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As Good As It Gets

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Wow, this movie was actually painful to watch. "Cringeworthy" is an understatement. First of all, I was surprised that Hilton allowed the use of its name considering the part of the front desk clerk.Don't the actors have a read-through before they do a movie? You mean they actually read through this and still decided to make it? Were they all friends of his, or just kiss-ups, or both? I tried to force myself to watch this all the way through, but my mind kept wandering, day-dreaming about how much more pleasant it would be to have dental surgery without anesthesia. I guess it was that scraping sound that kept waking me from my daydreaming, the sound of a ten-foot pole against the bottom of the barrel.There was a semblance of a redeeming factor in the part played by Charlie Callas; and I truly felt for Susan Bay: her career wasn't completely ruined by this though - Leonard Nimoy married her despite this movie. I would love to write a spoiler for this movie but it's impossible to spoil a rotten egg.Then, after what seemed like days later, the movie finally ended and my first thought was "how did this movie ever get made?", my second thought, "that was two hours of my life I will never get back...". I have never been much of a Jerry Lewis fan, but The Big Mouth will now be The Big Reason why I am not.

"An Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all......"."The Big Mouth" was perhaps the greatest inside joke on audiences since the 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds". Billed as a comedy, heavily promoted, widely distributed, and featuring Jerry Lewis (who played three roles and directed) this was a must see for our junior high group of cut-ups. We found the experience a surreal one. A comedy film where nobody in the theater laughed including us (absolutely no laughter). We caught on quicker than the adults that this was a complete sham but were spellbound waiting for a single funny sequence that would shatter the audience silence. It never happened.Afterward we scanned newspaper and magazine reviews for some sign that a prominent reviewer was going to spill the beans and expose the "Emperor", but there was nothing. It was like the whole industry had clammed up by mutual agreement to allow Columbia to recover a portion of their investment. I suspect that this kind of industry-wide "quid pro quo" was fairly common in those days. Word of mouth (pun intended) in our town killed attendance within a few days, although some may have attended just to observe Hollywood finally bottoming out. "The Big Month" deserves a place in cinema history because it was this bottoming out process that opened the door for innovative stuff like "Bonnie & Clyde" and "Easy Rider" in mainstream theaters.In fairness the chase sequences might have had some amusement value except they had been done much better by Harvey Lembeck (playing Eric Von Zipper) in countless beach movies released earlier in the decade.The only saving grace at the time for us 14-year-olds was that Jeannine Riley (Billie Jo from "Petticoat Junction") was featured in several eye-scorching outfits. Hence the extra star.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I saw this film on first release and I remember being sickened by it...the early scene of jerry pulling his gangster double out of the beach (he's caught him in the back with fishing hooks), lots of blood...and this is supposed to be a family film?? ..later buddy lester is so shocked by seeing what he thinks is the dead gangster rejuvenated, that he ends up spitting out his own teeth, and spends the rest of the film going around with bloody gums, mumbling...kee-rist, what the hell was jerry lewis thinking??? ..the scenes with jerry as an Asian actor, spouting a lot of gibberish is just embarrassing. ..and is anyone else annoyed by the DVD releases of all these early lewis films?.. the narration is basically steve lawrence guffawing and praising jerry for every single frame, and asking him repeatedly for an explanation of the videotape camera system (which jerry gladly talks about over and over) ..anyway, I do like The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man, but this one is a disaster

Smugglers have a falling out, and one of them high-tails it with the loot. When the gang finds out that Jerry unknowingly received the stones, they pull out all stops to get at him. That should have been easy, but the fools are more inept than Jerry. Of course, along the way Jerry falls in love. An amusing film.