Days Like This

Film: As Good as It Gets
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

I think everyone has an actor or two that rubs him or her the wrong way. For me, one of those is Helen Hunt. I don’t specifically dislike Helen Hunt; I just don’t understand the appeal of her. I’ve never been excited about a Helen Hunt role or watched a movie specifically for her. That might be why it’s taken me this long to get to As Good as It Gets, the film for which she won an Oscar. Whenever I see Helen Hunt, I wonder why they didn’t get someone else for the role.

As Good as It Gets is kind of an angry romance, or at least a romance involving a very angry man. Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) is a successful novelist but a very unsuccessful person. Melvin is a misogynist and a racist and is buried in many ways by his phobias and compulsive behaviors. The film is going to attempt to make use hate Melvin initially and then have us come to love him by the end of the film. It’ a role that Nicholson does well. He plays a good creep and he gets a lot of benefit of the doubt because of who he is.

Mommy Issues

Film: Terms of Endearment
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I knew in the first minute I wasn’t going to like Terms of Endearment. How did I know? In that first minute, Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) decides that her infant daughter has died. To prove it to herself, she virtually climbs into the crib and ends up waking her infant and making her cry. Satisfied now that the baby is screaming, she walks out of the room, pleased with herself. And I just knew that this was going to be the person that I was supposed to sympathize with for the course of the film.

Aurora Greenway is the type of character that film producers call “headstrong” or “willful.” She’s the type who is always right about everything, even when she’s wrong about everything. No one can talk sense into her because she’s just right (dammit) and you’d better get used to the idea that she knows better than everyone else. People like that make me want to jab pencils into my ears. Movie characters like that cause the exact same reaction.

Weekend Update

Film: Broadcast News
Format: DVD NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Broadcast News is a perfect example of why I’m rewatching everything on The List before I review it. I wanted a sense of where I am with a film now rather than memory of it, in part to see if my opinion has altered. This is a case where my opinion of a film has improved somewhat over my initial reaction. Don’t get me wrong—I thought this was a well-made film the first time I saw it, but I didn’t like it a lot. I still can’t say that I like it a ton, but I like it more than I did the first time I saw it. I don’t think I saw this in the theater. I remember seeing it with my girlfriend at the time, who was a newspaper reporter. We watched any film that had a reporter angle. We’re married now, she’s not a reporter anymore, so she doesn’t care that much about films like this anymore. I think she liked it more than I did.

Anyway, this is a workplace romance dramedy involving a love triangle that centers around three people who are missing something vital in their personalities. Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) is a talented, intelligent, connected television reporter who just doesn’t have the charisma to be the focus of a network news broadcast. Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) is smart, tough, and great at her job as a producer, but unable to overcome feelings of physical inadequacy when she compares herself to the more telegenic women she works with. Tom Grunick (William Hurt) looks great on camera, has poise, and takes direction, but he’s as dumb as a post and represents everything that Jane hates in news media. So naturally, these are the three people who will be in one manner or another vying for each other’s affections. Put simply, Aaron has an unrequited crush on Jane, who is taken with Tom’s looks but repelled by his ignorance while Tom is attracted to Jane but intimidated by her knowledge and skill.