Beauty vs Beast: Sidewalk Stories
Monday, June 15, 2015 at 4:00PM Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- the very first movie that I ever saw being filmed in person was on one of my first trips to New York City; I guess it must've been in the spring of 1997? There I was walking down a side-street near NYU, a wide-eyed country bumpkin in the big city, when who should suddenly be standing in front of me but Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson! That'll stop you dead in your tracks. Beside him was Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear and you guessed it, it was James L. Brooks' multiple Oscar winner As Good As It Gets.
I watched them film for about half an hour (it was the scene where they were getting into the car to go on their mid-movie road-trip) in awe, and now whenever I think of this movie I think of that experience and how fundamental it was to cementing this city as where I wanted to live my life. There's magic around every corner, wedged terrifyingly in every crack of the sidewalk. Long story short today is Helen Hunt's birthday (and Greg Kinnear's birthday is on Wednesday) so As Good As It Gets it is...
PREVIOUSLY Last time around we anticipated the weekend's great big movie (movie-a-saurus) with a claw-off between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Velociraptor in Steven Spielberg's 1993 original Jurassic Park - ya'll love your Clever Girls and the Raptor slashed her way to the winning circle with 60% of the vote. Said forever1267:
"Velociraptors are one of the few movie monsters that really scared me while watching the movie. They aren't supposed to be smart! They're not supposed to be able to open doors! They're not supposed to be clever! Chills!"
Reader Comments (23)
Team Carol (and more importantly, Team Helen Hunt all the way). Such a carefully mannered performance that is both clearly thought out and yet so lived in. I remember watching her Inside the Actors Studio (she's always been such an eloquent actress, remember her on the THR roundtable?) and she talked about always needing to remind herself to not "get it right" because in "getting it right" you miss the chaos that makes great performances and suddenly her work in Mad About You and As Good as it Gets suddenly clicked even more for me.
It's a very very good performance, but, you know, Helena Bonham Carter was beyond words in The Wings of the Dove. Hunt is a solid bronze medal after HC and Winslet, and yeah, she's better than Dench and Christie.
Jack ROCKED my world in this movie.
I love James L. Brooks. And his best movie is How do You Know, a flawless masterpiece. I mean that!
I 2nd HBC being more deserving but I love the warth about Hunt here but more so in The Sessions,but a solid 2nd but Kate 2nd no way.
On the basis of the "Fucking H.M.O. bastard pieces of shit!" line, it's Helen Hunt all the way.
Speaking of 26-year age differences...
Helen Hunt may have beat an impressive array of actresses for Oscar Gold but it is not a bad performance- one of those when you actually get around to seeing it, you go, "Oh this is better then I thought. I get why she won"
I adore this movie! For me, it more than any other film seems to capture the 90s. I'm not talking stylistically (that's either Goodfellas or Pulp Fiction), but even more than suburban malaise of American Beauty (which is really just about well off white folks), this one quietly paints a more complete picture of what was going on. It discusses affordable healthcare, mental illness, homophobia, race, class issues, all that, without hitting you over the head with messages, or turning its characters into caricatures just to make points, or forgetting its really "just" a comedy. The romance is completely implausible, but I think that's a part of its charm (these people are desperate for something/anything after all, and the movie doesn't shy away from that).
It helps that the performances are aces. Jack doing his best Jack, and I love the balance Greg Kinnear finds in being sincere, while still playing up Simon's "noble victimhood." Then there's Hunt. I'm always surprised at the flack this performance gets, because I think it's beautiful work. It just feels lived in, and you get a sense of how surprising all these moments are for Carol and how she just feels thankful that they're happening. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but this one really got to me, and still gets me every time I see it.
yeah. she won the Oscar solely on FUCKING HMO PIECES OF SHIT speech. I still weep some times thinking that HOlly Hunter was supposed to do this one and didn't. (sigh) she might have been a double Oscar winner!
@Nathaniel
Hunter would have won since Nicholson never wins without his female co-star also winning her category.
Hunter makes my personal top three of 90's Best Actress winners. The other two are Bates and Thompson.
I remember when this movie was supposed to be called, Old Friends. Greg Kinner had charmed in Sabrina; Cuba Gooding, Jr. was a newly-minted Oscar winner; Helen Hunt had a monster hit in Twister; and Jack Nicholson had not been in anything good for a while. Then this movie came out, and bam!
