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Top 10 feel good movies - 8 Love Actually

2003 


As the film blurb says, "Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England." A delightful series of mini stories that stands any number of repeat viewing, particularly Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurelia (Lucia Moniz).

Favourite bit:
Firth can't speak Portuguese, Moniz can't speak English.
Firth in English:  It's my favourite time of day, driving you.
Moniz in Portuguese:  It's the saddest part of my day, leaving you.

Scene is helped enormously by the fact that Moniz is looking gorgeous in an off the shoulder blanket.

Mike's view:
Top writing, top acting, great idea and most of the stories end happily ever after.

Top 10 feel good movies - 7 Then She Found Me

2007

Helen Hunt has her life all sorted out and then in quick succession her Mother dies, her husband leaves her and her unknown birth mother turns up.  This is the first interpretation of the title but I prefer to look at it from Colin Firth's perspective as he comes into her life as a single father.  Hunt's journey is two steps forward and one step back but the chemistry between her and Firth is special, Bette Midler is great as her Mother and Matthew Broderick is fist clenchingly convincing as her pathetic but honest husband.

Favourite bit:
Hunt: Your wife was seeing somebody else?
Firth:  Pretty much everybody else. I was too much for her.
Hunt:  For you wife?  I'm sure she didn't feel that way.
Firth:  She told me.
Hunt:  What did she say?
Firth:  You're too much for me.

Mike's view:
A wonderful film that has been sadly overlooked.  Didn't get past the Kermode test and I understand his view that it is not tight and crisp but that is partly why I love it.

Top 10 feel good movies - 6 As Good as it Gets

1997

This is not a start to finish feel good movie but the emergence of Nicholson's character as a caring and sensitive but lonely old author rather than the top to bottom curmudgeon is the real feel good story and got Nicholson his Second Oscar.  Helen Hunt is brilliant, as always, and also won an Oscar for her performance as the waitress who can't quite bring herself to trust Nicholson'e motives in helping her son. Greg Kinnear plays the beaten up artist with vulnerability and doesn't overdo it but the dog is the real star though and in the scenes with the dog Nicholson starts to show what he is really like underneath the outer skin.


Favourite bit: There's just too many to pick one but all of the scenes with Nicholoson and the dog are brilliantly written and superbly acted.


Mike's view:  Two great performances and a cute dog.  A recipe for success that The Artist has successfully copied.    

Top 10 feel good movies - 5 You've Got Mail

1998

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan start an online relationship unaware that they are on opposite sides of a battle between a big bookstore chain and a local children's book shop.  Can the Hanks realises what has happened and Ryan starts to fall for Hanks, despite his part in her business downfall.  Can the relationship survive the revelation that he is also her mail buddy?

Favourite bit:
Hanks bringing Ryan daisies when she has a disgusting cold and refuses to leave until she is looked after.

Mike's view:
So much better than Sleepless in Seattle largely because Ryan is less soppy and much more credible.  It's a classic romcom setup and has great pace and a cracking supporting cast going through their own crises.  

Top 10 feel good movies - 4 Something's Gotta Give

2003

Jack Nicholson is living the dream with a succession of gorgeous young girlfriends but falls for Diane Keaton who is nearer his age.  As he starts to realise that, against all his principles, he wants to be with Keaton she falls for the younger man, Keanu Reeves.

Favourite bit:
Parisian restaurant when Nicholson goes to propose to Keaton only to discover she is there with Reeves.  Disaaaaaster!

Mike's view:
Written and directed by Nancy Myers and starring Keaton and Nicholson so it was always going to be good but this is better than just good. I love Nicholson's amazement that Keaton doesn't know a good deal when she sees it and Keaton is wonderfully appalled by this ageing swinger who thinks he's God's gift.  Reeves is sensible enough to know he is part of the plot and not a lead and doesn't try to do too much with his part which is unusual for a genuine A-lister.  Loads of great moments and a genuinely moving story.  That's Meyers for you.

Top 10 feel good movies - 3 The Blues Brothers

1980

Just had to be there didn't it?

Two low life blues musicians attempt to raise money to save the orphanage they grew up in and create mayhem as they do so while pursued by nazis, the police, rednecks and Carrie Fisher.

Favourite bit:
Elwood: "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've gotta full tank of gas, half a packet of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."
Jake: "Hit it!"

Mike's view:

How did this ever get made? Insane idea but it ends up as a brilliant movie that has given me so many great moments that I can recall when I need cheering up. Brilliant, that's all there is to it and did I mention the music?

Top 10 feel good movies - 2 Baby Boom

1987

Diane Keaton is a dynamic career lady who inherits a baby from a distant relative and moves to Vermont to start a new life. Things do not go well at first and when the small business she sets up leads to an opportunity to return to New York as a success can the local Vet and the country lifestyle compete?

Favourite Bit:
Sam Shepard "Are you nervous around all men or is it just me?"
Diane Keaton "I'm nervous around all men, apart from you."

