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(November 2003)

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Magda
Canada - Sunday, November 30, 2003

Here's the online version link. independentonline
Dusty
Cape Town, - Sunday, November 23, 2003

At any rate, enjoy!
Kimberly
Michigan, - Friday, November 21, 2003

Alan pic in Corbis
Carole
Canada - Thursday, November 20, 2003

Gordon Brown, Sir David Frost, Alan Rickman, Charles Kennedy, Greg Dyke, Cecil Parkinson, Peter Mandelson, Jon Snow, Roy Hattersley, Helena Kennedy QC and Sir Geoffrey Howe were among those gathered, together with many of Young's colleagues from the Guardian."
Magda
Canada - Thursday, November 20, 2003

All I would ask is that Webmistresses out there kindly not take this and host it on your own AR Web sites without permission, as poor hacker hubby did spend some time getting it to work for us. Thanks!
Jen
Cow Land, MD, - Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Magda
Canada - Monday, November 17, 2003

Also a big LA pic in yesterdays Suday Times
Sue
England, if all these links work I'm a Dutchman (with apologies to our friends from the Netherlands!) - Monday, November 17, 2003

The GB is archived as soon as access and time allow, which vary, especially when dreambook acts up--please be patient, the DOC's are doing their best!
Renie
(I knew I'd be in trouble, Claudia. Can I ask what Hans would? *extremely wicked grin*) - Sunday, November 16, 2003

**** Classic
***1/2 Excellent
*** Good
** Fair
* Poor

Kimberly
Michigan, - Friday, November 14, 2003

At last, a genuine picture of Boggart!Snape! And many more!
Rickfan37
UK - Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Copyright 2003 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC
All Rights Reserved
The New York Sun
November 7, 2003 Friday
SECTION: ARTS & LETTERS; Pg. 23
LENGTH: 701 words
HEADLINE: Who Says You Can't Find Good Help?
BYLINE: By JAMES BOWMAN

At one point in "Love Actually" (R, 135 mins.), the first directorial outing of Richard Curtis, who wrote the screenplays of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill," and "Bridget Jones's Diary," the prime minister of Britain (Hugh Grant) chooses the occasion of a joint news conference with the American president (Billy Bob Thornton) to deliver an insulting speech in favor of keeping little Britain out of the sphere of influence of a bullying United States.

Doubtless this will prove a real crowd pleaser at home, though it's somewhat less likely to go down well with American audiences. The point, however, is that it is sheer fantasy. There is a reason why scenes like this literally never happen in real life, and it is that any politician who couldn't resist the temptation to indulge such a moment of personal pique would never make it to the cabinet, let alone the premiership. But Mr. Curtis doesn't care because, like his main protagonist, he is determined to indulge his fantasy, no matter the cost.

The main fantasy here is one of screwing the help. At least since the 18th century, when Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" tackled the theme in a serious way while Oliver Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer" did so in a comic, the erotic potency of the idea of sex between master and servant has been recognized. We have seen it recently in "Secretary," which had the happy thought of joining a Cinderella fantasy for the gals with a Pygmalion fantasy for the guys and wrapping it all up in benign sadomasochism. Only last week, Anthony Hopkins was having his intellectually imperious way with Nicole Kidman's less-than-persuasive janitress in "The Human Stain."

Lurking not-too-far in the background of that movie was Bill Clinton's relationship with a certain White House intern - a relationship that may also have influenced Mr. Curtis. Only in "Love Actually," he decided to make Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), the tea lady at No. 10 Downing Street, into the big boss's one true love.

The improbability of true love growing in such conditions is scarcely less than that of a prime minister's telling off a president in public. It's the kind of thing that only a lovesick youth of 20 or so, like Monica herself, could believe in.

Possibly in order to make it sound more plausible, Mr. Curtis adds to this story a number of parallels, including relationships between the prime ministerial brother-in-law (Alan Rickman) and his secretary (Heike Makatsch), a writer (Colin Firth) and his Portuguese cleaning lady (Lucia Moniz), and a washed-up pop star (Bill Nighy) and his manager (Gregor Fisher). It's a little hard to believe Mr. Curtis could have supposed that so many examples of the Jovian tendency to slum it would have made the central situation seem less rather than more like a fantasy.

Our suspicion is confirmed by his insertion into the midst of these stories three more that are patently fantastical in other ways. A nerdy 11-year-old (Thomas Sangster), who has recently lost his mother, wins the affection of the coolest girl in his class with the help of his step-father and his mother's widower (Liam Neeson). A nerdy 21-year-old (Kris Marshall) has a wet-dream-come true when three (or four) gorgeous roommates in Milwaukee, where he has come in search of American pulchritude, invite him to move in on his first night in town: "We just have a little bed and no couch, so you'll have to share with all three of us - and we can't even afford pajamas."

Mr. Curtis must know that we know that this kind of thing only happens in the worst kind of porn movies, so he offers it up to us - without the porn - as a sort of joke at his own expense. He also plays it off against yet another romance between two absurdist porn stars Judy (Joanna Page) and John (Martin Freeman), who despite their on-set cavortings are in real life so shy they can hardly dare to ask each other out for a drink.

Wouldn't it be nice to think that such things happen? Wouldn't it be nice if bachelor prime ministers fell in love with their tea ladies? But quite what the point is of reminding us of the absurdity of this romantic dream by multiplying examples of it I find impossible to guess.

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, November 08, 2003

Copyright 2003 The Hartford Courant Company
Hartford Courant (Connecticut)
November 7, 2003 Friday, STATEWIDE
SECTION: LIFE; Pg. D1
LENGTH: 876 words
HEADLINE: IT'S LOVE, LOVE AND MORE LOVE; * * *
BYLINE: MALCOLM JOHNSON; Courant Film Critic

In "Love Actually," writer-director Richard Curtis sets forth a vision of Merrie England, as he would like it to be. The prime minister strikes back at a dictatorial American president, and also falls for a working-class servant lass. A depressed writer finds love with a menial from a poor district of Lisbon. Father and stepson bond; soft-porn stars wed; and a failed pop icon rises phoenix-like to the top of the Christmas charts.

Though this new pre-Christmas film from the writer of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary" also has an occasional bleak touch, its alternate title, "Love Actually Is All Around" expresses its central theme. In his directing debut, Curtis begins and ends by illustrating his thesis with couples of all shapes and sizes happily reuniting at an airport.

"Love Actually" simply oozes with sentimentality as it spins out its fairy tales. In the world imagined by Curtis, the poor London sandwich boy played by a goofy Kris Marshall can find orgiastic love in Wisconsin with women played by Ivana Milicevic, January Jones and Elisha Cuthbert, and returns in glory, with more girlfriends, cameos for Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards. Sex, in fact, is all around.

Little of Curtis' fantasy can be believed -- apart from the beginnings of a fling for Alan Rickman's happily married man with an office vamp and the pain felt by Emma Thompson's wife Karen. Rickman and especially Thompson deliver performances of real depth, as does the marvelous Laura Linney as a hard-working employee in the office of Rickman's sardonic Harry. Linney's Sarah adores the hunky designer Karl, but cannot express her feelings. Even when she at last reels in Karl, a crazed brother's phone calls interfere with their frantic foreplay.

Curtis employs a superb cast to make every second count in a cleverly woven omnibus film that jumps from story to story with little sense of confusion. The characters in some of the vignettes are related. Thompson's increasingly sad Karen is the younger sister of the new prime minister, played by Hugh Grant.

The glimpses of Grant's PM constitute the main story line of the film, as the newly installed chief of state arrives at 10 Downing Street and greets a staff that includes Martine McCutcheon's buxom, beaming, moon-faced Natalie, a personal tea server and mailwoman. Oddly, the PM is immediately smitten, but spends most of the film fighting his romantic impulses.

The other offbeat love story chronicled throws together the lovelorn, down-at-the-mouth novelist Jamie, played by another Curtis leading man, Colin Firth, and a Portuguese maid, Aurelia, acted with a subdued shyness and a touch of sauciness by Lucia Moniz. After his inamorata dumps him, Jamie takes his sulky self to a rustic cottage in the South of France to work on a new mystery, with Aurelia as his handmaiden. He speaks no Portuguese, and she speaks no English, and this is the gist of the comedy, which comes to a head when she lifts a mug and a sheaf of manuscript pages flies into a nearby lake, forcing her to peel to her undies and swim to the rescue.

Stripping plays a large role in "Love Actually." Two soft-porn actors, played by Joanna Page and Martin Freeman, perform for the cameras, with her Just Judy behaving quite unabashedly. When Linney's eager but shy Sarah at last draws Karl into her bed/sitting room, both quickly throw off their clothes. The big Christmas bash where the intimacy begins, and where Rickman's Harry succumbs to the machinations of Heike Makatsch's seductive Mia, takes place in a gallery filled with huge nude portraits. Billy Mack, the burned-out old rocker hilariously played by Bill Nighy, is always threatening to tear off his garments, and does at the climax.

All Britain witnesses this bizarre television spectacle, which diverts airport security types, allowing Thomas Sangster's whey-faced lovesick Sam, the stepson of Liam Neeson's newly widowed Daniel, to dash up to his primary-school sweetheart, an African American baby belter, before she boards. In Curtis' idealized world, interracial relationships are filled with joy, as seen in the wedding of Keira Knightley's fetching Juliet to a handsome stud played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. In time, however, the groom's Caucasian best man, Mark, feels forced to pledge his undying love to Juliet -- in the spirit of Christmas.

For Juliet's wedding, Curtis indulges in a burst of the Lennon-McCartney "All You Need Is Love," in a mini-concert arranged by Mark. This pop classic is just one of the songs by the likes of the Bay City Rollers, Joni Mitchell and the Beach Boys that make it clear that the film's target audience is that aging, increasingly nostalgic baby-boomer demographic. But with its dream cast, "Love Actually" can hardly fail to draw audiences of all ages.

LOVE ACTUALLY is directed and written by Richard Curtis. Featuring Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon and Keira Knightley. A Universal Pictures and Studio Canal presentation, opening today at area theaters. Running time: 128 minutes. Rated R for language, nudity and simulated sex.

* * * * Excellent; * * * Very Good; * * Good; * Fair; open star Poor

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (b&w), UNIVERSAL PICTURES; THOMAS SANGSTER, who plays Liam Neeson's stepson in "Love Actually," is smitten by his primary-school sweetheart.

