As I’ve mentioned over and over, I’m a big fan of Love Actually. So, when I started seeing commercials for Valentine’s Day, a holiday-centric romantic comedy featuring a huge cast of big-time actors, my mind immediately went to my favorite romantic comedy. I’m not saying it’s a rip off or anything like that, I just think it’s interesting how these things happen. Just look at the posters for both movies.

As you can see, both movies went with the obvious marketing campaign of using the impressive cast list in photo form in a manner that reflects the holiday the movie is set around. Well, at least one of Valentine’s Day’s posters does both. Makes sense to be.

Speaking of the casts, here’s a brief list of each movie, click on the movie’s title to check out the full list of actors on IMDb. Love Actually: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Keira Knightley, Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, January Jones (though she wasn’t famous at the time), Elisha Cuthbert, Claudia Schiffer, Denise Richards and Shannon Elizabeth. That’s most of the UK’s big guns with a few Americans thrown in for good measure. Valentine’s Day boasts the following: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Ashton Kutcher, Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, George Lopez, Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Jaime Foxx, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Topher Grace, Queen Latifah, Shirley MacLaine and Emma Roberts. While that is a lot of star power and does pack a few A-listers, I’m not sure if it’s relatively close LA. But again, I’m probably biased.

Here’s the trailers I mentioned, first up Valentine’s Day, then Love Actually.

It’s kind of funny how spoilery the LA is, though you’d have to remember a lot of these little scenes while watching the movie for it to actually ruin anything. Anyway, the other thing that struck me is the fact that both movies seem to have a a story involving a young boy realizing he’s in love with someone. In VD it’s Hector Elizondo’s son or grandson and in LA it’s Neeson’s son. One thing that does surprise me about the VA trailer is that they don’t in any way hype the fact that TV legend Garry Marshall directed it. Maybe it’s because his last movie, 2007’s Georgie Rule, was pretty universally panned. Or maybe they don’t think kids today will know who he is, which is depressing.

In the end, I’ll still see VD, though probably not on the holiday itself. I’m hoping that it’s on the same level of LA because there are a serious lack of quality romantic comedies out in the world in my personal opinion. Here’s hoping.