Alphabetical Movie – Love Actually

I know there is wild disagreement about Love Actually.

A lot of people find it funny, romantic and charming.  Others find it cloying, sexist and offensive.

I’m not going to wade into that debate because like or hate Love Actually, the film has resulted in the most sinister of conceivable side effects.

I’m talking about Valentine’s Day. And New Year’s Eve.  I’m talking about every film that uses a holiday to create a romantic melting pot of celebrities being adorable.  These films are the bastard children of Love Actually and they keep popping up every year in a sad attempt to do what someone else already did better.

To call these films forgettable feels like a complement.  They don’t deserve enough time to be forgotten.

These romantic anthologies are moving through holidays at such a rapid pace, it is only a matter of time before there are no holidays left.  When John Lithgow is signed to star in the romantic anthology Arbor Day, we’ll know the horror is only just beginning.

At that point they will have no choice but to start making up holidays.  Thanksgiving may have already been made but there is still room for First Snowfall of the Year, right?  By then, Fall Equinox starring Shia LeBouf will have already gone straight to video.

I imagine other countries will be looking to get into the market.  The French will come out with Bastille Day.  The Germans will make Oktoberfest.  Not sure what the North Koreans will do.  The Birthday of our Great and Glorious Leader Kim Jong Un, maybe?  I assume that one would star Dennis Rodman.

We all know that Hollywood has little interest in producing anything original.  When they do, it feels like an accident.  Nobody really knew they were making a film that would become a loved/hated holiday tradition when they made Love Actually.  They were just trying to make a film that would somehow convince us that Hugh Grant could be Prime Minister of England.

It didn’t work but good try everyone!  Golf clap!

So they made a movie that worked.  Now everyone else thinks that they have a winning formula to make the same movie only with different stars set on a different holiday and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

Well I can promise you that anyone who hates Love Actually will be able to tell the difference between that film and Valentine’s Day.

If they were told they were to be stranded on a desert island with only one of those two movies, I’m guessing almost every one of them would reluctantly select Love Actually.

Ridiculous plot about an English accent being the only thing required to take part in an orgy with hot college girls from Wisconsin or no, it isn’t Valentine’s Day.

I was trapped on an airplane with that movie.  No way I would be able to watch it on a desert island.

So if you enjoy Love Actually, good for you!  I enjoy it too.

If you hate Love Actually, that’s OK too.  But remember that it could be much, much worse.

And it will be.  It will be.