Wednesday 15 February 2012

Not suitable for children. Or adults.

This film ticks every single box in my list of pet hates.



1. Based on a schmaltzy, manipulative book which easily-impressed people think counts as Literature (see also: The Time Traveler's Wife).
2. Features Tom Hanks.
3. Uses U2's music.
4. Employs the Twin Towers atrocity as a plot device to explore said schmaltzy themes. This is the worst offence of the lot. I genuinely think that Love, Actually was the most degrading, immoral and reprehensible film in the history of cinema because it used footage of 9/11 simply to get people in a sentimental frame of mind for a romantic comedy.

I can't find a useful clip of the actual film, but here's an animation of the whole hateful monologue, which to me is the definition of cynicism.



Those people did not die so that Richard Curtis, Jonathan Foer and Hollywood studios can make money during the half-term. When Karlheinz Stockhausen said this about 9/11:


he was making a profound, challenging, deeply offensive point: one which showed he understood that 9/11 was as much a symbolic event as an actual one. However wrong you think he might be, at least he didn't use the murders of 3000 people to sell a few cinema tickets.

3 comments:

Benjamin Judge said...

Your 'idol' Marcus Brogstocke is in Love Actually.

Small world, eh?

Benjamin Judge said...

Sorry, Brigstocke.

The Plashing Vole said...

How seriously did I use the word 'idol'?
But still: a tad disappointing.