As Good as It Gets (1997)

Director: James L. Brooks

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Everyone loved it when it came out, pulling of the The Silence of the Lambs (1991) trick of sweeping both of the lead performers awards at the Oscars. No film has ever done it since. It’s occasionally heartwarming, often very funny, and there’s no reason why everyone wouldn’t have loved it.

I suppose the question in 2024 is, can it possibly hold up? Other celebrated films from the era—I’m mainly thinking of American Beauty (1999), but it isn’t precisely a 1:1 analogy—have been thoroughly dismissed as celebratory of our worst impulses. One would imagine that this film isn’t going to be immune from such considerations, when it is frequently both willfully and gleefully politically* incorrect.

And yet, I think there’s something telling in the fact that while the film did win those acting awards, it was completely cut out of any other attention in favor of Titanic (1997). The performances are key here. I’ve always said that more than any other movie star, Nicholson excels at portraying awfulness and charm simultaneously. He certainly had it as The Joker in Batman (1989) (although that would be a bit of a pre-requisite for the role), and I can only imagine what The Shining (1980) would have been without that quality**. So even now Melvin Udall (Nicholson) says and does deeply terrible things, you can’t help but be charmed somehow.

That wouldn’t be much to hang an entire film on anymore, though. The quality that makes the film still largely work when it might otherwise gone sour is the same quality that likely kept it from unqualified praise in the 90s. Yes, the role is tailor made for Nicholson’s talents, but the film does reach for a redemption for its characters, if even in small measures. Even if it wasn’t for love, Udall wants to be better. Will he succeed? Probably never nearly as much as the people around him might want, but if the horrors of the current age are ever going to abate, we might need to afford the assholes in our lives the grace to improve.

*You know what? I’m not thrilled with the amount of adverbs in that sentence, either.

**Likely something approaching the TV miniseries The Shining (1997), but I digress.

Rat Race (2001)

Director: Jerry Zucker

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Have I Seen It Before: Have I? I’m almost positive I haven’t. I’d remember it, right?

Did I Like It: I think there’s a certain dishonesty to a certain generation when they say that It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) is… oh, what’s the word…? good. The moment when a boomer got a hold of the rough concept, the first thing he did was chop down the running time by about half. I’m not sure a single comedy could ever successfully fill two VHS tapes. Billy Wilder understood it, Mike Nichols understood it. Even Kubrick—he being unafraid of a long film, to be sure—understood it.

Zucker understands it, too. Unfortunately, the film forgets to be funny in the meantime. Maybe Zucker didn’t get it, had a three-hour version of this film and chopped it to fit the modern sensibility.

I sat there stone-face aside from a few moments, which should open and immediately close the case on the film. One might argue I’ve been sleep deprived and wouldn’t have cracked a smile at Chaplin if he started churning out films again, but I’m submitting that the film is the one which is sleep deprived. The two biggest comedic beats of the movie are that John Cleese has improbably white fake teeth, and that Rowan Atkinson is sometimes very foreign, sometimes very sleepy, and occasionally both. Blink and you’ll miss whether or not Seth Green’s brother is foolish or pitiable, and if you’re thinking that deeply about this question, I would forgive you for neglecting to laugh. I sure did. I still don’t understand what Cuba Gooding Jr.’s problem is. Are football fans usually this worked up about the coin toss at the top of the game?

Also, Smash Mouth is there. They’re naturally hilarious. Ahem.