Which Classic to Watch Tonight: Love Actually (Movie Review)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight: Love Actually (Movie Review)

Directer: Richard Curtis
Producer: Tim Bevan, Liza Chasin, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Duncan Kenworthy
Writer: Richard Curtis
Starring: Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson, Laura Linney, Martine McCutcheon, Lúcia Moniz
Running time: 135 minutes
Genre: Romantic Comedy

Love Actually is a 2003 romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are linked as their tales progress. The ensemble cast is composed of predominantly British actors.

The film begins five weeks before Christmas and is played out during a week-by-week countdown until the holiday, with an epilogue that takes place one month later.

The writer responsible for the biggest British hits of the last ten years - Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jone's Diary - directs this vibrant romantic comedy, blending ambition with good sense by filling the profuse parts of his multi-storied script with excellent, experienced actors, and rising young stars.

"BILL NIGHY IS BRILLIANT"

Ten stories intertwine, loosely connected by friends of friends, family and next-door-neighbours. There's the new, bachelor prime minister (Hugh Grant) falling for the teagirl (Martine McCutcheon); his sister (Emma Thompson) suspecting her husband (Alan Rickman) may stray; her mate (Liam Neeson) grieving over his wife's death; his stepson (Thomas Sangster) longing for a girl from school...

The writer (Colin Firth) heartbroken in France; his newlywed friends (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Keira Knightley) whose best man (Andrew Lincoln) acts oddly; their Yank friend (Laura Linney) who wants a beau in Blighty; the sex-starved Brit (Kris Marshall) heading to the sexed-up United States; his best mate's buddy (Martin Freeman) falling for a pornstar stand-in.

And bestriding it all, Bill Nighy is brilliant as a washed-up Rod Stewart-alike rock singer, whose coarse cover of the Four Weddings... theme song is climbing the charts towards a seasonal number one: "Christmas," he sings, "is all around."

"A SOFT FOCUS SHORT CUTS"

Inevitably, some strands are almost forgotten and actors underused. A soft focus Short Cuts, the movie lacks the layered fluency of Robert Altman's work - or the hard edge. But while there's enough treacle to turn a bee diabetic, it is not without raw emotional moments - with Thompson outstanding in a tear-duct tingling scene.

You can almost see Curtis pressing the emotional buttons, but he does it so well you won't care. Warm, bittersweet and hilarious, this is lovely, actually. Prepare to be smitten.

Movie GooRoo Rating: * * 1/2 (2 & 1/2 Stars)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight : The Graduate (Movie Review)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight : The Graduate (Movie Review)

Directer: Mike Nichols
Producer: Joseph E. Levine Lawrence Turman
Screenplay: Calder Willingham, Buck Henry

Novel: Charles Webb
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels
Running time: 105 minutes
Genre: Comedy Drama

Few movies about the plight of the young have any sort of lasting, immortal cohesion. Check THE BREAKFAST CLUB, for instance. Good movie, doesn't hold up so well over time. THE GRADUATE, however, cannot be lauded enough, and though it's steeped so heavily in Sixties counterculturalism that it's a signpost for the whole movement itself, it still manages to be warm, funny, disconcerting, and ultimately, not so sure that the answers it presents are really answers at all.

Dustin Hoffman had his big breakthrough with this film, as did director Mike Nichols. From the outset, we're shown recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock's isolation from his family and the world around him, particularly in the opening shot of Benjamin on an airport moving sidewalk, framed expressionless against featureless concrete and being dragged toward…something. He not only won't make a decision about his future despite prodding from friends and relatives, he CAN'T. He's paralyzed from the soul up.

Ben finds a welcome, desperate, and near-joyless relief in the bed of Mrs. Robinson, his neighbor and the wife of his father's business partner. Their trysts are more confrontation than connubial, though Ben has no other answers, no other avenues, and he plummets headlong into an adulterous cycle…until Elaine Robinson, Mrs. Robinson's daughter, returns home from school herself. What then happens shatters Ben's suburban, comfortable dream world and forces him into action.

It can be argued that Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katherine Ross have never been better on screen before or since. They act as weights and counterweights in what is effectively both a conflict between generations and between good (which isn't always so good) and evil (which is not always truly evil). There are also some humorous supporting turns from screenwriter Buck Henry and Mr. Roper himself, Norman Fell, stretching his range as a landlord for a Berkeley apartment building. After all, this IS ostensibly a comedy, and a very funny one. It also shows the power of this story's execution that an audience can so identify with Benjamin, a character who behaves as a silly boob (even a nasty boob on his first date with Elaine) throughout most of the film.

This is just one of those films where everything's in synchronicity and everything works, where the camera is plugged into a higher power making the film transcend the vast majority of celluloid product. It's as if the film taps into the energy of the Sixties and Berkeley, California and post-adolescent angst and imparts that onto the viewer. Although many might consider this to be a film about protest, it's really about the difficulties of growing up and maintaining any sort of idealism in a plasticene, compromising culture, and how we're fated to fall into that quagmire no matter how good our intentions may be.