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, November 08, 2003

opyright 2003 Daily News, L.P.
Daily News (New York)
November 7, 2003, Friday SPORTS FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NOW; Pg. 50
LENGTH: 612 words
HEADLINE: A gooey kind of 'Love'
BYLINE: BY JACK MATHEWS
LOVE ACTUALLY. With Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson. Writer-director: Richard Curtis. Area theaters (2:08). R: Lnguage, sexuality, nudity. 2.5 stars.

British writer-director Richard Curtis' giddy holiday comedy "Love Actually" bounds from the screen like a Christmas puppy - jumping up and down, licking you in the face, nibbling at you with its tiny baby teeth and leaving puddles and debris all over the place.

It's fun for a while, but when you realize the mutt's never going to settle down, you may wish you'd bought a stuffed toy instead.

Curtis could be that amiable pooch, all grown up but in the midst of a second face-lapping puppyhood. You'll remember the slobber he left behind from his scripts for "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill," and "Bridget Jones's Diary."

For his directing debut, Curtis has chosen to parody those comedies with a frenetic, cross-cutting pastiche of running gags and interrelated story lines involving about two-dozen people in situations where love - romantic, sibling, parental, and fantasized - is the common instigator.

There's a couple who meet cute as stand-ins on the set of a porn movie, shyly falling for each other while simulating increasingly graphic sex acts.

There's the boyish British Prime Minister (the boyish Hugh Grant) who, while mocking Tony Blair's image as a toady for a crass American President (Billy Bob Thornton), falls for an overweight but pure-of-heart assistant (Martine McCutcheon).

There's the middle-age couple (Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson) challenged to reassert their commitment when he gets the scent of his pheremonal secretary (Heike Makatsch).

Elsewhere, meet:

A recently widowed man (Liam Neeson) attending to the pre cocious emotional needs of his young stepson; the aging rocker (Bill Nighy) who, on the brink of a career rebirth, begins to appreciate the devotion of his longtime manager (Gregor Fisher); and the sex-starved young geek (Kevin Marshall) who heads for the U.S. with a knapsack full of condoms and steps into a Bud commercial with four horny beauties in a Wisconsin bar.

The Wisconsin bit shows "Love Actually" at its best and worst. Every second we spend with the loser before he gets there is agony. But, the punch line - his bodacious quarry finds his accent irresistible - is a riot.

Structurally, "Love Actually" is less like "Four Weddings" than it is "Scary Movie 3." Curtis throws every gag he can think of at the screen and the ones that don't stick, he throws again and again.

The title of the movie is taken from the notion that in a world convulsed in anger and suspicion, love is all around us - if we'll only look. I advise against listening: This movie has the most annoyingly cloying soundtrack since "Love Story."

To make his point, Curtis begins and ends the film with actual footage of public displays of affection at airports, suggesting deeper stories of love than those he tries to explore.

But as a first-time director, he lacks discipline, both in organizing his material and knowing when to throw things out. The movie is a half-hour too long, and there are entire relationships that don't work.

The worst of them is the bizarrely cheerful and often inappropriate relationship between Neeson's widower and his pubescent stepson, to whom he reveals that if Claudia Schiffer were to enter their lives, he'd have sex with her in every room of the house, including the kid's.

Sure enough, Schiffer shows up for a cameo and Neeson and the boy share a knowing glance. It's creepy, and I don't know what it has to do with love, actually.

E-mail: jmathews@

edit.nydailynews.com

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, November 08, 2003

[Here's Ebenezer:]

Copyright 2003 The New York Observer, L.P.
New York Observer
November 10, 2003
SECTION: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT; On The Town With Rex Reed, Pg. 28
LENGTH: 1365 words
HEADLINE: Lovesick Brits Ooze Treacle
BYLINE: Rex Reed
HIGHLIGHT: It isn't often that you find so many swell folks making asses of themselves.

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else find most of today's alleged screen "comedies" so rueful, insipid and dumb that you rarely crack a smile while watching them? We could all use some pain relief from the congestion of cruelty, depression and violence we've been getting from the movies lately, but the facile humor in a labored and cliche-riddled British piffle called Love Actually does not fill my prescription. The holiday season fast approaches, but this ensemble piece about a muddled gaggle of lovesick Londoners in the weeks before Christmas oozes so much phony Yuletide treacle that your skin could break out.

In his directing debut, Richard Curtis, beloved as the screenwriter of Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary, bastes a bloated battalion of bores for what is supposed to be a celebratory feast devoted to the theory that even in troubled and cynical times, "love actually is everywhere." Nice sentiment for a needlepoint sampler, maybe, but the multiple stories designed to conjure visions of this filmmaker's sugar plums add up to no more than skits on British telly about fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and officemates, aging rock stars and the horny heads of mighty nations. Except for one black person, they are all white-bread Anglo-Saxon heterosexuals, which should give you some idea of how believable, diverse and au courant the movie is. The cast of characters is vast, with a famous face in almost every cameo, and includes a cuckolded crime writer (Colin Firth) who flees to the South of France for inspiration and falls for a housekeeper who speaks nothing but Portuguese; a recently widowed father (Liam Neeson) who shares his powers of seduction with his precocious 11-year-old son; and a shy junior manager (Laura Linney) who has a mad crush on a sexy co-worker, but is too disabled by a guilt-ridden pathological devotion to her mentally ill brother to consummate the affair. Meanwhile, her fatuous boss (Alan Rickman) busily toys with getting himself seduced by the office slut, torturing his long-suffering but devoted wife (Emma Thompson), who is the sister of England's randy new prime minister (Hugh Grant), who chases everything in panties. Mr. Grant, who has never passed a mirror he didn't want to kiss, does an oversexed bachelor spin on Tony Blair while nose-thumbing an oil painting of Margaret Thatcher. He's the most absurd character on the premises -- a hip P.M. who discos till dawn, shakes his fanny through the halls of 10 Downing Street and, in the film's most implausible sequence, battles for the sexual conquest of a curvaceous staff member with the lecherous, fang-dripping and thoroughly obnoxious President of the United States (Billy Bob Thornton, in another of his many wigs, parodying the worst flaws of both Bill Clinton and George Bush).

Had enough? I haven't even gotten to the part about the naked couple who meet as stand-ins for two porno stars, or the beautiful new bride torn between her groom and his best man, or the waiter who travels all the way to Wisconsin to find fulfillment with two American nymphomaniacs at the same time, or the vulgar, clownish has-been pop singer (Bill Nighy) trying to make a comeback. Some of the sketches come to nothing, others are abandoned totally when writer-director Curtis runs out of ideas and can't think of anything else for them to say. All of them are accompanied by a relentless, headache-inducing score of noisy, second-rate tunes from the British pop charts.

It isn't often that you find so many swell folks making asses of themselves while trying desperately to seem tres amusant. I found them all lost, superficial and annoyingly dull. In the end, the whole cast alights from the same plane in the arrivals hall at Heathrow. Where did they go? When did they leave? Why are they all on the same flight? And while I'm asking questions, where are Glenn Miller, Judge Crater and Amelia Earhart?

This movie is so unfunny, uninspired and unoriginal I swear it could have started out as a club-footed Coen Brothers vehicle for George Clooney. Certainly it's a misguided catastrophe on the level of Intolerable Cruelty. In fairness, I confess I seem to be a minority of one. People all around me screamed with delight every time Hugh Grant bumbled and winked and flirted with himself in the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style. People need humor, no matter how dense and doltish it is. They need a little Christmas, they need it early, and the idiotic thought of Britain's prime minister dashing through the snow on Christmas Eve looking for poontang and getting trapped in a roundelay of Christmas carols is enough to satisfy the most sophomoric tastes. I don't know what other light refreshments are planned for the forthcoming festive season, but personally, I like a little higher octane in my holiday punch.

Georgiana
Seattle - Saturday, November 08, 2003

Renie
- Saturday, November 08, 2003

Magda
Canada - Saturday, November 08, 2003

"Thompson and Rickman, as a long-married couple facing a crisis (involving, natch, his secretary), have the most poignant story; not so much because of the way it's written, but because of the sincerity they bring to it. Rickman has a perfect dryness to his lines; he's perplexed by his assistant's flirtatiousness; Thompson has a scene of quiet realization that's devastating." *snip*
Renie
- Friday, November 07, 2003

LA review from the Contra Costa Times (local Bay Area paper) A last snippet for today:

"One appealing couple, played by Alan Rickman and a super-sassy Emma Thompson, have hit a lull in their marriage that anyone who's been exposed to a long-term relationship can understand. Their story, such as it is, is the film's most complex and emotionally appealing, and both performers are a pleasure to watch." *snip*
R (having managed, somehow, to stay out of the DOC today)
- Friday, November 07, 2003

Excerpt from USA Today November 7, 2001, Section E

Movies Cast dream teams, pages 1-2 E

...The cast members have their own reasons for forgoing star billings for the sake of a group effort. "Actors are beleaguered," says Alan Rickman, who plays a family man wed to Thompson and tempted by his secretary. "When they get an opportunity to share properly, they do it." Plus, "you don't have to shoulder the blame."

...Rickman, who has stood out before in such swarms as the Harry Potter films, say he was never really aware that Love Actually was an ensemble because he worked only with a handful of the actors. "With this one, you think the film is just about your story. It's surprising to see it with the others."....

....The cast connections spilled over offscreen as well. Besides working several times before with Grant and Thompson, most famously in 1995's Sense and Sensibility, he hung out with Laura Linney and Neeson when they were in The Crucible on Broadway and he was in Private Lives across the street.

"Liam and I also did Michael Collins, and his wife, Natasha Richardson, and I did Blow Dry. And I've known Keira Knightley since she was 12." he sighs. "Life is a bit of an ensemble, you discover."
Carol <wishes2c@comcast.netfoo>
00hFhday, November 07, 2003

One more review :-)

There's a lot of love in 'Actually'

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

Posted 11/6/2003 8:30 PM

Love Actually is irresistible. You'd have to be Ebenezer Scrooge not to walk out smiling.

That's not to say Love Actually isn't flawed. Sometimes a joke is milked for all it's worth - and then some. And a few setups are sitcom-ish with all-too-predictable punch lines.

But the combination of the clever script, top-notch talent and engaging subject - love in its many forms - makes Love one of the more entertaining experiences a moviegoer is likely to have during the holiday season.