Mike's view:
Good set up and lovely Vermont locations make this special for me. I have a big soft spot for Diane Keaton so anything with her is going to be worth seeing and she is very good in this. She goes from corporate aggressor to caring mother to vulnerable girl with convincing ease and when it comes to payback time for corporate slimeballs she delivers with panache. Loads of snow and romance so another favourite at Christmas.

Top 10 feel good movies in no particular order -1 The Bishop's Wife

1947


Cary Grant is an angel sent to help the Bishop, David Niven, who is obsessed with raising money to build a new cathedral at expense of his relationships with his family.  The Bishop has prayed for help and is now getting it but is it the money he needs help with or is it something more important and will Dudley (Cary Grant) get too close to The Bishop's Wife? 


Favourite bit:
Dudley confesses that when an angel starts to envy a mortal it's time for him to move on.


Mike's view:
A gentle, compassionate,  beautifully constructed story with so many feel good moments that it ought to be compulsory viewing every time the economic figures come out.  Particularly good at Christmas when the story is set.

Plus ca change

A few months after my last post and I am back working at the same place but doing a completely different job with different people.

I was talking to a friend about feel good books the other day and I got to thinking about my favourite feel good movie, books etc so I will come up with some top tens just for the hell of it.

Sitting on a train

I'm sitting on the train to London which could be the way I start everyday soon. I suppose there are worse ways to earn a living and it means I will be working with some good people who I like and respect so that's no bad thing. So in a few days I will be unemployed or committed.

Interesting.

Sent from Samsung Mobile

How long?

Well over a year since my last entry. I think I have been seduced by Facebook but I can't say what I really think there. Short, insignificant platitudes is what I specialise in on Facebook.

This blog has more meaning for me as a record of how I feel/felt so I think it's time to start again.

Windows 7

I've upgraded my laptop from Vista to Windows 7 and so far I like the usability improvements a lot. I can't say there's a big difference in starting up etc but it's early days.

A good Christmas and the snow returns?

The TV weather forecast suggests that heavy snow will return tomorrow but that doesn't seem to be confirmed by the Met Office. What will happen?

Diverted by drink

We decided to walk round the line of the city walls tonight and starting from Chapelfield we got as far as St Crispins but then we realised how close we were to the Golden Star.

That was it. I had a pint of Big Red from the Ossett Brewery which was excellent and with a pickled egg it was pretty much perfect. A second pint and I would still be in there now. It was that good.

Little Chef Surprise

A couple of times recently I have driven to Loughborough on business and stopped at the Kettering Little Chef and had a cracking breakfast. Properly cooked tomatoes, tasty bacon and sausage, wonderful mushrooms, fresh egg and the toast is gorgeous. That is all after real, freshly squeezed OJ. I also love the new decor and the musical toilets and I've been running on to anyone who'll listen about how transformed the LC experience is.

I've just seen a programme on Channel 4 about Heston Blumenthal revamping three Little Chefs and apparently Kettering was one of them. Now I don't feel quite so embarrassed that I took a photo of my breakfast on Monday so here it is.

If you are anywhere near Kettering please try the Little Chef. They're trying very hard and I love it.

Clouds of smoke have a silver lining

We've been moaning like mad the last couple of weekends because our next door neighbour has been waiting until the weekend before going into bonfire mode and producing ridiculous amounts of smoke that drift down towards the houses instead of across the fields when the wind is in the approved bonfire direction. It happened again yesterday morning and we were pretty annoyed as we have to keep the windows and doors closed and we were hosting a birthday breakfast for Soupy. I had to go down the garden to get a spare table out of the shed and "imagine my surprise" (I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again 1973) when I saw that the wilderness that was the bottom of the neighbour's garden has been cleared and tidied.

This is really great news because the bottom of our garden, where we spend a lot of time, was dominated by the neighbour's 20 feet high laurels and conifers and they have all been reduced to about 6 feet so all that smoke will be worth putting up with for the difference it is already making to our garden.

Good job I didn't say anything in the heat and smoke of the moment!

Preserving pears and roasting chestnuts

I've picked the rest of the pears and now need to decide on the best recipe for preserving them. I think I know where to find one that includes chardonnay and cinammon. That's wine and spice, not the new girls on Hollyoaks.

I was mulling over the options while I roasted some chestnuts over the fire pit using my French chestnut roasting tool.

I love this time of year.

Time for a change of subject

I have just finished reading "The Sea" by John Banville which followed "Deaf Sentence" by David Lodge. Two excellent books that I enjoyed very much but both featured men who had lost their wives to illness as the central characters. I am not superstitious but I don't like taking chances so I am now reading "Principles and Practices of Marketing" by David Jobber to make sure I don't get a hat trick.

Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd died a couple of weeks ago.

He is the only person to have moved, excited or inspired me to write to a TV company to thank them for their work. The series Floyd on Fish (1984) was the event that caused this reaction and I suppose I should have addressed the thanks to Keith rather than the producer.

Too late now but thanks Keith all the same.