Starring:	Jack Nicholson	139min
	Helen Hunt
	Greg Kinnear	1997
Screenplay:	Mark Andrus & James L Brooks
Director:	James L Brooks	Colour

Region	1	Studio:	Columbia Tristar
Format	Double Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English
			Spanish
Aspect ratio	16:9 or 4:3		French
Anamorphic	Yes
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features	Film makers' commentary
	Ferench Dolby Digital 5.1		8 page booklet
Case type	Amaray

The DVD * * * *		The Movie * * * *
This is the way to do it. Coming complete with a nice eight page booklet featuring pages of script, this is THE way to get the double acting oscar winning movie. Pay your money and make your choice between the beautiful artifact-less widescreen transfer or the nasty cramped Pan and Scan affair (the film was shot closed matte, meaning that the widescreen shape is definitely the one to go for). The boys and girls at Columbia DVD have done a wonderful job in coding the 2hr 20m film on one side of a disc. As to the commentary, this is an unusual affair. There have clearly been many different interviews with different people at different times, which are here edited together. That being said, it works quite well, with a refreshing realism about some stuff that didn't work out as they had hoped, and some very interesting points about screenplay and structure for those like myself that way inclined. On the less positive side, Nicholson does come over as a rambling old drunk at times, and there are constant references to tons on extra scenes that were shot - I would have happily foregone the fullscreen version on this disc for a peek at the extra scenes on side two. If nothing else, As Good As It Gets is a fine showcase for the wonders of DVD in a movie with a body count of zero and one where the weirdest creature is a dog. All in then, just like the movie itself, this is very good indeed - but not quite as good as it gets.		Giving a film the title of As Good As It Gets is really pushing it. Predictably it can't quite live up to the moniker, but it's not too far off, and it does give us a refreshingly unusual take on the old feel-good romantic comedy genre. Melvin (Nicholson) is an unlikely movie hero - racist, misogynistic, homophobic and astonishingly offensive to just about everyone. Part of the explanation for this is that, although a hugely succesful romantic novelist, he is clearly not firing on all cylinders and is medically diagnosed as having an obsessive compulsive disorder. Part of his freakish daily routine is breakfast at a cafe, where waitress and single mum Helen Hunt tolerates conversation with him, but only just. Of course Melvin is in love, but it takes looking after a neighbour (Kinear)'s dog to start to reveal chinks in the sadistic armour. Jack is totally on form here, for the first time in ages as a lead. Greg Kinnear, as the wounded neighbour, is strong too, but it is Helen Hunt who really excels. Best known to US audiences from the harmless sitcom Mad About You and UK ones as the lead from Twister(!), she here proves an astonishing naturalness and range for which Academy Awards were invented. The screenplay is peppered with laugh-out-loud one liners which genuinely surprise in their audacity, but suffers a little from an uncomfortable jump for Helen Hunt's character at one point. But it is perhaps the direction from veteren Brooks which stops this film truly acheiving greatness. This is long and, despite its many merits, feels long. A minor point, but occasionaly the camera also seems uncomfortably intrusive. Up for Oscar's Best Picture, the film occupies the role taken last year by Jerry Maguire (Cuba Gooding Jr almost reprieses his role in this, by the way, but with predictabaly less charm). Although perhaps not in the same class as the Cruise classic, it is nice to see such an refreshingly un-PC, risk-taking yet enjoyable film so finely rewarded.