As Good As It Gets: remember when helen hunt was famous?

last night The Girlfriend and i sat down to dinner and a movie. i cooked dinner, which usually happens, and she got to pick the movie. whenever one of us picks a movie, the other invariably retains veto power (this is so i don't end up watching The Holiday seventeen times, and so she never has to sit through Midnight Meat Train). thankfully, i didn't have to exercise that power last night: she chose As Good As It Gets.

most of you have seen this movie, but i haven't written about it yet (the joys of a new blog), so here we go. first of all, this REALLY should have won best picture over Titanic. james cameron was sweet as hell in the 80s and early 90s (aliens, terminator, terminator 2, abyss, etc), but then he made the love-fest that was Titanic and ruined himself for the next 10 years. fuck you cameron, bring back corporal hicks and destroy some fucking robots. the only good things about Titanic are:

1. unexepected full frontal nudity from kate winslet. in a PG-13 movie, my 14 year old movie-going self completely did not expect this. this is something you could only have gotten away with during the Clinton administration. goddamn FCC...
2. when the ship goes down and that guy bounces off the propeller. the noise he makes is just classic...

yeah, that's it. the other 3 hours = crap. leo should've knocked that bitch off that table...

but i digress. back to As Good As It Gets. jack nicholson is just amazing in this movie. i'm not going to analyze the character other than to say that he seems to have no superego blocking his id. for those of you who don't know what that means, take a fucking introductory psychology class. anyway, he just says what he's really feeling no matter how much it may hurt someone, and 99% of the time what he says is awesome. my favorite line:
Woman: "how do you write women so well?"
Jack being awesome: "i think of a man, and take away reason and accountability."
i never get tired of seeing the look on that woman's face when he just completely crushes her dreams of a romantic novelist.

brilliant. it makes me hope that the people who write romance novels are actually grossly obese world of warcraft players living in their parents' basement. one can dream...

so yeah, jack is sweet. and greg kinnear is pretty damn good too. this guy is the quintessential supporting actor. i'm sure he's headlined movies before, but with the exception of Stuck Together with matt damon, i haven't seen any (that movie, btw, is actually funny, and has eva mendes, who is supremely bonable). greg plays a gay man pretty well (living in san francisco, i now feel like i am qualified to make that judgment), and he has a lot of pretty funny moments. mostly he serves as jack's cannon fodder, which works fine for me. the more funny lines that are possible because of him, the better. good job, greg kinnear.

this brings me to helen hunt. she used to have a career, right? she was in about 15 different movies in the late 90s. i really hope she invested that money, because she hasn't done shit since. can't say as this really bothers me, since she wasn't that great to begin with. that is a fivehead if i've ever seen one (one more than a forehead).

helen won an oscar for this role, and i can't exactly say i know why. The Girlfriend thinks it's for that scene where she cries about wanting to have a man in her life again. me, i think it's because the acadamy loves female characters who spout dialogue that looks good written down but doesn't exist because PEOPLE DON'T FUCKING TALK LIKE THAT!!! best example of this = Juno. most teenagers can't even string together enough grunts to communicate that they just shit their pants, and yet little ellen page sounds like jonah hill from superbad met nathaniel hawthorne. what the fuck...

back to helen hunt. they dress her as frumpily as humanly possible. good lord, they were just trying to make her ugly in this movie. you miss having a man in your life? don't dress like the house-marm from the Facts of Life. wear a push-up bra, put on some heels, put on a dress that doesn't go down to your ankles. seriously, was she amish in this movie? helen hunt is (was) actually a fairly attractive woman (see, e.g., What Women Want).

so we know it's possible. the one slight flash of attractiveness from helen in As Good As It Gets is when she confronts jack for being a nice guy (to which she responds that she'll never sleep with him ever, forever ending the debate of whether nice guys do in fact finish last). in this scene, she ran through the rain (couldn't wear a coat?), finally gets to his front door, and then just as he's about to answer, realizes her nips are showing through her shirt. i love gratuitous female boobage, and thank you hollywood for pandering to my adolescent needs.

seriously though, if you haven't seen this movie, go rent it. it's worth it for the comedy, and actually has a decent love story in it too (contrary to popular belief, i do enjoy love stories, just not ones that involve jude law). trust me, this movie won oscars for a reason...

unlike The English Patient.

oh, one more thing. speaking of actors who were in a bunch of stuff but now do nothing, this movie has cuba gooding jr in it. what happened to him? oh yeah, he made Chill Factor, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, and Radio. you never go full retard, cuba!


As Good As It Gets - jack nicholson's 48394234th oscar nomination, and 3rd win.