Notting Hill (1999)

one of my favourite films of all time.
watched it for over a dozen times and now I'm watching it again. It's the second most watched films in my list after Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant just shine in it.

and Richard Curtis. He's one of my favourite screen writers. I love all his films - Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill. but Notting Hill is perhaps the most hilarious and light hearted one with a "surreal but nice" romance.

Up at the Villa (2000)

adapted from Somerset Maugham's novel of the same name, this film is quite an intriguing period drama about how people change under different circumstances no matter how hard they try to stick to their own ideas of themselves.

the scenery is absolutely beautiful and Italy is always the place for a romantic encountering (apart from paris) and yet it is also the ideal venue for murder and suspence i think. the villa, the farmlands, the vineyards, everything just adds up so beautifully and they all seem idyllic and romantic and dangerous at the same time. Reminds me of the book I read some time ago - The Savage Garden by Mark Mills - it's about how a British guy who stays in Italy for the summer in the early 1940s discovers a truth about the family murder in his hostess' villa while the present is slowly mingled with the past, quite an intricate whodunnit novel.

just a change of tone here. watched Johnny English again last night after I saw the ad of Mr. Bean's Holiday in hbo. Steve Carrell's Get Smart is just repeating what Rowan Atkinson did in Johnny English I guess, but this time it's an American spy... but I always think that a British spy is way cooler than those CIA agents. the brit agents are just suave and sleek and everything, maybe that's an influence from my childhood cuz my dad is a James Bond fanatic. haha

the theme song for the film - a man for all seasons is soo hilarious when it's put in the film... the juxtaposition between bond n' english. lol