Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE HOLIDAY

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

THE HOLIDAY

Romantic comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Kate Winslet: Iris, wedding columnist for the Daily Telegraph
Rufus Sewell: Jasper, one of her colleagues
Cameron Diaz: Amanda, movie-trailer editor
Edward Burns: her boyfriend Ethan
Jude Law: Iris' brother Graham
Jack Black: Hollywood composer Miles
Eli Wallach: Hollywood writing legend Arthur Abbott

REVIEW
Romantic comedies are supposed to be about love and have something to laugh at. This one has very little of either. You have to sit through 30 minutes of bland dialog before there is the first hint of anything remotely funny. And even then we still haven’t seen the romantic part of the equation yet.

Unlike most movies of this sort, there are few, if any, clever lines and nothing charming or even worth remembering. In fact, the dialog just drags on and on and for the most part sounds entirely unreal. People simply do not talk that way to each other. And all this chatter makes the film far too long at 2½ hours.

And one more thing: the casting is all wrong. Jack Black is good at what he does, but leading man he ain’t!

CLASSIFICATION

for sexual content and some strong language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
When Iris and Arthur are walking up towards his house, it is evident from the strong shadows in the background that it’s around noon. However when they enter his house a few minutes later, the long shadows show it to be late afternoon.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.