It's hard to fail when you have the cream of the U.K. crop signed on. Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson and Colin Firth are all in top form. Laura Linney, the lone American major player in the film, was a brilliant addition. (Billy Bob Thornton makes a cameo appearance as a Clintonian American president.)

As good as all of these actors are in their various roles, the movie is nearly stolen from them by Bill Nighy. As an aging rock star, he stages a comeback with an awful Yuletide rendition of the Troggs' '60s song Love Is All Around. His elder stoner swagger is hilarious.

Writer Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill) makes his directorial debut, wisely choosing an ensemble romantic comedy with several intertwined stories. Love Actually is a light and winsome version of a Robert Altman character study. And as is usually the case with these patchwork stories, some of the pieces are more compelling and enjoyable than others. At its finest, Love is reminiscent of the best moments of Four Weddings and a Funeral. When it veers into slightly corny turf, it brings to mind the far-more-mediocre Notting Hill.

Among the better scenarios are Grant as a bachelor prime minister who is too busy to look for a wife. He surprises himself (and everyone else) by being smitten with a down-to-earth staffer (Martine McCutcheon), a slightly more full-figured gal than average. There's an unexpectedly bittersweet bond between the luminous Keira Knightley and her husband's reserved best friend (Andrew Lincoln). And for tearjerking moments, no one can beat Thompson's performance as the stalwart wife of the straying Rickman. A Christmas Eve scene showcases her talent for comedy, pathos and pluck, all the while breaking our hearts.

The sum of Love Actually is greater than its parts. The film is bookended by shots of ordinary people affectionately greeting and tearfully seeing each other off at an airport. The device is a bit forced, but ultimately touching. The same could be said for the movie as a whole, which winningly demonstrates that despite all odds, love is indeed all around us.
Carol, confirmed Rickman addict <wishes2c@comcast.netfoo>
MI USA - Friday, November 07, 2003

Very nice review!!

Review “Love Actually”

Grade: A

‘Love Actually’ will warm your heart for the holidays

by Tom Long, Detroit News Film Critic, November 7, 2003

Perfectly wonderful if not completely perfect, “Love Actually” is a holiday delight---funny, smart, irreverent and in love with love. It’s a movie for the whole family despite its ridiculous R rating for language and comical nudity, and almost certain to become a classic worth watching annually as Christmas rolls around.

This is the first time writer Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary”) has worn the director’s cap too, but he seamlessly weaves a varied lot of stories together during one holiday season in Britain, each filled with laughter and questions about the nature of love. A few of the stories stumble slightly at times---the number of characters he’s dealing with here is staggering---but the overall effect is gloriously life-affirming.

There’s the newly elected prime minister (Curtis regular High Grant), who falls in love with a young aide. There’s a recent widower (Liam Nelson), trying to steer his dead wife’s son through the waters of preteen love. There’s a woman (Laura Linney) who can’t quite give herself the time to fall in love with a co-worker she has a crush on, a young bride (Kiera Knightley) who may have picked the wrong guy, and an older mother (Emma Thompson) who senses the unrest in her husband (Alan Rickman).

And most most gloriously, there’s a fiftyish, washed-up rock star (Bill Nighy) who has recorded a holiday version of a wimpy pop song and is determined to make it a smash hit by bluntly telling everyone how awful it is. Oh, and did I mention the completely innocent nude models who exchange polite conversation while twisting themselves through a parade of contortions, or the bloke who finds sexual bliss in the Midwest?

Curtis has fun at every level and yet also manages to work through hard truths, particularly with the married couple’s relationship and Linney’s character, who is too distracted by obligation to let herself go. At times, he stretches a bit far---Colin Firth plays a writer who falls in love with an Italian maid he can’t understand, which is funny for awhile but then strained. And there are other small missteps. But in terms of the larger equation it ultimately adds up beautifully.

He also takes a nice political dig, having Grant’s prime minister stand up to a U.S. president (Bill Bob Thornton) with George Dubya’s accent and Clinton’s leer. Who knows? Maybe Grant could lead a greater Britain.

Without giving it away, it should be noted that Curtis frames the move with reality, bringing home the point that love is not just a writer’s device or an excuse for some laughs. The great thing about “Love Actually” is it joyously celebrates that most common emotional denominator with eyes wide open and plenty of heart on its sleeve. In this movie, love is indeed all around us.
Carol <wishes2c@comcast.netfoo>
MI USA - Friday, November 07, 2003

LOVE ACTUALLY / ***1/2 (R)

November 7, 2003

BY ROGER EBERT

"Love Actually" is a belly-flop into the sea of romantic comedy. It contains about a dozen couples who are in love; that's an approximate figure because some of them fall out of love and others double up or change partners. There's also one hopeful soloist who believes that if he flies to Milwaukee and walks into a bar he'll find a friendly Wisconsin girl who thinks his British accent is so cute she'll want to sleep with him. This turns out to be true.

The movie is written and directed by Richard Curtis, the same man who wrote three landmarks in recent romantic comedy: "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary." His screenplay for "Love Actually" is bursting enough material for the next three. The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs, until at times Curtis seems to be working from a checklist of obligatory movie love situations and doesn't want to leave anything out. At 129 minutes, it feels a little like a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest.

I could attempt to summarize the dozen (or so) love stories, but that way madness lies. Maybe I can back into the movie by observing the all-star gallery of dependable romantic comedy stars, led by Hugh Grant, and you know what? Little by little, a movie at a time, Grant has flowered into an absolutely splendid romantic comedian. He's getting to be one of those actors like Christopher Walken or William Macy where you smile when you see them on the screen. He has that Cary Grantish ability to seem bemused by his own charm, and so much self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as if he took the role to be a good sport.

Emma Thompson plays his sister, with that wry way she has with normality, and Alan Rickman plays her potentially cheating husband with the air of a lawyer who hates to point out the escape clause he's just discovered. Laura Linney plays his assistant, who is shy to admit she loves her co-worker Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), who is also shy to admit he loves her, and so you see how the stories go round and round.

Oh, and the prime minister walks into 10 Downing Street his first day on the job and Natalie the tea girl (Martine McCutcheon) brings him his tea and biscuits, and the nation's most prominent bachelor realizes with a sinking heart that he has fallen head over teapot in love. "Oh, no, that is so inconvenient," he says to himself, with the despair of a man who wants to be ruled by his head but knows that his netherlands have the votes.

Wandering past these lovable couples is the film's ancient mariner, a broken-down rock star named Billy Mack, who is played by Bill Nighy as if Keith Richards had never recorded anything but crap, and knew it. By the time he is 50, George Orwell said, a man has the face he deserves, and Nighy looks as if he spent those years turning his face into a warning for young people: Look what can happen to you if you insist on being a naughty boy.

Billy Mack is involved in recording a cynical Christmas version of one of his old hits. The hit was crappy, the Christmas version is crap squared, and he is only too happy to admit it. He is long past pretending to be nice just because he's on a talk show. At one point he describes his song with a versatile torrent of insults of which the only printable word is "turd," and on another show when he's told he should spend Christmas with someone he loves, he replies, "When I was young, I was greedy and foolish, and now I'm left with no one. Wrinkled and alone." That this is true merely adds to his charm, and Nighy steals the movie, especially in the surprising late scene where he confesses genuine affection for (we suspect) the first time in his life.

Look who else is in the movie. Billy Bob Thornton turns up as the president of the United States, combining the lechery of Clinton with the moral complacency of Bush. After the president makes a speech informing the British that America is better than they are, America is stronger than they are, America will do what is right and the Brits had better get used to it, Hugh Grant's PM steps up to the podium, and what he says is a little more pointed than he intended it to be, because his heart is breaking: He has just glimpsed the president flirting with the delectable tea girl.

The movie has such inevitable situations as a school holiday concert, an office party, a family dinner, a teenage boy who has a crush on a girl who doesn't know he exists, and all sorts of accidental meetings, both fortunate and not. Richard Curtis always involves a little sadness in his comedies (like the funeral in "Four Weddings"), and there's genuine poignancy in the relationship of a recently widowed man (Liam Neeson) and his wife's young son by a former marriage (Thomas Sangster). Their conversations together have some of the same richness as "About a Boy."

The movie has to hop around to keep all these stories alive, and there are a couple I could do without. I'm not sure we need the wordless romance between Colin Firth, as a British writer, and Lucia Moniz, as the Portuguese maid who works in his cottage in France. Let's face it: The scene where his manuscript blows into the lake and she jumps in after it isn't up to the standard of the rest of the movie. I once had ballpoints printed up with the message, No good movie is too long. No bad movie is short enough. "Love Actually" is too long. But don't let that stop you.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.
Carol <wishes2c@comcast.netfoo>
MI USA - Friday, November 07, 2003

****SPOILER*****

NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW

November 7, 2003
MOVIE REVIEW | 'LOVE ACTUALLY'
Tales of Love, the True and the Not-So-True
By A. O. SCOTT

"Love Actually," which opens today nationwide, is an indigestible Christmas pudding from the British whimsy factory responsible for such reasonably palatable confections as "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary." A romantic comedy swollen to the length of an Oscar-trawling epic - nearly two and a quarter hours of cheekiness, diffidence and high-tone smirking - it is more like a record label's greatest-hits compilation or a "very special" sitcom clip-reel show than an actual movie.

The air is thick with bad pop songs, which those plucky, ironical Britons seem to love in spite of their badness. A sparkling British-American cast of newly minted and long familiar stars chirp, swoon, pine, quip and shed the odd tear. Presiding over it all is the new prime minister, a twinkly bachelor with a tonsorial resemblance to Tony Blair, who is played by none other than Hugh Grant. As he did in the far superior "About a Boy," Mr. Grant makes a climactic onstage appearance at a school talent show. He also sings "Good King Wenceslas" and disco-dances around 10 Downing Street in his shirt sleeves.

In his opening voice-over, Mr. Grant establishes a new standard for bad taste masquerading as its opposite when he introduces this fluffy farrago, written and directed by Richard Curtis, with a reference to the World Trade Center attacks. The phone calls made from the towers, he suggests, show that however perilous the state of the world, "love is all around." Further support for this thesis is gleaned from the arrival gate at Heathrow, where people tend to hug and kiss each other a lot.

