* Four Weddings and a Funeral: why so well received when the romance between the leads happens in such a perfunctory manner? You get a more charming and realistic romance in a fantasy like Groundhog Day.
* Notting Hill: bland romance dominated by Julia's cavernous mouth and Hugh's floppy hair.
* Bridget Jones Diary: ho hum girl's comedy, notable only for an American able to do a British accent. Charmless endorsement of the right of young women to make stupid decisions about who to sleep with.
* Love Actually: haven't seen all of it, but sections seen seem twee and improbable in the extreme. Hugh Grant as PM? Oh please.
* Vicar of Dibley: full of mugging overacting, and simply not funny. Listening to its laugh track is like watching those 1970's black american sitcoms where the audience goes wild while I sit at home wondering what is wrong with them.
As far as I can see, he's never been involved in anything good since Blackadder, and then only as co-writer.
Come to think of it, the decline of Curtis's talent is strangely reflective of the moral and cultural decline of Britain over the same period.
In any case, at last it seems he's come up with a certified failure. Early reviews for The Boat that Rocked are (mostly) very bad. From The Times (I should say Spoiler Warning, I suppose):
The all-male rebels on the boat, plus an honourable lesbian, expend most of their energy on the weekly liferaft of horny Carry On nurses and securing a steady supply of drugs. When it becomes embarrassingly obvious that there is basically nothing worth saving on the ship apart from the fabulous soundtrack, Curtis has the ingenious idea of blowing a hole in the hull and turning his film into a disaster movie. Frankly, it’s too absurd for words.From Scotland on Sunday:
a truly Titanic film, in the sense that it is a disappointingly wretched thing that takes ages to sink from sight.From someone commenting at Time Out:
This is truly appalling stuff. Do not touch with a barge-pole. Excruciating throughout. The main jokes are that there's a lesbian on the ship and someone has the surname Twatt. Hilarious stuff eh? Proof that Ben Elton was the funny one behind Blackadder.Retirement beckons, Richard.
4 comments:
Bridget Jones Diary: ho hum girl's comedy, notable only for an American able to do a British accent for other Americans.
I agree with a lot of that but I actually quite like the Vicar of Dibley. Dawn French can be quite funny.
I don't mind either: I just think that the writing in the show is awful.
Didn't like Bridget Jones and Dibly is patchy but sorry I really love "Love Actually."
I suspect it is just as much a fantasy as Groundhog Day really. It's not that Hugh Grant is the PM, but that he stands up to the US president that gives the big clue that the whole thing is a fable and a fantasy. Try watching the whole thing - difficult to explain the asexual nudity to children however.
Asexual nudity? There was nudity in "Love Actually"???!!!
The guy has had smash hit after smash hit, he must be a squillionaire by now. But, so are Kylie and Danni, not to mention Elle and Madonna and Lindsay and Ashley and sister Jessica, and so on and so forth. None have any identifiable talent. Zip.
Notting Hill: insightful description. You left out "indulgent fantasy bilge from end to end". Gawd, I loath that film and that cavernous mouth, which, unbelievably, they seemed to magnify especially for this film.
Bridget Jones: excrement, absolute excrement. Two exceptionally good looking, intelligent, rich men fight over inarticulate, incompetent, embarrassing, unattractive, chubby girl? Yeah, like that happens all the time.
Four Weddings: beaut film, snappy script, excellent acting, except for the lovely McDowell. Up against such a classy cast she was clunky, wooden, trite. The romance was unconvincing in all regards. No matter, still a good film.
Love Actually: twee and improbable, yes! Again no chemistry between the romantic leads. (Is this the fault of Hugh Grant? Now that I think of it, he has been in many a film - is given the best lines - yet his female leads never mesh. Sandra Bullock also comes to mind, and that was a true lead role, not an ensemble cast.) All the same, some great schmaltz delivered with sincerity and depth of feeling by the strong and convincing ensemble.
Saunders is wonderful, but Dibley was a lame vehicle.
Post a Comment