tiny willies"... Whereas Love Actually is a film that grows thoroughly more distasteful… 
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    • Simon Hall
      I love this film, and it still makes me cry. It’s the first film I watch when I start getting Christmassy.
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    • Dan Evans
      This film does little for me but neither do lazy take downs like this article. I think it lives or dies by the quality of the shorts that compose it… and the kris Marshall one just fuckin appalling! But to criticise it for being schmaltzy etc seems daft
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    • Lee Wells
      Well if you play Die Hard directly after Love Actually, then Alan Rickman gets his comeuppance.
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      • Lee Wells
        Mind you, there’s random boobs in that one too, mind…
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    • May be a Twitter screenshot of 2 people and text that says 'Angela Bishop @AngelaBishop Christmas movie tip. If you watch Die Hard straight after Love Actually, Alan Rickman will be punished for what he did to Emma Thompson.'
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      • Lee Wells
        i had no idea it was a thing. Been saying it for years. Mind you, Robin Hood - Prince of thieves works equally well to punish a womanising cad. But less Christmassy.
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    • Hans Jenssen
      One of the most horribly awful films I have actually wasted a small chunk of my life on. I should have given up on Richard Curtis after Notting Hill, which was nearly as bad.
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    • Garry Andrew Mullen
      It's an interesting perspective, but, I think men don't like this film in general because (rightly so) it doesn't show men in a positive light. The men are not the main feature here and if you watch the film thinking they are, you miss the point entire… 
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      • Kev Sutherland
        I was going to point out that all the women's lines sound like they've been written for Dawn French, putting on a different cartoon version of herself.
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      • Garry Andrew Mullen
        Kev Sutherland and that would fit. It's all very Dibley esque actually. Same writer though and he is a bit of a one trick pony really.
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    • Jem Jenkins Jones
      🤣🤣🤣 I just have Being John Malkcovich but with Hugh Grant in my head now. Have to admit though.. I do like the film sorry
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    • Marc Blake
      Never got through it without 🤮
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    • Adam Blaize
      Why can't people just enjoy the film without looking for an angle or a deeper meaning? It's not trying to be political or reinvent the wheel. It's just a bit of fun, that's it.
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    • Susan Fox
      Really don’t get the appeal of this film at all. Saw it at the cinema when it first came out …. Never bothered again.
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    • Reece Morris Jones
      I can see the appeal of the film. But it always puzzles me that folks saw it as a festive film.
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    • Dave Wynn
      I bloody hate this awful film with a passion, but my partner loves it! It’s so weird.
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    • Rocio Cano
      Hated it when it came out. The Kris Marshall, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant stories were cliché and cringeworthy. The Keira Knightley, Andrew thingy and Chiwetel Ejioffor love triangle (apart from how offensive to waste Chiwetel in a bit part) turned my s… 
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    • Steve Tanner
      I made £50 from this film. I was running a coffee shop at Oxo Tower in London when they were filming it. That short scene when they were sat drinking coffee near the giant Christmas tree? Those cups were provided by me as they'd forgotten to bring the props. 😁
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    • Patrick Mccann
      I have never seen this film nor intended to but had a kind of idea it might be a cheesy, glitzy Xmas romance type vehicle. However your discription of a unicorn wankfest has piqued my curiosity and I will give it a viewing purely in the interest of science!
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    • Anna Brosnan
      Disagree with some points but the "what could only be a dream sequence" in America ruins the chances of it being authentic anywhere else, office homewrecker is super creepy and that along with Laura linney storyline really enfuriates me! Hugh grant an… 
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      • Kev Sutherland
        It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a rich middle class man is given a female servant, she will automatically want to cop off with him. 🙂
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      • Anna Brosnan
        Kev Sutherland yeah actually 20 year old me had much less a of a problem, almost 40 year old me does however haha, I couldn't watch it again now 😅
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    • Gordon Rennie
      It’s basically a stalker’s manual. Just about all the male protagonists in each story are stalkers….and the film wants you to think their behaviour is just adorable.
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      • Kev Sutherland
        The kid grew up alright. Only slightly stalker-y in The Queens Gambit.
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      • Gordon Rennie
        You could remake the story with Andrew Lincoln and Kiera Knightley as a stalker horror movie and not really have to change much. … 
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    • Peter John Ewbank
      "STACY" FROM GAVIN AND STACY GET HER TITS OUT IN THIS, ITS A FILM I MUST SEE !!! 😜😍😉
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    • Peter John Ewbank
      Well read the Gentleman's Review and I definitely got see this, they all sound like TORY POLITICIANS in standard practice...
