Abe Zapruder, a special agent of ours, captured some 45 minutes of "AS GOOD AS IT GETS on video. Below, you will find his comments based on seeing those minutes. Be warned though, opinions based on "Parts" of films, can not always be trusted, but they do reflect on those 45 minutes. So read with that look in your mind.
As Good As It Gets
I've seen some rough cuts of material on video. Nicholson plays a phobic writer whose next door neighbor is Greg Kinnear, a gay man with an annoying dog. Kinnear gets beat up somehow and Nicholson takes care of the dog and comes to really like it, and then becomes friends with Kinnear. In the meantime there's Helen Hunt who's a nervous parent with an asthmatic son. She's a waitress at this restaurant that Nicholson goes to, and he gives her money one day for her son to go to a specialist. She writes this whole long letter to thank him that makes him very uncomfortable--then later Jack has to go on some kind of a driving trip and invites her along. Jack's his usual subtle, funny self, lots of layers in his acting. Kinnear is surprisingly effective in his part. Helen Hunt, from what I've seen, is unbearable. She takes her role a lot more seriously than she should, to the point of like foaming at the mouth. Word around the music editors is mixed about her, most people hate her performance, a couple really like it.
Also, Cuba Gooding, Jr., is in it as well, I couldn't make out what his role was other than at first a friend to Kinnear, then later becomes friends with Jack. He was, as usual, his chipper, charming, cool self.
Not sure how this one's gonna turn out. I saw only about 45 minutes and got bored (well, I started at some indeterminate point in the film). I'm not a huge fan of "Broadcast News" and haven't seen much else of Jim Brooks' films, so I couldn't even begin to evaulate it on that level. Frankly, I'm not too interested in seeing it, thank you very much.
