Rating: 
Summary: love actually
Review: Love actually is the best movie ever made! Its hilarious, and occasionally touching. It should be played every christmas...or even, better every week!! I can't wait 'till it is out on dvd. It deserves every award there is! Hugh Grant is the best looking thing that ever walked the earth, and he is fab in this!
Rating: 
Summary: It's actually about love
Review: Love Actually is about love. All kinds of love. First love, lost love, unrequited love, parent-child love, betrayed love and more. The fact that all the characters are connected somehow makes it very interesting, although sometimes confusing.I expected a pure romantic comedy but was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the film. Yes, there's romance and lots of comedy but there are also some sad and bittersweet moments. The cast is amazing and seem perfectly suited to their roles. The soundtrack is fantastic, as well. If you want a feel-good movie for the holiday weekend, Love Actually should fit the bill.
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Summary: If They Gave Acadamy Awards for "Most Enjoyable" Film...
Review: ...this movie would be my choice for 2003. It's a perfect "forget your troubles" kind of film with a cast so good and characters so likeable it's no effort at all to suspend your disbelief and emotionally dive right in. That's not to say it's complete fluff; the message (a lesson on the myriad forms, stages and costs of love) is very real and very important, but it's delivered with a spoonful of sugar rather than a syringe. A highly recommended antidote to the cynicism one is apt to pick up while doing the holiday shopping.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful film! Awful acting! Incomplete story line! Yuck!
Review: For starters, and we were shocked at the unnecessary nudity. The lack of completion with the stories. We wanted to see this film because we like Alan Rickman. It was billed as a "funny, romantic comedy". It was anything but...Alan Rickman plays a married man who is tempted by his secretary to "cheat mentally" or at least to give her a Christmas necklace...this story ends with Rickman and Thompson (his wife) staying together "for the children's sake"? Who knows? The story line is never finished...and that was the best of the stories in this film! What a disappointment! Would give it a "no star" rating if possible, but the lowest rating is a one star.
Rating:
Summary: Shameless!
Review: I started to smile during the opening credits, which are real, heart-tugging holiday reunions at Heathrow Airport, and I never stopped until the very LAST credits, more of the same. If you love your Brits, like I do, and in particular, if the Brits you love include the likes of Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, and a host of others, as they say, then you will be in UK heaven. Hugh Grant plays, of all things, the newly elected British Prime Minister, a bachelor who secretly wonders whether he can really do the job. But the plot goes well beyond Number Ten...to a hodgepoge of different people, young and old, who are grappling with love in all its forms. We have two young and innocent porn stars (a hilarious thought in itself) who shyly fall in love while nudely achieving the most unabandoned coupling in front of cameras and film crew. There is a mystery writer who suddenly finds himself alone at Christmas, and escapes to Portugal only to fall in love with his gorgeous young housekeeper--who speaks not a word of English. There is the recent widower (played poignantly by Liam Neeson) who must help his 10-year-old stepson through his own agonizing love affair and the loss of his mum...and so on and so on and so on...until the movie reaches its star comic turn: Bill Nighy as a washed-up, drugged-up, almost brain-dead former pop idol whose horrible remake of an old hit ("Love Is All Around You") hits the airwaves just in time for Christmas. As the old goat makes the rounds of the talk shows and pop TV venues, he speaks his mind--and then some. Truly a star turn for Nighy, who is absolutely hilarious. OK, you might gather I loved this movie. And so I did. If it was the old days, where you paid for your ticket and had the right to sit in the theater all day long, I would have done so. I don't think I can wait another week before seeing it again. Just right for the holidays--enjoy!!
