Four Weddings and a Funeral Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Appaloosa
Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen are unlikely cowboys, Jeremy Irons is an even more unlikely villain, and Renée Zellweger is the least likely "proper widow" the Old West has ever seen. Appaloosa is a fitfully entertaining, post, post-modern Western; Eric D. described it well as "a buddy movie, a rough-and-tumble, no-girls-allowed, steak-and-potatoes romp that happens to be set in the Old West." The DVD includes an audio commentary by Harris (director/co-writer) and Robert Knott (co-writer/producer), four behind the scenes mini-features, and deleted scenes. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

Swing Vote
Like Appaloosa, Swing Vote was pretty much ignored during its theatrical run, but deserves to find its audience on home video. Kevin Costner is in his everyman, blue collar mode here, which means the film is immensely likable and funny. He plays a small town loser, with a way too precocious daughter, who must cast the deciding vote in a presidential election. Of course it's contrived and silly and obvious and non-partisan, but I loved the election videos made by the suddenly too-eager-to-please candidates (Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer). The DVD includes an audio commentary with Joshua Michael Stern (director/co-writer) and Jason Richman (co-writer), a "making of" mini-feature, deleted scenes, an extended scene, and a music video. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

Tokyo Gore Police
For extreme horror fans only: everything your splatter-loving heart could desire. Buy it.

More new releases: Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach, Mirrors (also on Blu-ray), My Best Friend's Girl (also on Blu-ray), Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys, and Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling (also on Blu-ray). Plus the great, faux-Kennedy TV mini-series Captains and the Kings, which enthralled me when it first aired way back in the Mesozaic Era (Richard Jordan! Richard Jordan! Richard Jordan!).

I haven't seen Four Weddings and a Funeral since it came out, but I remember it being a fun, quality movie -- more so than your usual rom-com flavor. The Hugh Grant-starring film not only brought in a good chunk of coin and fans, but it also received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. However, is it the best British movie of all time? That I'm not so sure about. Yes folks, the Hugh Grant comedy was recently listed the best British Film, according to a poll conducted by Virgin Media (via AOL UK).

Having polled 1,000 adults on June 25 and 26, Virgin notes that Four Weddings took in 22% of the vote, to get the top spot. The rom-com squeaked right by the wonderful Monty Python's Life of Brian, which suffered defeat by just 1% and grabbed the #2 spot. (It's also the only film that boasts a little age.) After that comedy classic, things get rougher and tougher. Next came Trainspotting with 15% of the vote, then Casino Royale with 10%, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels came in #5 with 8%.

Chemistry -- you can be the best filmmaker, writer or actor, but nothing makes up for a lack of that intangible connection between two people. This is probably why so many actors can't keep up long relationships -- they continually get paired up with people they have great chemistry with and are weakened by temptation over and over until they can't help but break the ties that bind and go libidinously nuts. Oh, the devilish temptation! But on the flip-side, there are pairings that are just plain crappy -- painfully free of that interest and attraction that comes from the eyes. The CBC has reported that British cinema advertisers Pearl and Dean recently conducted a survey asking 3,000 movie-goers which duos have the worst on-screen chemistry, and came up with a list of the 10 worst offenders.

The top spots are no big surprise, really -- the 5th went to Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery in Entrapment, the 4th to Madonna and Adriano Giannini in Swept Away, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom got the third spot with the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, the runners up were the rockin' Bennifer pair for Gigli and the top spot went to Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen with Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I'd say they're pretty spot on, although my top offender are the two that hold that third spot, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks so. Granted, Johnny Depp can whip up some chemistry with almost anyone, which makes it hard to compete, but man, I hated Knightley and Bloom together. This also made many parts of the final film truly annoying, if you get my drift. Also, you've got to question your real-life couple choices when you can't cook up chemistry at work, with your significant other.

Finishing the list, there's Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in the 6-spot with Four Weddings and a Funeral, Ben Affleck appeared again at 7 with Kate Beckinsale for Pearl Harbor, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman got 8 with Eyes Wide Shut, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal followed with Brokeback Mountain and Titanic got the final, 10th spot, with stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Who would you pick?

It looks like Richard Curtis learned his lesson when it came to making sappy middle-aged romantic fare, because he has promised that his next comedy project would be what Curtis describes as "Animal House meets Titanic" -- not exactly what you would expect from the guy who made Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary. Curtis' last film was Love, Actually – an inter-connected series of stories about love and romance for the 30-or-older set. The film did respectable business at the box office but it was hardly an honorary member of the Four Weddings and a Funeral club in terms of popularity.

Empire reports that Curtis has selected his next directorial project, a film titled The Boat That Rocked. The pic focuses on a radio station that operates at sea (which I would assume is where the Titanic reference comes in, but I hope he's referring to the romance and not the sinking). Details are still sketchy on the project and Curtis hasn't committed to any casting details. Before Curtis became known as the maker of polite romances, he was a writer on The Black Adder series starring Rowan Atkinson. Well, if nothing else, it proves that the man knows funny, and not just warm and fuzzy funny either, but honest-to-goodness funny.