Like much else in "Love Actually," you almost buy this moment of banal sentiment, because it is so prettily shot and smartly spoken. But the film's governing idea of love is both shallow and dishonest, and its sweet, chipper demeanor masks a sour cynicism about human emotions that is all the more sleazy for remaining unacknowledged. It has the calloused, leering soul of an early-60's rat-pack comedy, but without the suave, seductive bravado. The worst kind of cad is the one who thinks he's really a sensitive guy deep down.

Most of the picture's half-dozen or so romantic subplots - which lie scattered about like torn wrapping paper on Christmas morning - involve workplace dalliances of one kind or another. The ones with the best chances of success all involve an older male boss and a young female subordinate. Jamie (Colin Firth), a writer cuckolded by his own brother, retreats to a villa in the South of France and falls for his Portuguese housekeeper, Aurelia, who speaks no English and who obligingly strips down to her underwear to rescue manuscript pages that have blown into the lake.

Harry (Alan Rickman), the head of a nonprofit organization, is besotted with his secretary, Mia (Heike Makatsh), who makes no secret of her attraction to him. The prime minister, moral exemplar of the nation, develops a crush on Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), a member of the Downing Street household staff. When the goatish president of the United States, in London for a state visit, puts the moves on her, the P.M.'s jealousy precipitates a chill in British-American relations (and also makes him a national hero).

The funniest and most winning on-the-job romance bubbles up between two people (Martin Freeman and Joanna Page) who work as body doubles on a movie set, miming explicit sex scenes in the absence of the prudish stars. As their naked bodies go through the motions, the two of them chat mildly about traffic and the weather, and their mutual attraction is sealed, on the first date, by a chaste kiss on the cheek.

The other genuine comic spark comes from Bill Nighy, playing a washed-up, dissolute rock star named Billy Mack, who is trying for a comeback with a treacly Christmas record. Billy says shocking, hilarious things in television and radio interviews, and his casual indifference to proper decorum makes him the most honest character in the film.

The problem is that the movie, more than any of the characters in it, is a mess of crossed signals, swerving between cynicism and sincerity without quite knowing the difference between them. It is most grotesque when it tries for earnest drama, parading the grief of a widower (Liam Neeson) and the humiliation of a middle-aged wife (Emma Thompson) before us when it thinks our throats need lumping.

It is disturbing to see Ms. Thompson's range and subtlety so shamelessly trashed, and to see Laura Linney's intelligence similarly abused as a lonely, frustrated do-gooder. The fate of their characters suggests that women who are not young, pert secretaries or household workers have no real hope of sexual fulfillment and can find only a compromised, damaged form of love. Perhaps Mr. Curtis wishes to offer this as an insight into contemporary social arrangements; if so, his indifference to the cruelty of those arrangements is truly breathtaking.

But it is unlikely that any particular insight was intended. Instead, "Love Actually" is a patchwork of contrived naughtiness and forced pathos, ending as it began, with hugging and kissing at the airport (where returning passengers are perhaps expressing their relief at being delivered from an in-flight movie like this one). The loose ends are neatly tied up, as they are when you seal a bag of garbage - or if you prefer, rubbish.

"Love Actually" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has sex, nudity and profanity.

LOVE ACTUALLY

Written and directed by Richard Curtis; director of photography, Michael Coulter; edited by Nick Moore; music by Craig Armstrong; production designer, Jim Clay; produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Duncan Kenworthy; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 128 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Alan Rickman (Harry), Bill Nighy (Billy Mack), Colin Firth (Jamie), Emma Thompson (Karen), Hugh Grant (Prime Minister), Laura Linney (Sarah), Liam Neeson (Daniel), Martine McCutcheon (Natalie) Heike Makatsh (Mia) Rowan Atkinson (Rufus), Lucia Moniz (Aurelia), Martin Freeman (John) and Joanna Page (Just Judy).

Kimberly
Michigan - Friday, November 07, 2003

Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe
November 7, 2003, Friday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: ARTS; Pg. C1
LENGTH: 693 words
HEADLINE: WEEKEND / MOVIE REVIEW Love Actually Written and directed by: Richard Curtis Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Keira Knightley, Alan Rickman, Rowan Atkinson At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 128 minutes; Rated: R (sexuality, nudity, language** 1/2; PLOTS OVERTHROW ROMANCE IN 'LOVE ACTUALLY' 'LOVE' HAS MANY SUBPLOTS AND A FEW STAR TURNS
BYLINE: By Ty Burr, Globe Staff

In its lighthearted fashion, "Love Actually" asks us to accept a few radical notions. Among them are that all women in Wisconsin are lollapaloozas who look like Denise Richards, that Liam Neeson might find it difficult to get a date, and that Hugh Grant could in any possible universe serve as prime minister of England.

Buy into these and you'll buy into the film's charming, if terribly overstuffed, vision of romantic London gridlock. "Love Actually" gives us 16 major characters in eight tangentially related entanglements of the heart, which is about seven more than any first-time director should take on.

Since that director is Richard Curtis, who wrote "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill" (as well as chipping in on the screenplay for "Bridget Jones's Diary"), his confidence can be forgiven. The man knows from cheeky British ardor, and there's the sense that he has put into "Love" all the bits he couldn't fit into his earlier scripts. He also knows the value of plowing familiar ground: There's both a wedding and a funeral here, and more than one character suffers the squidgy comic embarrassment of having to proclaim.

his love in front of a roomful of strangers. Damned if it doesn't work all over again.

That said, Curtis simply tries to keep too many balls in the air, and several of them end up under the couch. The laundry list of subplots includes: the prime minister (Grant) coping with his infatuation with a pert staffer (Martine McCutcheon); a businessman (Alan Rickman) married to the PM's sister (Emma Thompson) but tempted by his sexpot secretary (Heike Makatsch); a widower (Neeson) trying to help his young son (Thomas Sangster) through his first crush; a divorced writer (Colin Firth) mooning over his Portuguese housekeeper (Lucia Moniz); an art gallery owner (Andrew Lincoln) racked by the marriage of his best friend (Chiwetel Ejiofor, of "Dirty Pretty Things") to a young lovely (Keira Knightley, of "Pirates of the Caribbean"); two porn-film extras (Martin Freeman and Joanna Page) who turn sweetly shy whenever their clothes are on; and one wastrel of a washed-up rock star (the hilarious Bill Nighy), who reserves his affections for his bulldog of a manager (Gregor Fisher).

If you had trouble making it through that paragraph, rest assured the movie has similar problems. The porn extras disappear for long swaths, and the story line about a hapless young Londoner (Kris Marshall) who hopes to make it with an American girl just gets sillier and sillier. Curtis should also steer clear of politics: The romance between the prime minister and the tea lady never feels less than uncomfortable - not least because Curtis has intentionally cast an actress who resembles Monica Lewinsky - and when Billy Bob Thornton shows up as the US president and tries to cop a feel for himself, the ick factor becomes undeniable.

Get Grant on his own, however, shaking a tail feather to the Pointer Sisters' "Jump," and the movie shamelessly perks right up. Other segments play out with the right balance of humor and melancholy: As a tightly wound office worker with a crush on the dashing fellow in the next cubicle, Laura Linney expertly mixes repression and horniness, and the revelation of why she may always remain single is a heartbreaker.

So, too, is the performance of Thompson, who has been off raising a daughter for the last four years and who therefore hasn't graced the screen nearly as much as one of our finest actresses should. Confronting the possibility of her husband's infidelity on a snowy Christmas morning, Thompson squeezes disbelief, anger, and deep, deep sorrow into the space of a few seconds - and then rejoins her family with her usual rollicking intelligence.

Toss in Rowan Atkinson as a supercilious department store clerk and some linguistically challenged and very funny romantic comedy between Firth (who speaks only English) and Moniz (who speaks only Portuguese), and "Love Actually" will delight moviegoers who think that more really is more. Cynics who prefer their twee without sugar are advised to look elsewhere.

Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. In one of many story lines, prime minister Hugh Grant fancies Martine McCutcheon. / PHOTO / PETER MOUNTAIN 2. In "Love Actually," Laura Linney (center) grapples with an office crush, while Colin Firth pines after his housekeeper. / PHOTO / PETER MOUNTAIN

Georgiana (I agree--Emma was breath-taking)
Seattle - Friday, November 07, 2003

Breaking News: AR is going to be on "The Jimmy Kimmel Show" on ABC Wed. Nov 12.

I am not making this up.
Kate
SF, - Thursday, November 06, 2003

Copyright 2003 MGN Ltd.
The Mirror
November 6, 2003, Thursday
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 27
LENGTH: 615 words
HEADLINE: JULIET WILSON LAWRENCE'S COLUMN: WHY BADDIES ARE SO MUCH MORE FUN
BYLINE: JULIET WILSON LAWRENCE
HIGHLIGHT: TRYST: Russian Angela

ONE of the most wonderful (and best delivered lines) in television history was in The Barchester Chronicles.

Alan Rickman played Reverend Slope with all the sliminess of a vat of jellied eels writhing in a page three girl's yearly supply of baby oil.

This character bids a last farewell to two adversaries with the words, "I hope you both live forever!"

I would imagine that just about every Equity member at the time would have happily torn up their union card to have the opportunity to deliver those words just one time.

And perhaps once more for the cheap seats at the back.

You never hear Alan Rickman saying that he would really like to play a good guy. Is it not funny that he never moans about not getting the part of Dumbledore rather than Professor Snape?

In fact, you never hear of actors who want to play the romantic wimp who everybody likes but gets walked all over.

Everyone these days wants to be a baddie, and, quite rightly, because it's the only way people remember you.

How many nice teachers do you remember from school? Maybe the ones you had a special bond with, but not many.

It is the ones who made your life hell that you will never forget.

They are the ones forever in your nightmares, constantly trying to top up that inferiority complex they impregnated in your brain all those years ago. Not that I am bitter, far from it. I learned more about life and its unfairness from them than anyone else.

I had one deputy headmaster (who for the record was actually a very decent person) who cultivated an image of being a baddie.

When he got up to give a speech at assembly he was greeted with boos and hisses. And did that man just love it? It was all he could do to not shout out, "Bring it on!"

I remember one morning he was having a rant about Super Soakers and how they were banned at school. The up-shot was that if you brought the offending item in he would confiscate it.

THEN he went on to round off his speech with the immortal line, "So go ahead - make my day!" More boos and hisses.

I remember thinking, "That man's wife is a lucky woman".

