Down with Love
Sat, May. 17th, 2003 01:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterEveryone should go see this movie! Yeah, go see the Matrix too, but everyone must go see this because I want it to get good box office press so people will make more movies like this.
Anyway, it's a romantic comedy (don't go away yet!) starring Ewan McGregor, who's absolutely wonderful in his role, and Renee Zellweger, who's, well, Renee Zellweger. And it looks and feels exactly like the romantic comedies from the sixties. And it's one of the happiest movies I've seen in a while. Not a feel good movie, but happy in that it has so much fun playing with the sixties thing and doing some things that sixties movies probably couldn't. And I also love it because things are candy colored and funnily shaped. It's almost like the anti-Catch Me If You Can. It was just lovely because it was so fully a romantic comedy, but it did the romantic comedy tropes so very well and even avoided a lot of the pitfalls.
Ewan McGregor was awesome. He was such the playboy and when he had to do the typical pretending he's not a playboy, he was great at that too. I never knew Ewan McGregor could be so cheerfully sleazy and snazzy. But then, I wasn't sure he could be a romantic lead until I saw Moulin Rouge, which completely sold me. It's got the funny phones and technology of the time, the fake-looking blue screen shots when the two go to Broadway, the fake scenes in the car rear window, and the outrageous fashions and colors of a sixties Audrey Hepburn type movie.
And just as I was getting scared that this wonderful movie would bog down, do that whole girl who disavows love wants to get married schtick, the film does another turn around in the last bit and makes it all better!
Other small things I loved were:
- the split screen telephone conversations. Especially the one that implied Barbara (Renee Zellweger) and Catch (Ewan McGregor) doing naughty things and ending with them both smoking a cigarette.
- did I mention the outfits?
- did I mention the outrageousness of the outfits?
- and the pretty colors?
- I loved how cheerily fake everything was.
- Vicky thinking Peter was gay because of all the little signals that would have probably signaled homosexuality back when movies were more censored.
- they sing and dance in the end! And I was struck by the fact that it was the actress from Chicago and the actor from Moulin Rouge.. it was brilliant!
So yeah, I loved it and now I want everyone to go see it because it was lovely and the theater only had ten some people when me and the boy went. Which is just sad for a movie this fun, especially when almost all romantic comedies nowadays are neither romantic nor comedic and in general just a lot of schlock.
Anyway, it's a romantic comedy (don't go away yet!) starring Ewan McGregor, who's absolutely wonderful in his role, and Renee Zellweger, who's, well, Renee Zellweger. And it looks and feels exactly like the romantic comedies from the sixties. And it's one of the happiest movies I've seen in a while. Not a feel good movie, but happy in that it has so much fun playing with the sixties thing and doing some things that sixties movies probably couldn't. And I also love it because things are candy colored and funnily shaped. It's almost like the anti-Catch Me If You Can. It was just lovely because it was so fully a romantic comedy, but it did the romantic comedy tropes so very well and even avoided a lot of the pitfalls.
Ewan McGregor was awesome. He was such the playboy and when he had to do the typical pretending he's not a playboy, he was great at that too. I never knew Ewan McGregor could be so cheerfully sleazy and snazzy. But then, I wasn't sure he could be a romantic lead until I saw Moulin Rouge, which completely sold me. It's got the funny phones and technology of the time, the fake-looking blue screen shots when the two go to Broadway, the fake scenes in the car rear window, and the outrageous fashions and colors of a sixties Audrey Hepburn type movie.
And just as I was getting scared that this wonderful movie would bog down, do that whole girl who disavows love wants to get married schtick, the film does another turn around in the last bit and makes it all better!
Other small things I loved were:
- the split screen telephone conversations. Especially the one that implied Barbara (Renee Zellweger) and Catch (Ewan McGregor) doing naughty things and ending with them both smoking a cigarette.
- did I mention the outfits?
- did I mention the outrageousness of the outfits?
- and the pretty colors?
- I loved how cheerily fake everything was.
- Vicky thinking Peter was gay because of all the little signals that would have probably signaled homosexuality back when movies were more censored.
- they sing and dance in the end! And I was struck by the fact that it was the actress from Chicago and the actor from Moulin Rouge.. it was brilliant!
So yeah, I loved it and now I want everyone to go see it because it was lovely and the theater only had ten some people when me and the boy went. Which is just sad for a movie this fun, especially when almost all romantic comedies nowadays are neither romantic nor comedic and in general just a lot of schlock.
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