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    • I Rewatched 'Love Actually' & We Should Definitely Leave It In The Past
      REFINERY29.COM
      I Rewatched 'Love Actually' & We Should Definitely Leave It In The Past
      I Rewatched 'Love Actually' & We Should Definitely Leave It In The Past
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    • 10 unsung heroes from Love Actually who deserve recognition
      SMOOTHRADIO.COM
      10 unsung heroes from Love Actually who deserve recognition
      10 unsung heroes from Love Actually who deserve recognition
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    • Elise Harris
      I went to see it with a boyfriend who loved it. He was like one of the creepy male protagonists in every way. I thought the Emma Thompson crying scene was very affecting but the rest of it is very, very horrible. The deleted subplot with the lesbian he… 
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    • The case against Love Actually
      VOX.COM
      The case against Love Actually
      The case against Love Actually
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    • Jimi Longmuir
      I remember thinking it looked absolutely dreadful and was actually alright when I got dragged to see it in the cinema. Now I think it looks dreadful again, despite having seen it and kind of enjoying a bit 17 years ago. I'm not rewatching to try and so… 
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    • Charmian Hughes
      I’d like to see a version where the anti terror police swarm the airport and shoot the boy
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    • Rupert Wainwright
      I still really like it
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    • Rianne Rowlands
      Way too many “fat girl” jokes too (to a girl who is very NOT fat) that don’t land well today, but back in the early 00’s they were all the rage. (See Bridget Jones, movies based on one long fat girl joke!)
      I agree with most of your points (I especial… 
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      • Louisa Smith
        Rianne Rowlands yeah the jibes about Martine McCutcheon's character's weight really upset me, even back when I first saw it 😔
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      • Louisa Smith
        Rianne Rowlands and I agree about Alan Rickman! Even as a cad, I just adore every second he is on screen!
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    • Judi Stafford
      I have a good idea 💡 Don't watch it 😁
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    • May be an image of 13 people and text that says 'TO ME, YUARE ARE PERFECT AND MY WASTED HEART WILL LOVE You UNTIL YOU LOOK LIKE THIS Then I'll blow your fucking zombie head off'
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    • Marcus Brigstocke
      Oh. 🙄
      This again.… 
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      • Kev Sutherland
        Ladies and gentlemen, the best thing in the film! Merry Christmas old man.
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    • Adrian Thompson
      Watch Die Hard straight after it, and see Alan Rickman get his comeuppance for what he did to Emma Thompson…🙂
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    • Robin Smith
      Try this
      May be an image of 3 people, people standing and text that says 'John Cusack Kate Beckinsale Serendpit DVD VIDEO PG MIRAMAX'
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    • May be an image of 1 person, eyeglasses and text
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    • Emma Green
      I was always really upset by the Laura Linney storyline - I can remember saying to anyone who went on about how happy and feel good it was - but what about Laura Linney!!! What happened to her??? Is she okay? And the bit with the bloke from This Life b… 
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      • Felicity Harper
        Emma Green Gosh. I didn't think it was happy and feel good at all. I think that in itself makes it a good film in that people take such different things from it.
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    • Robin Smith
      Have you tried it with the commentary track
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    • Philip Boyce
      I'd never considered some of the points you raised but I see what you mean. What always pissed me off, right back to when the film was new, was that we were meant to be cheering on the white guy who wanted to steal away his black friend's new white bri… 
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      • Felicity Harper
        Philip Boyce What rubbish. He just wants her - irrelevant who her partner is. And who on earth would be cheering him on? The idea was to feel sorry for him for being pointlessly infatuated.
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    • Davy Francis
      I recorded it five years ago but haven't watched it all. Thanks for the heads up, Kev Sutherland, you threw yourself on the hand grenade there, matey!
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    • Kev Sutherland
      Thanks everyone for joining in with this fun thread. Now go off and buy my new Colouring Books for your family for Christmas. It's what Richard Curtis would have wanted... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09NGQXRCC
      Unofficial Eurovision Pop Star Colouring Book: 33-and-a-third brand new images & articles, adult coloring for kids of all ages (Pop Star Colouring Books)
      AMAZON.CO.UK
      Unofficial Eurovision Pop Star Colouring Book: 33-and-a-third brand new images & articles, adult coloring for kids of all ages (Pop Star Colouring Books)
      Unofficial Eurovision Pop Star Colouring Book: 33-and-a-third brand new images & articles, adult coloring for kids of all ages (Pop Star Colouring Books)
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    • Louisa Smith
      I watched it the other night and I have to say that it's not aged well! Some bits are fabulous, others contrived, unrealistic, make zero sense and a few moments are a wee bit teeth sucking!
      Play GIF
      Tenor
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    • Kathryn Spencer
      More saccharine than a tub of Canderel (Love Actually, not your colouring books).
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    • Shane Chebsey
      I'm not a fan of the movie as a whole, but Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman are bloody brilliant in it with outstanding character performances.
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    • Emily McGorman-Bruce
      FINALLY!! I loathe this film for all of the reasons you highlighted above (+ Kira Knightly clearly leads that guy on too!) It's a miserable film and I get told it's not every year!!
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    • Sian Teague
      I agree so much with this. I will always defend Notting Hill as a superior film over Love Actually. Gremlins is also more heartwarming than Love Actually…even that little flasher gremlin is not as creepy as Andrew Lincoln and the other males in it.
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      • Sian Teague
        Although I do like it when Bill Nighy says Ant OR Dec to one of them.
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    • Kevin Precious
      It's absolute drek... it was at the time, and I can only imagine the ageing process has made it worse... oh, and when you take it out to the bin, can you take 'Yesterday' with it?
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    • Marc Blake
      Cannot get through it without 🤮🤮🤮
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