Feb. 07, 2003 - 4:18 pm
this one was recommended to me to a certain degree by quite a few people over the last 6 months or so, but someone actually put through the effort to send a formal suggestion through the new suggestion form i've got going, so that pushed me to finally see it. well, that and the fact that Hollywood Video has been giving out coupons that say that you can rent up to 3 of anything in the store for 5 nights for only 99 cents each.
this movie stars Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, and one of the most attractive actresses currently onscreen (at least in my opinion), Rachel Weisz. it of course focuses on Hugh Grant's character who is a lazy good for nothing rich guy in England who doesn't even have a job. he literally does nothing. he lives off of the royalties of a Christmas song that his one hit wonder father wrote in the 1950s. and boy does he hate it when someone sings this idiotic song to him when he explains why he doesn't have a job. but really he thinks most people are idiots and enjoys wasting all of his time and being self-centered. then one day he gets involved in the life of a geeky kid with a suicidal mother and starts to grow a heart.
it's a sweet movie with some great dialogue and i don't think there has ever been a more fitting part written for Hugh Grant. i did enjoy the music for the film by the band Badly Drawn Boy. i haven't heard much out of them before, but i knew that they existed.
i think my favorite innovative thing that appeared in this film was what i would call a "figure 8" camera movement. you've got to see this. it's an interesting thing to watch that i've never seen happen before. it seems so simple that it would've been done tons before, but i can't think of a single occurrence. it happens in one of the first dates that Hugh Grant has in the film. it's the one where the girl that he's been set up with is admitting to him that she has a child and he is lying, telling her that he is so genuinely happy that she has a child and would in fact be disappointed if she didn't. wonderful effect and it really added to the dizzying effect that lying can and should have on most people.