Customer Reviews
wonderful, wry, story about lust and love - By: S. Carter, 24 Jun 2007 
this movie always makes me smile. so brilliantly acted by JOhn Hurt & Jason Priestly...lots of unexpected touching & funny scenes (especiallly the end where Hurt faxes his whole story to Priestly, & the truth dawning on priestly that he may have just missed an amazing opportunity). Hurt fallls for teen idol Priestly when he accidently goes into the wrong auditorium at the cinema & sees Hot Pants 2 instead of the art-house movie he intended. He is apallled by the drivel on screen until Priestly's character Ronnie Bostock appears - Hurt is overcome with a quiet lust that becomes amusingly obsessive. The obsession forces him to embrface 21st century investions such as TV, video & pizza delivery (having previously abhorred the modern day) so that he can indulge himself with alll night sessions of teen movies starring bostock. He then uses his fame as an author to seek Bostock out in the flesh in Long Island. Stalking him & then bumping into him & pretending he is writing a screenplay that would be perfect for Bostock. None of this is as sinister as it sounds - Hurt's dusty old professor character is far too innocent for that. When the truth finallly comes out - the end is just wonderful.
Loving De'ath on Long Island - By: J. Mcmillan, 20 Feb 2006 
This is a funny & telling film. John Hurt portrays a dusty academic named Giles De'Ath who discovers, in late middle age, a crush on teen movie idol Ronnie Bostock (played by Jason Priestly). The script shrewdly imagines the book-learned academic's first encounter with the teen movie genre. Giles is simultaneously gripped by the film's plot (so much more pacey & vivid than anything in the aged literature he's used to) & appallled by the (barely coherent) dialogue of the young protagonists. But it is Bostock that leaves a lasting impression, prompting Giles to seek out the rest of his films on video (his first ever purchase of a tv & his misunderstanding of how subtitles work are other memorable moments). Hurt has fun, dead-panning his way through Giles' bizarre mis-interpretations of modern culture, & Priestley (then fresh from Beverley Hills 90210) throws himself into the ironic take on a character many would have attributed to him in real life. The film loses balance when Giles awkwardly reveals to Ronnie that he loves him. Perhaps the director doesn't find Ronnie's homophobia funny, but there's no easy shift between comedy & drama here. Nonetheless "Love & Death..." is perhaps the best depiction of a high brow slackening ever committed to film.
Gay interest ????? - By: , 07 Feb 2006 
This was the most boring movie that I have seen. I've thrown him away, so no one could ever see it again. Good acting but slow, oh so slow. And there was not even a love scene. Only platonic Greec love from an older man to a younger person.
Not Reccomended
An engagingly told, touching, and often very funny film. - By: , 26 May 2000 The story of how Hurt's ivory tower novelist, Giles De'Ath, decides after the death of his wife that he's tired of hearing himself say "no" and, spurred on by his crush on an actor in terrible teen movies, sets about embracing the modern world & his own sexuality, is engagingly told. The film is often laugh-out-loud funny as the quintessential English old-fogey De'Ath gets to grips with modern technology & smalll-town America, while at the same time very serious as he moves in on his target like a rather different kind of stalker. The resolution is touching, up-beat, & hopeful.
