Love Actually

Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Martin Freeman, Keira Knightley

Directed by Richard Curtis

Rating: A

An ensemble movie with a huge cast, "Love Actually" tells the stories of different people's love stories during the Christmas holidays. Jamie Bennett (Firth) finds out the hard way that his girlfriend is cheating on him -with his brother- and he takes to France during the winter holidays to write. Daniel (Neeson) just lost his wife and has a young stepson who locks himself in his room all day. Daniel tries to connect with him, since they both lost someone very important in their lives. Hugh Grant plays the British Prime Minister (he doesn't have a proper name in this movie) and is distracted from his job by the one of the household staff, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon).

"Love Actually" is a great movie to watch for any occasion. It's a great Christmas movie to watch, perfect for Valentines Day, and to watch during the summer when you're craving a good British film. "Love Actually" isn't the average cheesy romance that we tend to see in the U.S. It has substance, humor, a great cast, and yes, romance. It's not just a "chick flick" because there are actually a good handful of guys who appreciate this movie too. So there! It's great for all audiences but it does have some rated "R" moments so anyone under sixteen might have to wait.

"Love Actually" doesn't bore you with one straight plot line. Instead you follow different characters (and it's not too confusing to remember who's who but you might have to watch it a second time). This is one of my favorite movies of all time (number two!) and you can never go wrong gathering some friends and watching this for a fun movie night.

About A Boy

Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult

Directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz

Rating: 3 stars

Will (Hugh Grant) is a young man who has no care for the world. All he cares about is himself and the next lucky girl he can get into bed with him. He found that single mothers were the best kind of women to date so he goes to a single parents meeting in hopes to pick up women. Soon after, Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) comes into his life, whether he liked it or not. Marcus is a weird little boy with a depressed single mother. He has nothing better to do so he decides to enter in to Will's selfish life. It's not long before Will starts to slowly get attached to Marcus, trying to help him be a little "cooler" so he can make friends at school. While Will helps Marcus, Marcus forms a bond that helps make Will turn into a mature grown up that doesn't only think of himself.

This was a cute movie about an annoying little boy making his way into a man's unimportant life. I think this deserved three stars because although it was good, movies with little kids in them annoy me most of the time. It was funny to see that Nicholas Hoult was so... how do I put this nicely? Unappealing to look at as a little kid. He sure matured though over the years. Hugh Grant played the typical role he does (like Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary and Alex Fletcher in Music & Lyrics) but he does a good job. The movie had a bit of a gloomy topic; Will cared about no one other than himself and Marcus' mother tried to kill herself. It had a happy ending though so it is not all doom-and-gloom. It had some humorous scenes like when Marcus went up on stage at his school's talent show and sang "Killing Me Softly". Overall, this movie is favorable to see if you're a Hugh Grant fan and is nice to see at least once. I would recommend renting it though.