On Monday I saw Sideways and it was excellent. I’m not sure how much play it’s getting across the country but it’s from the director of About Schmidt with Paul Giamatti. It’s been playing in Napa since it was released because hey, it’s about wine. Not that I know anything about wine myself so don’t let that keep you from watching it. It’s quirky and hilarious in the “people sure are funny” kind of real-life way. (there’s just so many kinds of comedies)

Also caught Finding Neverland on Wednesday. Yet another lovely performance by Johnny Depp as usual. Kate Winslet was excellent, I’ve never seen her so motherly, it was a little odd ^^;; It wasn’t absolutely fantastic but it was charming and made my eyes water. Just a couple times really =P

Now for an actual review worth being called a review. I watched Love Actually for the first time since it came to dvd. I saw it on the big screen once but had missed the first 20-25 minutes. Sooo after having seen the first bits, my opinion has not changed. It’s still a C+ movie. It’s just amazing to me the love the movie has received from the LJ fandom, well the fandoms I’m slightly more familiar with HP and H/D. Now I know we all love Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, etc. But holy crap, it just wasn’t that great.

The problem with such an excellent cast is it’s such a big cast. I just don’t quite know where they were going with it. They apparently didn’t know either judging by the deleted scenes. What on earth was the African picture thing…?

Ok, story. You have these segments of different plots about love. A new widower helps with his stepson’s love life. A husband is invited to have an affair with his employee. The new (unmarried) prime minister falls for his secretary. There are plenty more which are all connected by someone knowing someone. One plot is treated as hopeless. It can’t work no matter how much they want it because of family situations. The plot of the affair is left open ended by what happened. So we have a few plots which are treated realistically in that sometimes it just can’t work. And a few plots which are just hopelessly romantic like Hugh Grant’s bit (of course, as the prime minister).

And for no apparent reason is the stupidest plot imaginable, made for shits and giggles (I really don’t know), where Colin goes to America to try his luck with the ladies and what do you know? “We don’t have much money so we can’t afford heat and we only have one bed and no couch.”

Putting that aside, overall we have a long movie with not quite enough attention on some plots. And yet there are two scenes in which have too much attention. The first is Keira Knightley’s and um that other dude’s. She has come over to his place to watch the wedding tape and has just realized he’s been avoiding her not because he doesn’t like her, but because he likes her in that way. He leaves and proceeds to have an emotional walk. It’s a great moment in which to show his anxiety, worry, anger. But it goes on for far too long.

The same is true in Emma Thompson’s emotional breakdown scene. She has just realized the expensive gold necklace in her husband’s coat was not meant for her and proceed’s to play Joni Mitchell(the gift she did get) in their bedroom and cry. Once again, the point with which we see the buildup and a good display of emotions passes and we continue to wait and watch her pull herself together.

Honestly, what I think happened is the director drew out the scenes for so long, not out of an idea that the audience needs to watch longer but that the music must be listened to for that long. There is a great emphasis on music in this movie but I think there was too much of a focus on it. With so many plots and characters, the use of camera shots, camera tricks, and music should be used to reconnect to the past related scenes instead of basing each scene off unique music. We don’t neccessarily need music to build an emotional high in a film. Good movie music for such emotional moments is subtle. Most of the time ^_^ But I’m not explaining myself very clearly. I just know the scene’s end was much farther than they should have been!

Ugh, and the deleted airport scene. Thank god they didn’t use that one. It would have been truly absurd for Sam to be doing acrobatics every which way and where would that leave the realism and non-absurdity of the Laura Linney scenes? Oi.

I should have warned you I don’t think that highly of romantic comedies. They’re enjoyable to a degree and there is one I absolutely adore alongside my other movies and there are many lovely movies that have the makings of a romantic comedy but… Yea, truly good ones don’t happen a whooole lot.