Britainology 75: Love Actually (2003)
For this month's first Britainology, Nate and Milo discuss the now-timeless 2003 Richard Curtis film LOVE ACTUALLY, and what it says about Britain. Milo loves it, Nate's wife loves it, Nate is lukewarm on it but it did make him laugh, and Boris Johnson Voice makes an appearance.
Comments (34)
Can you please break Nate’s brain with ´The History Boys’ (2006)?
great episode. the bit about CAMHS hits pretty close to home, god what a fucking mess of a service.
I'm never going to escape the phrase "The Chattanooga Englishman" Also god I miss Waffle House
They explain that the schools in the area did a combined pageant so it was private and state schools together.
There’s a reason there were so many UK crossover films in the US in the early aughts, the UK DCMS at the time had an aggressive tax incentive for films filmed and completed substantially in the UK and the Weinsteins in particular (but other folks like Bob Yari of “Crash” fame) used it to produce a ton of presale-financed prestige films in the aughts, usually also combined with a sale-leaseback tax shelter through a UK shell entity. The program was a Blair policy that Brown continued and was partially shut down by the Cameron government, which made the requirements for qualifying productions more demanding/protectionist.
Black out drunk on a Thursday but you wouldn't be able to tell. Yup that is "Drinking Wisconsinably"
Also, dressed in miniskirts despite it being like 5F (-23C) (moving there for a bit involved some fascinating culture shock)
Mexican food in the UK is lightyears better than it was 10 years ago the first time I moved here. Like it's still like 2003 Chipotle "good" but at least it's better than the 1985 Taco Bell level it was in 2015.
It's also a bit like Indian food in America where it costs 3x what it should cuz it's hard to find
also, the only American movie l can think of, off the top of my head at least, with an interracial couple that's just kind of there is Supertroopers
If I've said it once, l've said it a million times: Wisconsin is what you get when you try to build a New Ireland, but all you have to work with is Germans.
Though the Catholic Lutheran divide isn't as "squirrely"
International Baccalaureate mentioned! US teacher of IB here, I'd love a Britainology - a whole miniseries even - about education in the UK. Tell us about Oxbridge, the 100+ non-Oxbridge universities we've never heard about, the different types of primary and secondary education, and the outsized influence UK(-style) education still has globally.
I'm going to need Alan Rickman to become to TF what Michael Douglas was to Cumtown
It seems i can't escape this cursed movie for good. Every year our English teacher forced us to watch with movie as a treat for christmas. Then handed out homework about the american slave trade with the hard r n-word in the title.
As an important TF crossover, Liam Neeson’s stepson in this is now engaged to one of Elon Musk’s ex wives.
that's *so close* to being the plot of Star Wars The Phantom Menace
Not on subject per se but Nate should acquaint himself with the two Roy Wood solo albums, Boulders and (especially) Mustard. Classic mid seventies glam-adjacent, ambitious pop from a guy that was nearly the mastermind of ELO https://youtu.be/l9To94tvjrA?si=SU4JETEyiKceBbw-
To be clear I don’t know anything about the Wizard Christmas singles and am excited to learn. But Roy Wood’s solo work is some of the best outsider pop production of his generation, think Todd Rundgren but very British
'Jerusalem' is very much like Cliff Richard's 'Millenium Prayer' in that it takes an already existing tune and completely unrelated already existing words and mashes them together. ... Oh my God, you should do an episode on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Or maybe Radio 4 comedy in general. Or a double on the latter and then the former. I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again is a fascinating because it's an audio fossil of a time when John Cleese was Bill Oddie's whipping boy.
That Karl guy was Xerxes, so the whole time he's undressing Laura Linney (who is fully hot) I couldn't stop saying "the gods were cruel to shape you this way"
I used to watch this movie every single year and one detail that is seared into my brain is that Mia is so cartoonishly evil that she inexplicably wears devil horns to a Christmas party (which is ostensibly not a costume party)
Please god can you watch the Dutch version of this (Alles is Liefde). Notably, it is not centred around Christmas, but a certain boot polish themed holiday a little earlier in the month
"As bent as a leprechaun's boot" was go-to simile around where I grew up.
"Butt, Actually", is the Brazilian version of this film.
me: meh don't care about this movie podcast: not to worry, we barely talk about it at all just shoot the shit about old work stories me: sign me the Fuck up
The fat thing always struck me as off, but also I figured she was both “Hollywood” and what British people would consider fat. Then again I am an American woman who has never had a single digit dress size so that could just be internalized body dysmorphia talking . Ya know like glasses making someone an ogre?
I think it's also the case that is this 2003, in a pre-Kardashian world where the ideal body shape to be like flat as a board. And with men like myself, we've always been told that you have to be an tall Olympian althele or no one will want to be seen dead with you (which is pretty difficult if you're a bloke like me who's 5'6, like my height is something that can be worked on at the gym 🙄) . If even a bit of belly was visible, you were considered fat. Probably also plays into seeing fat as something that poor people are, so even more repulsive to middle class people. As much as the slim thick body type has it's problems, it's still probably healthier to be curvy than the stories I heard of women romantising anorexic bodies as the ideal form (presumably after being sold that by the media as the "appropriate" look).
I think Milo forgot that Carl is Rodrigo Santoro, Xerxes from 300 & 300 2, Paulo from Lost, & Hector from Westworld.
He's a pretty big deal tho, a working actor in the US but he's like Brazil's Brad Pitt
Milo said "no homo" and immediately the how can I be homophobic my boyfriend is gay song started playing in my head
Depending on the results, you've either made a powerful friend or a powerful enemy in my friend's girlfriend who has that on her "Christmas must watch list!"
Milo hears CCR when he hears the seat belt sign "boing" noise
oh HERE WE FUCKIN GO