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Overall rating: 4/5
Director: James L. Brooks
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinear, Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Tagline: So good, you’ll forget it’s from Hollywood, but with enough schmaltz to remind you again
The Film: Three excellent performances illuminate a stellar script. The main characters all have their own arcs and relationships to each other, yet it meshes delightfully. Nicholson is a cranky obsessive-compulsive who is unloveable. Hunt is a harried single mom who’s undatable. Kinear is an isolated victim of violent crime. Though Hunt’s youth is a bit implausible in a romance with the grizzled Nicholson, her performance (Oscar, remember?) more than compensates. It’s the big hug you’ve been needing all week.
Rating: 5/5
DVD: The commentary includes Brooks, Nicholson, Hunt and Kinear, and is therefore nearly as cool as the film itself. There’s really nothing else in the way of bonus features; not a deleted scene in sight.
Easter Eggs: Nope.
Rating: 3/5
Five Degrees of Seperation
Terms of Endearment - More Jack, more well-done heartwarming sentiment (with extra goop)
Sabrina - More mincing from Greg Kinear in this likeable but uninspired remake
Pay it Forward — Helen Hunt, this time the single mom of that creepy Haley Joel Osmet kid
About A Boy — less sentimental, less fulfilling, more edgy and wicked, despite Hugh Grant, whose previous career defines sentimental and unfulfilling.
Twister — yet another film that features a completely unneccesary Helen-Hunt-in-a-wet-T-shirt scene.
