As Good As It Gets

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I have never understood how directors and producers can pay so much attention to female costumes and hair styles, and then have the guys wearing their hair like they did the year they were hired. This movie is literally filled with sideburns and hair that is way too long! Thinhs were hectic during wartime, but the military still required its soldiers to get haircuts, and guys did not wear their hair touching their collars and ears. In a more technical mode, I believe that flyers on bombers used neck microphones that required them to press on buttons, including the pilots. And I usually like Harrison Ford's acting, but he seemed to be stuck in a sarcastic Han Solo mode.

the story. the acting. the romanticism in the war time. and the sacrifice. pillars of a classic about choices, friendship, honor, love and importance of meetings. its seduction force - to remind old things who define an universe of world out ordinary rules. its virtue - to mix in coherent manner different stories who becomes one with many sides. a beautiful film for the admirable performances. and for the art of detail. for a form of heroism who remains noble and impressive and touching, remembering the Medieval stories. and for the atmosphere who defines in brilliant manner the drama of the lead characters. it could be discovered as classic romance or as war story. in essence, it is an admirable story about values.

1 (awful). That pretty much summarizes it. Ford is excruciatingly bad, so bad I wonder once again what the hell Hollywood sees in this guy. Not only can he single-handedly destroy a scene with his stone-faced 'acting', he moves like what he was before he got in front of the camera: a carpenter. At least give the guy a hammer and a boxful of nails and point him towards a pile of 2x4's. I don't want to rag on the movie too hard because lots of behind-the-scenes people made a living wage off it but jeez, everything about Ford sank this film. Even his haircut was more Beverly Hills 1979 than WW2 London. The movie doesn't age well but then it wasn't any good back in '79 either. Remind me again why Ford is/was considered to be a major star?

"Hanover Street" is the kind of movie people like to pick apart because the SS Sgt. didn't render the proper Hitler salute or the uniforms were wrong or because the B-25 wasn't flown over Europe but mostly in North Africa. Well, I imagine the B-25 sets were left over from Catch 22, which used B-25s, and there was a shortage of SS uniforms at Elstree Studios when this movie was filmed. It doesn't really detract from the film. These are bits of entertainment -- not a masters level thesis. I have to say this is an "adult" movie that probably wouldn't be made today. If filmed today (late 2005), then there'd be a lot more emphasis on wise-ass remarks to the commanding officer and silly, stilted lines like "If I lost you then I'd just die ... oh I'd just die." Pretty much along the lines of 2001's awful Pearl Harbor. The love story is really more about honor and sacrifice than love, and reflects closely wartime England when many single, and probably married, English women dashed off with "heroic" Yanks -- which gave way to the British saying about Americans: "Over paid, over sexed and, bloody well, over here." There's a lot of action in this movie and a lot of tension that builds up at the right moments. Is it a big, blockbuster movie like "Raiders of The Lost Ark?" No, but it's got a good script, the cinema-photography is outstanding and the score is perfect. Aside from Catch 22, there's not a lot of places you can see REAL B-25s lining up for takeoff in a film (sorry, again the Pearl Harbor CGI doesn't cut it for me) and the fear-laced banter between Ford's bomber crew seems closer to the real thing than the heroic bull from other movies. If there's a gripe I've got about this film it's Ford's haircut. You can see a lot of detail and expense in the Hanover Street set, the Blitz and even the airfield. Everybody looks up to 1940s standards and the set has that smoke-filled, perpetual autumn look that seems to be what people associate with early color films from the World War II era. However, Ford's 1978 shag kind of ruins the mood. Maybe he couldn't cut his hair because "Empire Strikes Back" was due to start lensing soon after "Hanover Street" went into post production ... who knows, but it detracts from the detail paid to the extras and the set. Still, "Hanover Street" is a good film.