After disagreements during her time as junior minister at the Home office, Anne Widdecombe referred to "Something of the night" about Michael Howard, I recall thinking that this was just about the most wonderful thing she could have said about him.

Whether or not he was irked by the comment at the time, which I doubt, the compliment is certainly coming back to flatter him now.

During his recent press conference-come-rally at the Saatchi Gallery, one reporter asked a question, which basically amounted to the insult of whether or not he is the same right wing surprise one finds on the bottom of one's shoe, he replies, "That's a very generous question".

Several political commentators have remarked that his skin was deathly pale.

I would advise Mr Howard to stay out of the sun, perhaps have a little subtle filling done on his eyeteeth and buy a cloak - play up those Romanian roots. Being thought of as a baddie is not a bad image when you consider what is on the opposition.

Am I the only one who is sick to the back teeth of Tony Blair's nice guy, doesn't mind changing the baby's nappy but also not averse to dropping a few bombs over the Middle East approach?

If you owned shares in a company, who would you prefer to be the chairman - the bloke who wants to be everyone's friend or the guy who didn't give a monkeys whether or not he was liked, trod on a few toes but, in the end, got the share pieces up?

Or let's put it another way. Who would you most like to get into bed with? Bambi or Dracula? Answers on a postcard.

Georgiana (off to London on Monday)
Seattle - Thursday, November 06, 2003

Copyright 2003 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
PR Newswire
November 5, 2003, Wednesday
SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT, TELEVISION, AND CULTURE
DISTRIBUTION: TO ENTERTAINMENT AND FILM EDITORS
LENGTH: 238 words
HEADLINE: UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND WORKING TITLE FILMS HOST THE WORLD PREMIERE OF 'LOVE ACTUALLY' THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT THE ZIEGFELD THEATRE IN MANHATTAN

WHAT: The world premiere of "LOVE ACTUALLY"

WHO: "LOVE ACTUALLY" cast members Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson, Rodrigo Santoro, Thomas Sangster, Claudia Schiffer, Olivia Olson and January Jones; director/screenwriter Richard Curtis; producers Duncan Kenworthy, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner; and soundtrack artist Kelly Clarkson.

Plus, additional celebrity guests including: Richard Belzer, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Anthony Edwards, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Fab 5 (Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, Jai Rodriguez), Josh Groban, Denis Leary, Frances McDormand, Kyle MacLachlan, Sarah McLachlan, Heather Matarazzo, June Pointer, Sydney Pollack, Natasha Richardson, Greg Wise, and many others.

WHERE: Ziegfeld Theatre, 141 West 54th Street, New York City

WHEN: Thursday, November 6, 2003
5:30 PM Press Call Time
6:30 PM Celebrity Arrivals
7:30 PM Screening Begins

"LOVE ACTUALLY" opens in theaters across the country on Friday, November 7, 2003

SOURCE Universal Pictures

CONTACT: Television, Stacey Rosen, +1-212-445-3804, or Print
URL: http://www.prnewswire.com

Georgiana (off to London on Monday)
Seattle - Thursday, November 06, 2003

Copyright 2003 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
DAILY MAIL (London)
November 5, 2003
SECTION: ED_1ST; Pg. 32; Pg. 33
LENGTH: 1976 words
HEADLINE: I fathered triplets at 71!
BYLINE: AMANDA CABLE

AWARD-WINNING playwright and director, Peter Barnes, became a father to triplets last year at 71 when wife Christie gave birth to Nathaniel, Zachary and Abigail. The couple, who live in a West London mews, have one other child, Leela, three-and-a-half. Here, Peter, who was 69 when Leela was born, talks to AMANDA CABLE about how late fatherhood has changed his life beyond all recognition . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

Nothing before has ever come between me and my work. I am a self-confessed workaholic and old friends, like Alan Rickman, laughed when they heard I was now coping with three babies. They were surprised that I was having children at my age, but no one was horrified.

. . . . . . . . .

Georgiana (off to London on Monday)
Seattle - Thursday, November 06, 2003

The freebie dvd is pretty stunning, actually!
Sue
England - Thursday, November 06, 2003

"Only two performances tower above the treacle. With thinning blond hair and even thinner scruples, Bill Nighy plays a 50-something has-been rocker (Keith Richards gone Eurovision) gleefully selling his soul for a No. 1 holiday hit. His emotional directness and self-pleased avarice signal everything that's missing from this syrupy swamp. Then there's Heike Makatsch as the secretary infatuated with Rickman, her boss. She does everything in her power to seduce the guy-and I mean everything!-down to a devil's horns and fishnet getup at the office Christmas party. The mistletoe looms! The woman demands to be kissed! And yet nothing happens. Rickman is here married to Thompson, and both are icons of British cinema, so nothing untoward can occur. Some may find holiday consolation that happy families are preserved, and new ones formed, but by the end of Actually, I only remembered Makatsch's red, longing lips and thought, What a waste."
Magda
Canada - Wednesday, November 05, 2003

The Associated Press
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press.
November 4, 2003, Tuesday, BC cycle
SECTION: Entertainment News
LENGTH: 1018 words
HEADLINE: 'Love Actually' embraces romantic side of impersonal airports
BYLINE: By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

Everybody hates airports - until the moment when that loved one's face materializes from the crowd, and you find yourself in a viselike hug, oblivious to the swirling mob of strangers.

During a long wait at Los Angeles International Airport, British writer-director Richard Curtis was so struck by the tenderness of reunions that he incorporated montages of airport greetings into his romantic comedy "Love Actually."

Dozens of airport embraces, caresses and kisses open and close "Love Actually," whose ensemble cast includes Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Alan Rickman as Londoners in various throes of pre-Christmas romance.

The reunion hugs are of real people, shot by a hidden camera at London's Heathrow Airport.

"What is lovely in these airports, before the person you love comes through the door, the people waiting look their least attractive," said Curtis, who wrote "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill." "They're tired, they parked in some airport car park, they arrived 45 minutes early. They look like they couldn't muster a smile if you paid them a thousand pounds. Then their person comes through, and this explosion of personality takes over."

Airport farewells carry just as much impact, Curtis said.

"They can be equally moving in a very different and sadder way," said Curtis, who turns 47 the day after "Love Actually" opens. "When I go through my melancholy phase in my 50s, maybe I'll do a movie that begins and ends with airport departures."

The Associated Press asked Curtis and some of his cast to share memories of their own airport experiences, whether happy greetings or sad partings.

---

Curtis, actually, has a sad greeting. In Paris years ago, he developed a crush on a British woman. Before he returned to London, he arranged to meet her at the airport when she came back home.

"When she came off the plane, I didn't recognize her. She was wearing a slightly different dress, and I was looking straight through her," Curtis said. "I remember telling this annoying person in front of me to move because I was looking for this fabulous girl in a blue dress, and it turned out to be her.

"Not the perfect start to a date."

---

Linney, 39, plays an American living in London, whose attempts at romance with a co-worker are disrupted by trouble with her mentally ill brother. The actress' strongest airport recollections date back to childhood, when she would leave behind her mom and dad to visit her grandmother in Georgia.

"I was one of those solo-flier children, and I would go down and spend part of summer with her," Linney said. "Just getting off the plane and seeing her face, it was wonderful."

While most people tend to blot out demonstrative scenes among strangers at airports, Linney said she always has been a bit of an emotional voyeur over such moments.

"I get very choked up at airports watching other people greet and say goodbye. When you see those hellos and goodbyes, people coming together or taken apart, you see their chemistry change," Linney said. With Curtis' script, "I was very glad somebody else saw it the same way and was as sentimental about it, and as much of an emotional sponge as I am."

---

Rickman, 57, also has been a longtime spectator of other people's emotional airport dramas, so much so that he bears a friendly grudge against Curtis.

"Strangely enough, I've always had in mind that I wanted to make a short film of just people saying hello and goodbye at airports, and he snatched it away from me," said Rickman, whose "Love Actually" character is a steadfast husband put to the test by a flirtation with an amorous colleague. "It just goes to show if you have an idea, you better do it fast before someone else does."

For Rickman, no particular airport scenes from his own life come to mind.

"The trouble is, my airport experiences usually are, 'Where's the driver? Where's the luggage? There's too much luggage. The luggage is too heavy,"' Rickman said. "That's why I look around at airports for signs in other people that they're having a better day than I am.

"I think it's everybody for themselves at airports."

---

British TV and pop star Martine McCutcheon, 26, gets her big-screen break with "Love Actually" as an adorably klutzy aide who catches the eye of Britain's new bachelor prime minister (Grant).

McCutcheon recalls her mother's glum face a couple of years ago, when the actress took her first trip from London to Los Angeles to meet with agents.

"My mum drove me to the airport, and she knew I'd be out there on my own. She was kind of breaking her heart when I left," McCutcheon said. "Suddenly you're independent, growing up, all those things. It was pretty emotional saying goodbye. We were both crying our eyes out."

Among drivers holding placards with passengers' names at Heathrow, McCutcheon once saw a man with a sign saying, "Susan, will you marry me?"

"I didn't ever see Susan," McCutcheon said. "I don't know if she said yes or not, but I remember thinking, I hope she says yes."

---

Bill Nighy, 54, who played a dinosaur rock 'n' roller in the 1998 bandmate-reunion comedy "Still Crazy," co-stars as another has-been rocker in "Love Actually." With shameless glee, his character hits the comeback trail plugging his awful Christmas version of the old Troggs tune "Love Is All Around."

Nighy recently had a heartfelt reunion with his 18-year-old daughter when she returned to England after a trip to South America, in countries "she chose very carefully to put the wind up her father, countries where her cell phone wouldn't operate."

So Nighy had barely spoken with her for two months when he picked her up at Heathrow.

"On the way to the airport, I was thinking, if I squeeze her the way I want to squeeze her, we'd end up in casualty. I will squeeze her to death," Nighy said. "You understand your mother, suddenly. The physical distress you get when you haven't seen your child for a long time.

"When I actually saw her and hugged her, I restrained myself. I didn't break both her arms."

Georgiana (I see where Nighy found inspiration for some of his "Blow Dry" scenes!)
Seattle - Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Daily Variety
November 4, 2003, Tuesday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 05
LENGTH: 132 words
HEADLINE: Rickman, Def 'Made' men
BYLINE: DENISE MARTIN

Alan Rickman and Mos Def are attached to star in "Something the Lord Made," a telepic about the origins of open heart surgery in the works at HBO.