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Summary: Love is all around, once again, actually
Review: Just the tonic needed during my fall break from college. This movie is not only British, has Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, but was directed by Ben Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and Notting Hill. Love Actually begins with a voiceover by Hugh Grant affirming that if anyone needs evidence of love, take a look at the airports of people being reunited with their friends, family, etc. He even says that when the twin towers fell, the last phone calls to the families from the victims were surely those of love. The story examines the stories of many many people here. First off, there is the newly elected prime minister, (Hugh Grant, who else?) who's unmarried and soon starts falling for Natalie, his pretty assistant who's self-conscious about her weight, although it's not so apparent here. It's his feelings towards her that later leads him to face down the U.S. president. He says that the UK may be smaller than the US, but it's still a great country, the country of Shakespeare, The Beatles, and Harry Potter. The bits with the PM are the best, as his personality is seen more in the romantic and comical scenes. Marine McCutcheon plays Natalie as a lovable character with a cute accent and voice, and is one of the brighter stars here. The PM’s sister Karen is married to Harry, the head of a designs firm who's gained the flirtateous eye of his secretary Mia. He's also got Sarah, an employee who is in love with another employee, Carl, but both are too shy to admit it. Harry encourages Sarah to take the plunge. Then there's Daniel (Liam Neeson), who's recently lost his wife Joanna and has the difficult task of looking after his stepson Sam. He can't stay sad for long, as Sam has fallen in love with an American girl in his class, a girl named Joanna, yes, like the mother/wife, who's pretty but doesn't know he exists. Trying to figure out how to get the two together bonds stepfather and son together. The funniest involves Billy Mack, an outrageous but cynical, craggy-faced mid-fifties rock star who speaks his mind and trying to make a comeback by doing a Christmas remake of the Troggs' "Love Is All Around," which was done in another Curtis-penned film by Wet Wet Wet, Four Weddings. He's facing competition from a new generation, a boy band Blue, for the hallowed Christmas #1 single and even promises to sing it naked if he wins. His remarks cause no end of consternation to his overweight, long-suffering, but faithful manager. Example: “Kids, this is a message from your Uncle Billy. Don't buy drugs. Wait until you're a rock star, and they give them to you for free!” And his music video bears a strong resemblance to Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love.” Jamie, nursing wounds of a bad relationship, goes to France to write a novel, and rents a lakeside cabin typing a novel. He takes in Aurelia, a Portuguese woman who acts as his maid. The most outrageous is that of Colin, a red-haired guy with a manic look about him who thinks the only way to score is to go to America and hook up with some chicks. His black friend thinks he's crackers. Love Actually has a smidgin of the Happenstance formula in it--where many disparate people in the story come together or turn out to know someone else in the movie. And just when one thinks things can’t get any better, Rowan Atkinson, Shannon Elizabeth, and Denise Richards appear! But the songs that appear, such as Norah Jones’ “Turn Me On”, Eva Cassidy’s lovely cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird”, and in a funny moment, the Pointer Sisters “Jump For My Love” also enhance this movie. A nice romantic story/Christmas movie rolled into one, Ben Curtis does it yet again, as his stories constantly evolve, from Four Weddings, Notting Hill, and now this. The overall theme seems to be from the song from the beginning, “Love Is All Around,” whoever you're with or whoever special person will appear in your life.
Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the "professional critics"!
Review: This is such a great movie. Take someone that you really care about and go see it, you will appreciate him or her that much more. This is an enjoyable, fun holiday movie for adults. Hugh Grant is great, absolutely hilarious (think Bridget Jones or Two Weeks Notice).
Rating: 
Summary: A British "good, bad and ugly" for the holidays.