But re: Helen Hunt's performance, the one phrase that immediately came to mind is indeed "lived in." It's a much stronger performance than it gets credit for being, but nevertheless not quite on par with Helena Bonham-Carter's, Julie Christie's, or, hell, Debbi Morgan's in Eve's Bayou. Still, it continues to be a joy to (re)watch.
OK this Helen Hunt win to me is one of THE WORST EVER!!! So Dha...
I think people are so hard on Helen Hunt's win because she's a TV actress in a comedy and Weinstein really pulled out all the stops to get her the win over bigger film stars like HBC, Judi, and Kate.
I'm happy she won, but I'm more interested in the work of Pam Grier in Jackie Brown anyway...who I assume was 6th place in the nominations.
Even JLo in Selena interested me more than some of the nominees haha.
The look on her face when Jack Nicholson says "You make me want to be a better man" will always get me.
Team Carol all the way! Hunt's wonderfully subtle performance makes her even more lovable. All the while, I never get Nicholson's "charisma" and Mervin is simply a jerk.
Pam Grier <3
One of the more egregious Best Actress wins. A nice, but one-note actress, who has given the same performance for 20 years. Let's face it ... she'll never top Lynne Stone in Girls Just Want To Have Fun.
Loved this film then and like it now, despite all the shit it gets. Jack is on fire - somehow Melvin doesn't come off like the complete and utter cliche he is on paper, and it's solely due to Nicholson's unique charisma - but it really is all about Helen Hunt and her warm, deeply lived-in performance as Carol. Yes the "fucking HMO pieces of shit" bit is great, but where the character (and the actress) really sings for me is in the quieter, more intimate moments. She somehow ups everyone's game when she's in a scene with them, and that's no small feat.
But really, Carol wins just for being able to handle Melvin and all his bullshit.
I don't know. The only thing I think about when it comes to this movie is how he SHOWS UP AT HER APARTMENT and when she calls him out on it, he scolds her for treating him badly and defends himself by saying "I haven't gotten personal and you have." And she meekly capitulates and lets him in.
I just wanted her to shout: "YOU SHOWED UP AT MY APARTMENT. I'M A WAITRESS. THAT'S PRETTY PERSONAL." And slam the door.
But then I guess there'd be no movie. Or there could be, but that would mean he'd have to work harder to win her over but it's Jack so we just have to assume he's charming even when he's not.
Sorry for the all caps, that moment has always really bugged me.
I've always defended Hunt in this, and I'm possibly Jack's biggest fan. I never rate this as a Nicholson performance - in fact, only One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is in my Top Performances Of Jack list from his Oscar wins. Give me The Witches Of Eastwick (80s Jack) and Wolf (90s Jack) any day of the week...
Mareko - I need to see Eve's Bayou so badly, but because on paper it is so clearly my favourite of 1997, I'm scared as it can only disappoint...
Philip H - I'm still confused as to how Grier missed, particularly when Christie got in. What a performance - lived in, calm, unshowy. Very similar to Hunt's, in a weird parallel universe.
A pretty weak field for Best Actress that year (though I if I saw Julie Christie in "Afterglow" I don't remember!). Of those nominated, are any of them more worthy than Helen?
Best Actor should have gone to Matt Damon for "Good Will Hunting" over Jack in this film, doing his Jack thing, years after it was interesting.
Helen Hunt all the way. She deserved this Oscar but I agree that the field was pretty weak.
It will be interesting who we chose among the three ladies of the The Hours so I suggest that we consider them in future Beauty vs Beast features (though all of them are beauties).
Thank you for the quote shout out!!!
I am Team Melvin, because I feel crazy these days, and I definitely know unrequited love these days.
Good movie in a very good year.
"I think people are so hard on Helen Hunt's win because she's a TV actress in a comedy and Weinstein really pulled out all the stops to get her the win over bigger film stars like HBC, Judi, and Kate."
Much as people like to credit/blame Harvey Weinstein for EVERY successful Oscar campaign from the mid-'90s onwards, As Good As It Gets wasn't a Miramax movie. And her campaign wasn't even that aggressive: she had the advantage of being in a widely seen Best Picture nominee that was more seemingly performance-driven than Titanic.