Julian Krainin ("Quiz Show") and "Save the Last Dance" team Robert W. Cort and David Madden are on board to exec produce the project, which is in development.

Peter Silverman ("Harlan County War") will pen the project to be directed by Joseph Sargent ("Out of the Ashes").

Pic had previously been developed at Paramount for a theatrical release with helmer Mick Jackson and scribes Bryan Goluboff and Robert Kaswell attached.

Story revolves around real-life doctor Alfred Blalock (Rickman) and medical technician Vivien Thomas (Def), who partnered to pioneer the process of open heart surgery at Johns Hopkins in the early '40s.

Georgiana (oh, good, set in the 1940s--a period that will look grand on him)
Seattle - Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Copyright 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Observer
November 2, 2003
SECTION: Observer Magazine Pages, Pg. 24
LENGTH: 737 words
HEADLINE: PROFILE: Box- office romance: As Mia, the secretary seductress, she's set to light up Richard Curtis's seasonal feel-good block-buster. Ian Tucker meets Heike Makatsch and discovers why it really is love, actually.
BYLINE: Ian Tucker

Richard Curtis's star-packed, multi-story, supersized Christmas cracker of a movie, Love Actually - like his previous successes Four Weddings and Notting Hill - contains many memorable lines and images, but for sheer chutzpah and sauce, German actress Heike Makatsch's vampy, boss-baiting secretary Mia wins employee of the month.

Asked about the qualities of the venue for the office party by her boss Harry (Alan Rickman), Mia swivels round in her chair, leans back, spreads her legs, opens her eyes wide and says, 'Good, with lots of dark corners for doing dark deeds.' Rickman doesn't know where to look or what to do.

This may well be the first time Dusseldorf-born Heike will grab British audiences' attention, but in Germany she is a bit of a star. Thirty-two-year-old Heike ('as in hitchhiker,' she says) Makatsch (pronounced 'Mackatch'), the daughter of a lawyer/former ice hockey international and a teacher, started out presenting on a music video channel called Viva. 'I think it did a lot for the German music industry - which you English people laugh at,' she says, sipping tea at a west London hotel.

Makatsch was very successful, appearing on lots of magazine covers and pulling in an annual salary in excess of pounds 100,000 at just 23. Stomping around in combat boots and sporting blonde braided hair, she presented a mixture of talk shows and phone-ins, interviewing pop stars including Robbie Williams, who, rather charmed with her, gave Makatsch his mobile phone number.

Did you call him?

'That's really ridiculous. It was nine years ago, when he was in Take That, and I should have never mentioned it to a journalist then,' she says, spilling her tea.

Her break came in 1995 when she got cast in German triumph-over-adversity flick Sucht ( Jailbird ), where she played a girl with a lisp who yearns to sing. She caught the attention of the Hollywood Reporter, which noted, 'She stunned critics and fans alike with her unexpectedly powerful performance.' So Makatsch quit TV soon after and concentrated on the acting: 'I decided to make the transformation, which, for the public, is sometimes a bit hard to digest, so that took a while for them not to constantly refer back to my VJ days. But now, finally, they've got their head around it. Maybe you should make it small, too,' she advises, anxious not to dwell on her teenybopper period.

Another big change came two years later when she was cast in Obsession opposite British actor Daniel Craig (soon to be seen as Ted Hughes in Sylvia ). 'I liked him straight away,' says Heike, and they've been together, in London, ever since. 'I do my filming in Germany and my living in London,' she says.

Other notable career moments include breaking two of her co-star's ribs while filming a love scene for a German television series and her performance in British Generation Y comedy Late Night Shopping - 'semi-successful and it's not boring,' says Makatsch, in her quirky but uncannily perceptive English.

In Love Actually, most of her scenes are with Rickman - 'he is very handsome, very easy to do scenes with,' she says. The plucky Makatsch describes the audition process as 'nerve wrecking', but she didn't find working with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson et al intimidating. 'If you meet them on set you see a person, not a screen persona,' she says.

Love Actually weaves together 10 love stories that take place in the run-up to Christmas. There are many varieties of love on offer: unrequited love, inter-class love, love that can't articulate and a love triangle, featuring Makatsch, Rickman and Thompson, which provides some of the more grown-up emotion in the film. Some scenes were lost in the final edit, but she denies there's a Makatsch-Rickman sex scene lying on the cutting-room floor. Of her secretary's office romance with her boss she comments, 'I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to. In long relationships there is often a temptation, a betrayal or a loss of faith,' she counsels.

Does she think Curtis was looking for a foreign temptress to spice up his very British movie? 'I think Richard liked it that she was a bit misplaced, that she had something about her that made her a bit detached from other people. I think she's like a fantasy of a woman, a threat. And the exoticness. . . I don't think he minded.' OM

Love Actually is released on 21 November

Georgiana (I saw Daniel Craig with Michael Gambon in "A Number" at the Royal Court--twice. A gripping theatre experience.)
Seattle - Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Article about AR (with new quotes about LA) in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle:

London -- Theater means pressure to actor Alan Rickman. And sometimes it's a pressure he could do without.

"Sometimes theater takes more than it gives," sighs Rickman. "It's great when the curtain comes down at the end . . . and it's great when you're doing it, too. It's just that hanging on to that concentration for two solid hours is hard. At least in a film if you screw it up you can do it again."

And tonight -- the night after the London premiere of his new film "Love Actually" -- the acerbic actor would much rather talk about acting in movies. Despite Rickman's reputation as a stage actor -- he has worked for years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and recently starred in Noel Coward's "Private Lives," both on Broadway and London's West End -- he's probably best known in the States for his appearances in the Harry Potter movies and his portrayal of bad guys. He played the sinister mob leader in "Die Hard" and the outrageous Sheriff of Nottingham in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."

"Love Actually," which opens here Friday, weaves nine love stories into one plot. In one of them, Rickman plays Harry, married to Karen (Emma Thompson) -- they have two children and appear to be the perfect longtime married couple (although Harry is constantly trying to fend off advances from his secretary).

Written by Richard Curtis ("Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary") who also directs for the first time, the movie is a sort of Who's Who of the British acting world: In addition to Rickman and Thompson, it boasts a panoply of stars -- Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Liam Neeson, with Americans Laura Linney and Billy Bob Thornton (as the president of the United States). Linney plays Sarah, a young woman with a dark and tragic secret; Grant plays a fictional British prime minister who has some very strong words about the relationship between Britain and the United States.

Rickman has worked with Thompson before -- they were in "Judas Kiss" in which they were romantically involved -- and says the opportunity to work with her again was a bonus. "The fact that we're close friends helps," Richman says. "Maybe that was part of the reason Richard (Curtis) wanted us to play these parts."

While Rickman's sneering purr makes him the movie villain of choice, he can tone down the sinister. "A film like 'Love Actually' is fairly restrained but it's not less of a challenge," he says. "It can be much easier, in a way, to come on all guns blazing. A lot of what this film's about is about what isn't being said."

Born in a poor part of London, Rickman lost his father at age 8, and won a scholarship to a good London school. Acting wasn't what he set out to do -- after school, Rickman headed for art college. And he's always had an interest in politics -- he's known in Britain as a staunch Labor supporter. In his mid- 20s, Rickman applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He got in, but it wasn't until he was 42 that his work was noticed in a production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in Stratford-on-Avon.

His leading lady, Lindsay Duncan, has said of that first night, "A lot of people left the theater wanting to have sex, and most of them wanted to have it with Alan Rickman."

A tall and broad bear of a man, with a lovely open face, Rickman's become something of a thinking person's sex symbol, a notion which he hasn't much time for.

"I set out to be as honest and open and direct an actor as I can," he says. "And I've noticed that when actors try to work openly, some kind of attraction is created because people see a route to you as a person, or they think they do. Maybe that creates an attraction."

Success, on stage or on film, has "got nothing to do with an actor's looks, " he says matter-of-factly. "It's the emotions an actor taps into." He repeats the word slowly: "The emotions."
Magda
Canada - Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Copyright 2003 U.P.I.
United Press International
November 3, 2003 Monday
LENGTH: 236 words
HEADLINE: Thompson and Rickman, together again
DATELINE: LONDON, Nov. 3 (UPI)

Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman have worked together on so many occasions, they actually behave like a married couple.

Good thing. The two have been cast as husband and wife in Richard Curtis' new romantic comedy, "Love Actually."

"Alan and I, we are so married now that we actually had a row on set," Thompson told UPI. "Because I was saying, 'Oh, well, why don't you try this?' and he said: 'I'll do what I bloody well want. Don't tell me what to do!' I said, 'I wasn't telling you what to do!' We got very nippy with each other in the airport scene. It was hysterical. I just said, 'I am so glad I'm not married to you!'"

The star of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Primary Colors" then recalled how her director/father always said "direction is 90 percent in the casting."

"And I think that is very true," said the actress. "I think working with anyone more than once is good because, apart from the obvious, you can be thoroughly rude to them and that gets ride of a lot of hoo-ha. You don't have to skirt around their egos and everyone's had their corners rubbed off. You recognize them."

In the film, Rickman plays a happily married man whose head is turned by the office temptress. Rickman and Thompson have acted together in "Sense and Sensibility" and "Judas Kiss," and will both appear in the next Harry Potter movie. Rickman also directed Thompson in the film version of "The Winter Guest."

Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London)
November 1, 2003, Saturday
SECTION: Features; Times Magazine 58
LENGTH: 1991 words
HEADLINE: Love is all around
BYLINE: Martyn Palmer

Martyn Palmer goes behind the scenes of the ultimate feel-good movie, Richard Curtis's all-star directorial debut

For Hugh Grant the final cast reading for Love Actually was a bit like an all-star episode of The Vicar of Dibley. "You know, where they all sit around that big table at the parish council." For Liam Neeson, more reminiscent of a UN summit. "All those chairs with bottles of water.

Everybody was nervous, I know I was. It was, 'Christ, who's going to walk in next?'"

Colin Firth compares it to Oscar night or a big party at one of London's media haunts. "Limos outside, people on mobile phones, I kept expecting to see bodyguards with earpieces." Martine McCutcheon was terrified. "I kicked Alan Rickman's foot under the table and said, 'I'm so scared!' He just said, 'Don't worry, everybody is...'"

