Here we have a match-up between two writer-directors coming off a string of excellent films -- Paul Weitz (American Pie, About A Boy, In Good Company) bringing us American Dreamz -- and -- Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary) who brought Love Actually to the world as a Christmas present a few years ago.
First up, American Dreamz, the story of a manipulative star/producer of an American Idol clone, surrounded by scheming contestants, an idiot president and, oh yes, singing terrorists.
There's something else these two films have in common. Both star Hugh Grant and both spend a lot of screen time telling us the current American president is not up to the job. In American Dreamz, Dennis Quaid plays a barely disguised President Bush who doesn't read and has to be told what to say by a Dick Cheney lookalike. In Love Actually, the president is played by Billy Bob Thornton as a lecherous, condescending asshole, kind of a Clinton/Bush two-fer. This film's a collection of nearly a dozen stories about love, centered by Hugh Grant playing the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain.
American Dreamz is all satire, specifically about "American Idol." Love Actually is a romantic comedy, about how we're all connected and everybody is important. The one thing they would both have been better off without are their storylines about the American president. First off, they are, by far, the least funny parts of both films. Secondly, they will date the films badly as they go on. That probably matters less for American Dreamz which probably will only seem quaint in just a few months but for Love Actually it's a shame because, if you pull out President A-Hole, the film is a classic. Fortunately for Love Actually, it's only a sub-plot and unfortunately for American Dreamz is the bigger part of why the film was made.
I have to say that Hugh Grant is just a great actor who grows on you more each time you see him. He's particularly good these days playing a scumbag which he did brilliantly in Bridget Jones's Diary. He's equally good as a Simon Cowell stand-in in American Dreamz, but it's not enough to redeem the film from its larger problems.
This one's not a contest then. Love makes the world go round. It also makes for a funny, humanist, clever, moving film. Love Actually takes this in a knock-out.
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