Review: Writer-director Richard Curtis intends his Christmas-themed, indulgently operatic "Love Actually" to be an Altmanesque tour of comic romance dashed with London wit. It is and it isn't: While a handful of the dozen or so couplings produce funny, poignant scenes, others border on insult, and never does the ensemble piece come together in its entirety. British humor is more literate, but, in many cases, no less shameless. The movie is so protracted and bracketed into segments you can divide it into categories: Terribly good: Hugh Grant, as usual, as the British Prime Minister sweet on his buxom, foul-mouthed catering manager (Martine McCutcheon). While their attraction is quite like a president/intern tryst with which we're all so familiar, Grant is such a daft fool we don't mind. Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman accurately portray a married couple rocked by infidelity. Though others may groan at it, I liked a bit story about a good guy who loves his best friend's new wife (Keira Knightley). Ditto for the aging rocker (Bill Nighy) who recaptures the pop charts with an ugly "Christmas" remake of an old tune. A Bit Sordid: The story of a luckless-in-love American woman (Laura Linney) saddled with a mentally ill brother - who, uh, also happens to be in London - is better suited to its own story. Liam Neeson is good as a widow whose young stepson has fallen in love, but Curtis takes the sugar too far. Bloody awful: A ludicrous cross-cultural romance between a crime writer (Colin Firth) and his Portugeuse maid, and an awkward, stupid meet cute of body doubles on a film set. Both, however, are trumped by British geek's quest to bed sex crazed American women. "Love Actually" is loaded with odd quirks. Black actors are cast throughout the movie as sidekicks in an obsequious, almost proplike manner, and Curtis digs on fat people with no particular point in mind. A subplot involving Grant's PM and a creepy American president (Billy Bob Thornton, entirely unconvincing) is heavyhanded. And one of the body doubles is a disturbing lookalike of Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby." Curtis, who wrote "Notting Hill" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral", is talented, but his arrogance peeks through, and his directing doesn't play away from it. In certain moments, the movie projects something resmebling disgust. And yet the other moments, the good zingers, are worth a single viewing. Grant caroling. Thompson, putting together her husband's imperfections to a Joni Mitchell song. Rowan Atkinson in a snappy little cameo as a fastidious department store clerk. A scene where Knightley's character "gets it." Now that Curtis has the bravado out of his system, his sophomore directing effort should be more focused on those kinds of moments, and less fixated on delivering the world a giant love letter.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, thoughtful movie
Review: Is love actually all around us? This movie is wonderful and thoughtful. It is easy to watch and participate in wondering what is going to happen to each character. It takes a slice of love at many different ages and stages of life and asks what it looks like. There is subtle commentary about sex, politics and family. Fortunately, the movie does not take itself too seriously as many movies do. It takes us on a fanciful journey wondering about human connections. For the most part, it is a very hopeful journey.
Rating:
Summary: FASCINATING ENSEMBLE IN A HILARIOUS WHOLESOME HOLIDAY FILM
Review: There is very little really not to like about this charming collage of a movie. Brilliant ensemble of actors, and thus by implication great cameos from the ilk of Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson and Emma Thomson; credible romantic vignettes intercut together, and thankfully not too saccharine to be implausible (not everyone ends up in their preferred romance for instance); a fair bit of nudity (a big bold "R Actually"); and above all, some delectable humor -- there are sentimentalistic crests but swiftly followed by a jibe or crack that balances the narrative. The vignettes: -- Hugh Grant as a wonderfully self-deprecating bachelor prime minister in love with a benign Brit version of M. Lewinsky
-- Liam Neeson as a widower managing his grief by lending his teenager son a hand with his love life
-- Colin Firth as a writer with a soft spot for his Portuguese maid while working on a novel in a French town
-- Billy Bob Thornton as a nasty U.S. president who gets his comeuppance
-- Emma Thomson as the cheery wife of Alan Rickman, an executive who is falling prey to the come-ons of an office colleague
-- Bill Nighy as a spent-out rock star on the comeback trail with a holiday version of the Trogg's "Love Is All Around"
-- Laura Linney as an American expat with a romantic life stymied by her obligation to her autistic brother
-- Andrew Lincoln as a tortured bloke secretly in love with the trophy wife (Keira Knightley) of his best friend
-- Kris Marshall as a wanna-be superstud trying to get to US, "cocksure" his British accent will be a chick magnet
-- Martin Freeman and Joanna Page as two innocents who fall in love while working as stand-ins in a porn movie
-- Rowan Atkinson as a prissy department store clerk What more can you ask for in one sitting? Don't read too much into the "too long to be interesting" reviews, this is a must-watch for anyone with a sensitive bone and an adult pass. It's not your everyday sappy chick-flick but a fascinating tapestry of love and longing in our modern lives. Don't miss it!
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