Emma Thompson remembers giggling the whole time. "We all felt Bill Nighy was so funny, we'd be crap," she says. "The other thing I remember is thinking, 'Bloody hell, how is Richard going to make a film out of all this material?'"

Which is presumably what Richard Curtis, the man responsible for the biggest gathering of British stars outside of a BAFTA awards ceremony, was worrying about, too. Although, perhaps not. Curtis, on set and off, exudes an air of unflappability, and with his silvery hair and glasses (usually accompanied by a comfy woolly and sensible shoes), is like a genial headmaster presiding over a class of exuberant, unruly teenagers. At least the venue was home ground. The former church hall, now arts centre, called the Twentieth Century Theatre on Westbourne Grove, was where Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant rehearsed for Notting Hill, one of Curtis's films.

But this time, of course, it was different. Curtis has made his name and reputation as a writer. He cut his creative teeth on rapid-fire sketches for Not the Nine O'Clock News, created Blackadder with Ben Elton, devised and wrote Mr Bean with Rowan Atkinson, The Vicar of Dibley for Dawn French and then moved, effortlessly, into film with The Tall Guy (Emma Thompson's first film), Four Weddings and a Funeral, the aforementioned Notting Hill and adapted the screenplay for Bridget Jones's Diary. His films have grossed $ 1 billion worldwide and in Hollywood he's rightly regarded and respected as a major player.

But although each of these previous films was written by Curtis, none was actually directed by him. Love Actually, a series of intertwined love stories set in contemporary London, was the first time he had total control from start to finish - camera angles, wide shots of the Thames, red buses, close-ups of Hugh and co, the editing, the lotI And that, surely, was a frightening prospect.

Even Colin Firth was having sleepless nights on Curtis's behalf. "I thought, 'He has all these different stories to tell, to pull together, all these big stars, how on earth is he going to do it?'" And as Curtis notes, he didn't exactly make it easy on himself. "I was very unlucky as a first-time director in that the writer had produced such a complicated film. But another way to look at it is that the actors didn't have time to see through me."

With some 22 main roles, Love Actually is Curtis doing what he does best: making us laugh and reach for the Kleenex, often within the same scene.

We're talking romance, yes, but mostly we're talking love, in its many beguiling forms. This is Curtis's magnum opus. Each of the eight or so main storylines could conceivably have been developed into a film of its own.

There's a heartbroken writer (played by Firth) who seeks refuge in the south of France and falls for the Portuguese housekeeper he can't actually converse with; there's a grief-stricken widower (Neeson) worrying about how his stepson is coping with the loss of his mother; a married man (Rickman) tempted by a younger, beautiful secretary, while his wife (Thompson) can sense that her family is close to being wrecked by this impending affair.

There's a best man (Andrew Lincoln) who organises the most spectacular wedding for his mate while secretly in love with the bride (Keira Knightley). There's an ageing rock star (Bill Nighy) desperately trying to get a Christmas number one with a reworking of Love Is All Around (a Curtis in-joke, this song was featured in Four Weddings) and his long-suffering manager (Gregor Fisher). And, in what is a Curtis masterstroke, there's the new Prime Minister, Hugh Grant, who has got a bit of a thing about his chirpy cockney secretary (Martine McCutcheon).

There's plenty more - including cameos from Curtis's old partner Rowan Atkinson (as an irritatingly fastidious shop assistant), Billy Bob Thornton as the US President with a roving eye (he likes the look of the secretary, too) and Claudia Schiffer as a glamorous mum. It's a tribute to Curtis that they all signed up; no other first-time director would have been able to recruit such a cast, no matter how good the script.

Curtis first began to develop the idea for Love Actually while on a sabbatical in Thailand in the winter of 2000. He was holidaying with his partner, writer and broadcaster Emma Freud, and their two children (there's now a third), taking long walks along the beach and trying not to think about work. "Two of the stories were meant to be films on their own - the Prime Minister and the one about the writer. But I felt I'd done a lot of films about a guy and a girl falling in love for the first time and I'm not quite at that stage any longer."

Curtis, who turns 47 next week, knew that he wanted to direct the film.

"I've watched a lot of good people direct my films and learnt from them. It had got to the point where I had very specific ideas about how I wanted lines delivered, what sort of actors I wanted and particularly how I wanted the film edited. It wouldn't have been fair any longer to have another director work on it."

Curtis is unabashed about the subject matter. Look at the title, for goodness sake - he's bold about it and he's not going to worry about the cynics. He sets his stall with a voiceover at the opening of the film. Over a montage of couples greeting each other at an airport arrivals hall, we hear, "When I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow AirportI" And then goes on to note that during the tragedy that was September 11, the phone calls made by those trapped inside the Twin Towers were all expressions of love. "If you look for it, I've got a nasty suspicion you'll find that love actually is all around," says the voiceover.

If the critics find this a little too sentimental, then so be it, says the director. "I can't worry about that. In a way that's the point of the film, to try to answer a cynical viewpoint. What I always think is that if I go out to dinner and meet five new people, only one of them will like me, two of them will be indifferent to me and two of them won't like me particularly. And I don't see why that should be any different with one's work."

But the reference to 9/11 might be seen as a little too much for some, might it not? "I wrote it and liked how it sounded. And the fundamental fact is that wherever there is crisis and horror, there are also just families and people falling in love, normal people."

Colin Firth has a theory about Richard Curtis movies. Secretly, he believes, we all love them. But most of us are not about to let on.

Curtis's films are very un-English in the way they deal with the English.

He isn't afraid of emotion and he writes about the urban middle classes, as opposed to, say, crack dens on sink estates in the North or unemployed steel workers forced to strip to earn a few bob. Yes, Curtis films are escapist, says Firth, but they are also cinematic. "He has done something which is very hard to do in film," says Firth. "Which is to write about middle-class people. The unspoken law in film tradition is that they offer no drama - you can ridicule them, you can satirise them, you can have them in a sitcom, but not have them going about their lives and falling in love.

Because the English are a bit queasy about being middle class - most feel they identify with Quentin Tarantino rather than Richard Curtis. They like to feel they're all very edgy in Islington and Hampstead, yet they are very reluctant to acknowledge that the characters who appear in Richard's films are actually them.

"Richard has written a film about love, and that's very hard for English people to say without feeling a slight shiver. So in some ways he is more radical than he appears. People look at it and say, 'Oh, isn't it cosyI' But it's not."

For Curtis, the material comes from a "what if?" He often draws upon a real incident from his own life and develops it from there. His Prime Minister, he says, is "a bit of Hugh, a bit of me, a bit of Blair, just a muddle of thoughts."

And where he explores the affection of a long showbiz-based friendship - between Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), a shameless old rock star, and his put-upon manager (Gregor Fisher) - he drew upon his own long-standing friendship with Rowan Atkinson, whom he first met at Oxford and with whom he later appeared on stage in the West End, when Curtis still dreamt of making a living as an actor.

The Nighy segment of Love Actually is a potentially tricky one - the love theme in question is the deep, but unspoken, platonic bond between two men.

It's also the funniest. "To some extent the films are wish fulfilment of stuff that one doesn't do," says Curtis. "I was thinking about the bit about Bill and where that came from and in fact it's a meditation about me and Rowan. Because when I reached 35, before I started with Em, the single human being with whom I'd spent the most time was Rowan. And I felt that in a way we'd been more married than anyone else, and yet one never reaches a moment where you say, 'Well, that's been the situation, we've spent our lives togetherI' I've never hugged him and said, 'You're the love of my life.' Thank God."

One thing is for sure, his actors obviously adore him. Emma Thompson, who first met Curtis 25 years ago, says that he has changed over the years. "He hasn't in the sense of his kindness and open-heartedness but he has become a fantastically impressive man," she says. "Incredibly articulate, having managed to avoid what I've always found difficult to avoid, being earnest.

I find him a lesson in how to be."

Because of his television background, Curtis has never been afraid to call up actors who aren't known for their film work. This time he chose Andrew Lincoln (Teachers), Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) and Martine McCutcheon (Tiffany from EastEnders). "I watch EastEnders endlessly," he says. "So I knew her and loved her and she came and did that first read-through and did it perfectly. She is so real and yet she has that thing which I love, that heightened realism, her little face looks so like Mary Poppins, with that little red mouth and the little nose." Grant was certainly impressed, too. "I think she's a film star. Definitely," he enthuses.

Casting McCutcheon might have seemed like a bold move for any director, but Curtis has never been one to shy away from a challenge - or to worry too much about what other people might think.

"If you look at Richard's career and the way some detractors have written about his films you would think the last thing he'd want to do now is write one more about love, but he felt no obligation to go edgier or hipper," says Grant. "We are surrounded by bad news, and Richard is just reminding everyone that actually, in our normal day-to-day existence, there is a lot of positive stuff, families love each other, people fall in love. I'm not a man with a lot of love or warmth in my personality, but I can see his point."

Love Actually goes on general release on November 21.

Georgiana
Seattle - Tuesday, November 04, 2003

A bit more on the Rickman/Mos Def HBO film, as reported this AM on Yahoo News:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Alan Rickman and Mos Def will star in "Something the Lord Made," an HBO movie about the true story of heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, a white surgeon and a black lab technician.

The partnership between Blalock (Rickman) and Thomas (Mos Def) began in 1929 when the then-19-year-old Thomas' dreams to go to college and medical school were dashed when he lost his tuition savings in the October stock market crash and took a job as a lab technician at Vanderbilt University's medical school, working for Blalock, a resident surgeon.

At Vanderbilt and later at Johns Hopkins University, Blalock and Thomas worked on several breakthroughs that revolutionized cardiac surgery, including the wider use of plasma or whole-blood transfusions to prevent surgical shock, which saved millions of lives during World War II, and the Blalock-Taussig shunt.

Multiple Emmy winner Joseph Sargent ("Miss Rose White") has come on board to direct the film, which is still in development. Peter Silverman (Lifetime's "We Were the Mulvaneys") penned the script for the project, which has been kicking around for 6 1/2 years.

Rickman is set to reprise his role as Professor Severus Snape in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the third movie of the "Happy Potter" series. He next appears in the comedy "Love Actually," which opens Friday.

