Saw Love Actually, Twice! Gave my friends free passes!

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2003)

The wife and I were lucky enough to get a free pass to an advance screening of this movie. Then we got another pass for the next week, I guess it was a test by the studio to see how many would return again. We returned and watched it the second time, enjoyed it just as much or more the second time since we could pay more attention to some of the details we might have missed the first go around.
During the 2nd viewing, we talked the studio rep out of eight more passes. Yup, eight of them! But instead of being greedy, we gave them away to some of our friends and customers. This morning (day after 3rd screening), one of those customers called me up to thank me for sending him, his wife and two neighbors, to this movie. He said he agreed with me that Love Actually was one of the best romantic comedy movies he had seen all year! I liked the way the director stitched all those seemingly unrelated stories together into a single story blanket. Such a small world, eh? Wife of one character, was sister to another?
I liked Hugh Grant's dance down the stairs, stopping only when he realizes he had a witness. I thought "Just Judy" had a natural innocence that belied her role as a porn star (or was that a fill-in actor) and the chemistry between her and her co-actor was great.
Especially liked the part toward the end where "Mr. Prime Minister" was looking for "Natalie" door to door, and the various actors from previous scenes were answering the door (good reuse of actors) and his response about "trying to visit everyone by New Year's Eve." made me laugh out loud! And then the end of the kid's show where they pulled the curtins to show the two of them kissing?
And the part about the kid who was in love with the girl from America, enough to learn (quickly) to play the drums in the Christmas Pagent? I don't have enough space here to tell you about it, so go see it yourself.
But if you don't like romantic movies, then skip this one. If you want to laugh and cry with the actors, you can't miss this one. I'll be looking forward to buy the DVD for my (very small) collection when available in the US.