Movie Opinion: Love Actually (2003) Actually has Aged Just As It Should

Screen Rant ran an article by Bisma Fida, Love Actually: The 8 Storylines That Aged Badly, Ranked (Published Dec 10, 2021), which obviously was regurgitated into one of my newsfeeds because Love Actually (2003) is still one of the best Christmas movies ever made, that's why it's still topical in 2024.

Bisma, who completely failed to get their profile page pro-nouns in order. Something that should be a priority for anyone commenting on what is accepted by modern audiences, who are all completely comfortable accepting preferred pro-nouns without question, because we're just that enlightened in 2024.

F**K Screen Rant

Full disclosure, I hate Screen Rant to the point that, if I do click on their click bait titles because I didn't see it was a Screen Rant story, I'll close the browser window almost immediately once I see what it is (which is why I'm not providing any links to their homepage).

It's not because I dislike their articles. I would actually like to read many of the ones I see. Their website is so dripping wet with in page ads, pop-up ads, video-pop-up ads, banner ads, ads for ads, and ads, for ads, reviewing ads, that are soon to be released as a teaser ad... who the Fuck knows!! (Yes I wrote the 'F' word).

Their site cripples any computer, or mobile device, I try to read their articles on. So Fuck Screen Rant. They're clearly in it for the money, and not for sharing informative content.

I literally downloaded an ad-blocker just so I could read Bisma's article in full.

I also hate them because it's largely their site that fills up with articles for and against Love Actually every year because they know it gets the clicks, and I'm just contributing to their noise with this article.

Back to Love Actually

I imagine that I'm of the generation Love Actually was made for. 30-40 somethings (I was 33 when the film came out), generation X's with maybe a bit of give either way on the age range.

Almost all of the characters are either looking for love, are in love, or have been in love for some time. Likely very relatable to any age group but possibly most broadly relatable to 30-40 somethings.

That said, I mostly like the movie for Bill Nighy's character, sort of washed up rocker, Billy Mack. Bill clearly seems to be having so much fun with the role. It's my favorite performance of his.

It's also kind of cool that, for all his childishly silly behavior, he does recognize he values the friendship he has with his long suffering manager, Joe (Gregor Fisher). Who he publicly body shames many times, Bisma Fida. Which is not to say it makes Natalie's (Martine McCutcheon) body shaming acceptable, but Joe clearly winces every time Billy put's him down in public too.

Every Relationship in Love Actually is Still Relatable Today

Love Actually is exactly what it is. A slice of many different types of Love. All of which are still very much relatable today. Stereotypical or not. Stereotypes are stereotypes because they share constant traits that don't change over time - by definition they have the longevity to become a stereotype.

You may think borderline stalker Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is creepy but you sometimes can't choose who you fall in love with. Maybe his best friend, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), just had the courage to ask Juliet (Keira Knightley) out first and was never aware of how Mark felt about her?

Up until Juliet asks to see his wedding footage, Mark was doing everything he could to make sure he didn't ruin her relationship with his best friend. That tape was for his eyes only. You can't tell me you've never 'stalked' someone you haven't had the courage to ask out? At the very least you've checked out their social media (which wasn't a thing in 2003).

Once Juliet saw the tape, and connected the dots that Mark didn't hate her, he had to do something to address it. Whether you agree with what he did or not is you being judgmental. Juliet seemed fine enough with it to kiss him, and a year later (I think it was a year), they're all still friends and Mark has a new relationship. You don't know... maybe she went inside and told Peter "Mark has a crush on me, I kissed him, we're all good now". Peter said "Yeah I know, he's been stalking you for years but was too chicken shit to do anything. Lucky me!"

I'm not going to go through the eight relationships Bisma identified, along with why they're problematic, suffice to say, it would be a very boring movie if anyone took Bisma's notes on board.

Body shaming is still a thing. Married men giving gifts to pretty work colleagues is still a thing. Pretty women chasing successful men is still a thing. The male gaze, still a thing (and always will be, just like the female gaze is also a thing and always will be). Inappropriate advances in the workplace, still a thing.

Everything in this movie is still a thing.

Karren (Emma Thompson) pushing on through Christmas, for the sake of the kids, after just realizing her husband, Harry (Alan Rickman), is likely cheating on her, is still a very relatable thing.