Mos Def most recently co-starred in the hit "The Italian Job." His upcoming features include "The Woodsman," "The Sky Is Green" and "A Confederacy of Dunces."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
X
- Tuesday, November 04, 2003

NEW ALAN RICKMAN MOVIE ANNOUNCEMENT

According to the Hollywood Reporter, AR has a new project in view:

"Acclaimed rapper Mos Def is to star alongside Alan Rickman in a new movie for US cable channel HBO. 'Something the Lord Made' is based on the true story of Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, a white surgeon and black lab technician who became pioneers in the field of heart surgery.

Mos Def was most recently seen on Irish cinema screens in 'The Italian Job'. He is also set to star in the big screen adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's classic novel 'A Confederacy of Dunces'."
Magda
Canada - Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London)
October 30, 2003, Thursday
SECTION: Features; 45
HEADLINE: Birthdays

"My father was in the Army and I grew up with no cinema, no theatre and no television because we were living on army bases where those things didn't exist," says the actress Juliet Stevenson. But after an education at Rada, where she was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal, she forged a career from the late 1970s with the Royal Shakespeare Company. For her performance on film as Nina opposite Alan Rickman in Anthony Minghella's Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) she was nominated for a Bafta. More recently she has preferred the screen to the stage, appearing last year in Bend It Like Beckham and as Mrs Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby. Stevenson, who was appointed CBE in 1999, is 47 today.

Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, November 03, 2003

***SPOILERS***

Copyright 2003 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS
The Express
October 30, 2003
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 41
LENGTH: 1208 words
HEADLINE: IT'S THE PROOF THAT LOVE REALLY IS ALL AROUND. FERGUS KELLY ON WHY NEW BRIT MOVIE LOVE ACTUALLY IS ABOUT TO CAST ITS SPELL ON ANYONE WITH A ROMANTIC BONE IN THEIR BODY; THE BEST LOVE STORY EVER . . . ACTUALLY

BEFORE the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate and revenge - they were all messages of love." So says Hugh Grant, aka the British Prime Minister, over the opening scenes of the film that is is set to be the British boxoffice hit of the year. It is a line that sums up the essence of love and which is at the heart of Love Actually.

From a bachelor PM falling for his tea lady to a broken-hearted writer and the housekeeper who doesn't speak his language, to the lovelorn office worker with a secret crush on a colleague and a schoolboy seeking to win the attention of the most unattainable girl in the school, the latest movie from the makers of Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill weaves together a series of storylines featuring men and women whose lives and loves collide and climax on Christmas Eve.

Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and Rowan Atkinson all star in this bittersweet comedy by writer Richard Curtis in his directorial debut. He explains his motives behind the film as: "If you look at the world, there are huge amounts of love and affection and yet so much of art portrays the darker side of humanity. When I look around the world I notice a lot of things that are rather gorgeous, lots of people with kind hearts."

Of the film's numerous and mingling plots, the story of the Prime Minister (Grant) who loses his heart to his tea lady at 10 Downing Street (Martine McCutcheon) is the one sure to grab the most attention. Curtis says he first got the idea nearly 30 years ago after bachelor Edward Heath's term of office as Premier. It occurred to him how compelling it would be if the Prime Minister fell in love with someone outside the norm.

"Why shouldn't the panic of love set in for a man who's responsible for our health, education and transport?" says Curtis. "I wanted to contrast the responsibility and the seriousness of the job with that blind, what-thehell-do-I-do-'ness of love."

Hugh Grant was struck by the message that Curtis is trying to get across in Love Actually. "What I admire is that he just completely goes for it in this film, and is determined to lay out this optimism in front of the world - I think people actually do quite want that. And if you really stop for a moment and think about it, it's as good a take on the world as the 'glass half-empty' view."

Not all the stories included in the film are straightforward or have happy endings. There's the comfortably married woman (Emma Thompson) who suspects that she's losing her husband (Alan Rickman) to an affair, while Liam Neeson plays a widowed stepfather trying to connect with a son he barely knows.

And there's Bill Nighy as an ageing rock star with little recollection of much of his hellraising career, who's attempting a comeback in his own uncompromising way. It features a song called Christmas Is All Around - which sounds rather like a certain Wet Wet Wet song that charmed us so much in an earlier Curtis love story.

But then again, anyone who's ever been in love will feel a certain warm familiarity with what this film's all about.

THE UNLIKELY COUPLE Perhaps the most improbable relationship in the film emerges between a couple of actors who play the stand-ins whose bodies are used for the sex scenes in a movie. Required to hang around (literally) on the film set all day while totally naked, John and Judy mechanically perform their supposedly erotic scenes while chatting away about all sorts of mundane subjects between and during takes. Yet despite the unlikely circumstances, the couple (Joanna Page and Martin Freeman - Tim in the award-winning comedy The Office) gradually begin to fall for each other.

THE BOSS AND THE ASSISTANT In a departure from the usually floppy-haired feckless types that he's played in previous Richard Curtis movies, this time Hugh Grant plays a floppy-haired bachelor Prime Minister. No sooner has he been introduced to his tea lady in 10 Downing Street, than our improbably good-looking PM has fallen for her - despite the gulf in their backgrounds. He even jokily offers to wield the power of his high office to have her ex-boyfriend bumped off, after she reveals he accused her of having thighs the size of tree trunks. There's more than a nod towards the current real incumbent of No10 in Grant's portrayal, and watch out for his dance to the Girls Aloud version of the Pointer Sisters hit Jump.

THE OFFICE ROMANCE Laura Linney stars in this storyline as lovelorn office worker Sarah, who has a not-very-secret crush on a colleague Karl (Rodrigo Santoro) and decides to seize her chance, despite a family situation that makes it impossible for her to ever genuinely commit.

Another colleague asks her: "How long is it that you've been working here?" "Two years, seven months, three days and I suppose what - two hours?" she replies. "And how long have you been in love with Karl?" quizzes her workmate. "Ahm, two years, seven months, three days and I suppose an hour and 30 minutes, " she admits. But Sarah faces a dilemma as she finds herself forced to choose between the love of her life and the family member who relies upon her. Which way will she go? [The 'colleague' is her boss played by Alan Rickman.--g]

THE GEEK AND THE GODDESS Colin is a goofy young sandwich worker (played by Kris Marshall, best known until now as Robert Lindsay's useless eldest son Nick in the BBC1 sitcom My Family) who is searching for the woman of his dreams. He believes the reason for his single status lies in the fact that English girls are stuck-up and is convinced that if he only goes to America, and more specifically Milwaukee, he will score instantly, not least because they'll love his accent.

As he puts it to a friend: "I am Colin, god of sex. I'm just on the wrong continent, that's all." No sooner has he got there then he heads for a down-atheel bar where he meets three stunningly beautiful all-American girls. Stacey (Ivana Milicevic), Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert) and Jeannie (January Jones) take pity on him and offer him a place to stay. And ultimately, Colin realises his dream. But is it with one of the three girls or someone else?

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER In one sense, Colin Firth's latest role in Love Actually is a real departure from his previous ones, as he's not called Darcy. However, it remains an equally familiar situation for the Pride And Prejudice and Bridget Jones' Diary star, for once again he's bound to have female fans swooning. This time, he plays a writer called Jamie who's escaped to the south of France to nurse a broken heart after finishing with his unfaithful girlfriend.

Resolved to write a novel there, he hires Aurelia, a Portuguese housekeeper (played by Lucia Moniz) to clean his villa and slowly the two get to know each other, despite the fact that she speaks no English, while he speaks a number of languages very badly - none of them Portuguese. Inevitably, as he drives her home each day after work, they begin to fall in love.

"My favourite part of the day, driving you, " he muses on one journey.

"The saddest part of my day, leaving you, " replies Aurelia in Portuguese.

Georgiana
Seattle - Monday, November 03, 2003

Just thought I'd alert everyone to this new feature. :)
Kimberly
Michigan, - Sunday, November 2, 2003

For those of you interested in the NYC Premiere of "Love Actually," here are the details on that event:

Universal Pictures and Working Title Films Host the World Premiere of 'Love Actually' Thursday, November 6 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan

Tuesday October 28, 5:07 pm ET

WHAT: The world premiere of "LOVE ACTUALLY"

WHO: "LOVE ACTUALLY" cast members Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson, Thomas Sangster, Claudia Schiffer, Shannon Elizabeth, Olivia Olson and January Jones;director/screenwriter Richard Curtis; producers Duncan Kenworthy, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner; and soundtrack artist Kelly Clarkson. Plus, additional celebrity guests including: Anthony Edwards, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Fab 5 (Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, Jai Rodriguez), Josh Groban, Heather Matarazzo, Greg Wise, and many others.

WHERE: Ziegfeld Theatre
141 West 54th Street
New York City
WHEN: Thursday, November 6, 2003
5:30 PM Press Call Time
6:30 PM Celebrity Arrivals
7:30 PM Screening Begins
"LOVE ACTUALLY" opens in theaters across the USA on Friday, November 7, 2003

*************************************
XX
- Sunday, November 2, 2003

There's an article in today's on-line Guardian about Heike Makatsch, the actress who plays the secretary Mia from Love Actually. Here are the AR-relevant portions of a very long article:

Richard Curtis's star-packed, multi-story, supersized Christmas cracker of a movie, Love Actually - like his previous successes Four Weddings and Notting Hill - contains many memorable lines and images, but for sheer chutzpah and sauce, German actress Heike Makatsch's vampy, boss-baiting secretary Mia wins employee of the month.

Asked about the qualities of the venue for the office party by her boss Harry (Alan Rickman), Mia swivels round in her chair, leans back, spreads her legs, opens her eyes wide and says, 'Good, with lots of dark corners for doing dark deeds.' Rickman doesn't know where to look or what to do.

(cut several paragraphs)

In Love Actually, most of her scenes are with Rickman - 'he is very handsome, very easy to do scenes with,' she says. The plucky Makatsch describes the audition process as 'nerve wrecking', but she didn't find working with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson et al intimidating. 'If you meet them on set you see a person, not a screen persona,' she says.

Love Actually weaves together 10 love stories that take place in the run-up to Christmas. There are many varieties of love on offer: unrequited love, inter-class love, love that can't articulate and a love triangle, featuring Makatsch, Rickman and Thompson, which provides some of the more grown-up emotion in the film. Some scenes were lost in the final edit, but she denies there's a Makatsch-Rickman sex scene lying on the cutting-room floor. Of her secretary's office romance with her boss she comments, 'I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to. In long relationships there is often a temptation, a betrayal or a loss of faith,' she counsels.

Magda
Canada - Saturday, November 1, 2003

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