As a side note, THE GRADUATE also set a watermark in using pop songs in a soundtrack with Simon & Garfunkel's excellent original tunes, and although they genuinely convey mood and character here, songs later became vehicles to sell a soundtrack and not much else. How ironic that a film reacting in its way against faceless corporate lowest-common-denominatorism would spawn bastardized practices that would juice those companies for decades hence, huh?

Finally, that ending scene---it's arguably the best ending scene in film history, and it's certainly my personal favorite. Benjamin and Elaine on the bus---running from their parents and their responsibilities in a burst of vigor and energy, and where most films would have cut on their smiles and rolled the credits---Nichols chooses to linger----and see the doubts and the ramifications of their actions play across Benjamin and Elaine's faces. We can make decisions, and they may even be the RIGHT ones, but there's always a piper to pay. And even though we run from society, sooner or later we still have to live in it.

Heady stuff for a comedy. But it's still genius.

Movie Gooroo Rating: * * * 1/2 (3 and 1/2 stars)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight: The Last King of Scotland (Movie Review)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight: The Last King of Scotland (Movie Review)

Directer: Kevin Macdonald
Novel Written by: Giles Foden
Starring: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson
Genere: DRAMA / THRILLER / HISTORY
Running time: 123 minutes

The Last King of Scotland tells the fictional story of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a young fictional Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda and becomes the personal physician to the dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). The movie is based on factual events of Amin's rule.

In an incredible twist of fate, a Scottish doctor (McAvoy) on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures: Idi Amin (Whitaker). Impressed by Dr. Garrigan's brazen attitude in a moment of crisis, the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician and closest confidante. Though Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position, he soon awakens to Amin's savagery - and his own complicity in it. Horror and betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs and escape Uganda alive.



The story starts with Nicholas (James McAvoy) and his traditional Scottish parents celebrating his becoming a doctor, seemingly following in the footsteps of his father. However, the young Dr Garrigan has no intention of entering the family practice and decides that anywhere (else) in the world would be more invigorating to start his medical career.

With this, Nicholas soon finds himself in Uganda, a country that badly needs his medical services and a land in the grip of changing power which he finds intriguing and through events find himself befriended by the new President, Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker).

Amin takes the young doctor under his wing and before long becomes his closest advisor. This closeness develops to the discontent of the local British government watchers.

The former regime make life difficult for Amin who ruthlessly rids his country of anyone who stands in his way.

As Amin gradually reveals more of his true character to Dr Garrigan he becomes more of a threat to his very existence.

Forest, who is perhaps more known for his TV work, pulls off the most powerful and captivating on screen performance of his career as the emergent, rising and obsessively paranoid Idi Amin.

An interesting movie that was well acted, directed and photographed certainly worth seeing. I thought the plot and pace of the movie moved along quite nicely and even though it was over 2 hours long it kept my interest for the whole movie and you can definetely see why Forrest Whittaker won the best actor Oscar at the academy awards recently.

Being based on a true story often makes movies struggle to truly captivate you because you have to stay reasonably true the facts of the story so they did an excellant job to create such an entertaining movie.

MovieGooroo Rating: * * * (3 Stars)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight: City of God (Movie Review)

Which Classic to Watch Tonight: City of God (Movie Review)

Directer: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund
Producer: Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Mauricio Andrade Ramos, Elisa Tolomelli, Donald Ranvaud
Writter: Paulo Lins, Bráulio Mantovani
Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues, Alice Braga, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen
Running time: 130 minutes
Genere: Crime Drama

City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, released in its home country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. It was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins which was based on a true story. It depicts the growth of organized crime in this Rio de Janeiro suburb, between the end of the '60s and the beginning of the '80s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "Fight and you'll never survive..... Run and you'll never escape."



Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) narrates our journey into the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the City of God. A child of the 60s, he witnesses two decades of barbarity, greed, rape and revenge which fuel a catastrophic gang war.

Fear and an instinct for self-preservation keep him on the straight and narrow, but his childhood associate Li'l Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora) grows into the ghetto's godfather - a ruthless, demented killer who makes Joe Pesci's "GoodFellas" psycho look like Mary Poppins.

For all its whiz-bang camerawork and outrageous entertainment value, the movie is grounded by its true life origins (Paulo Lins' fact-based novel), and the superb performances of a largely non-professional cast recruited from the streets. Gut-troubling horror follows cruel bellylaughs, and the relentless action is underscored by unforgiving poverty.

Shocking, frightening, thrilling and funny, "City of God" has the substance to match its lashings of style. Cinema doesn't get more exhilarating than this.

Movie Gooroo Rating: * * * * 1/2 (4 and 1/2 stars)