You can argue that some of these stories would not be acceptable to modern audiences but you'd be wrong. What you're doing is pushing idealism onto what actually happened.

Idealism is what 'should've happened' or what is 'the right way' to handle particular situations. The ideal that we all aspire to. Yes things could have been handled better. Maybe it's not how things are done now. Maybe it could've had more representation of LGBTQ relationships. Maybe...

This movie is already filmed. This is how the story goes. Don't be a revisionist. Agree with it or not. If you think Colin (Kris Marshall) is a dumb ass for declaring he's the right person on the wrong continent, then you have every right to think that. In this case his theory is proven right, as a fun play on people who fall in love with accents. Men who think they're god's gift to women... still a thing.

It's a good movie. It's a good Christmas movie. It gets you to feel something, and creates plenty of discussion. More than any other Christmas movie. It deserves to remain a classic re-watch. Also, The Grinch is a terrible character too... and there are at least two movies now about that character that play every holiday.

Incidentally, Bisma wrote a previous article in 2019, 5 Reasons Why Love Actually Is The Best (& 5 Why It's The Worst), in which they call out Mark's musical surprise at Peter and Juliet's wedding as being "sociopathic behavior, because of absolute disregard for everyone's schedule or the consent of the bride and groom".

No Bisma. That's a man who knows his friends well. They loved it, and were not put out at all. There's no way he'd contemplate it if he thought they wouldn't love it. How much can you be put out by a five minute song? Some weddings you can be put out that long just in the queue for wedding cake!

Comments

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls. The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

Skateboarders Who Ever Dreamed of Dropping In on a City Building - Sandro Dias Just Lived Your Dream

Dias's drop-in from one of the lower platforms for practice. Image: © Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull I f you're a skateboarder living in a city you've probably looked at a building that has skate ramp vibes and imagined dropping in on it... well Professional Skateboarder, Sandro Dias didn't just imagine. The Perth Telstra Building as depicted in this fantasy poster print, Forbidden Skate Ramp by Harry Young. If you lived in Perth, Western Australia, any skateboarder who saw the top of the Telstra Building likely had the same thought about the ramp like quarter pipe at the top. Also, back in the day there was a classic skateboarding poster going the rounds that depicted Sydney as a literal skatepark with ramps built up, down, and over numerous buildings. Sandro Dias, who broke the record for the world's tallest drop-in on the 26th September 2025 by dropping in on a mega ramp built on the side of the curved façade of the 22-storey Centro Administrativo Fernando Ferrari (C...

Commodore Computers Are On Their Way Back With a New CEO and Many of the Original Team Founders

Commodore 64 Ultimate: Starlight Edition. An updated C64 for today. C hances are, if you grew up in the 1970s and 80's, the first computer your family owned was a Commodore 64 (or possibly the Vic-20, also by Commodore, that preceded it). I taught myself to code in BASIC on our Commodore 64 (C64), making ASCII based games (i.e. graphics made from the letters and symbols assigned to the various keyboard keys). I coded a Tic Tac Toe two player game, a simple shooting gallery game, and a flash card game to help me learn the Periodic Table, which (much to my... I want to say horror... got me bumped up to an advanced science class in high school). Later I'd go on to dabbling in true 8 bit, and 16 and 32 bit, graphical games, when we upgraded to the C128, Amiga 500, then Amiga 600, but I never actually finished anything because, by then I'd gotten into skateboarding, so I was trying to make my ultimate skateboard game - ambitious much? It was Commodore machines that showed me mak...

The Worst Book I Have Ever Read - Gulp: Travels Around the Gut by Mary Roach

TET and Mary Roach's Book, Gulp . I 'm the kind of person who only reads one physical book at a time. For context I consider a 'book' to be anything over 100 pages of mostly text. Basically your typical work of fiction novel or factual biography. It's not that I can't read more than one book at a time, I just choose not to because I don't set a lot of time aside for reading. Maybe 30 minutes a day when I'm on a good run with a really engaging text. Little did I know that Mary Roach's Gulp: Travels Around the Gut *, a book of 317 pages (minus the Acknowledgments and Bibliography) would become a bottle neck for my reading for the next three and a half years. As such, I'm calling it the worst book I have ever read. Despite how long it took me to read, it is not a bad book in the slightest, and is in fact, quite light, somewhat entertaining, reading for a book that explores the science, and the resilience of the human digestive system. I'm no st...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog