Responses to this message:
Certainly not one of my favorites, but say what you want about this film, it still has to qualify as the UNDERDOG OF THE YEAR, if not the decade.
When was the last time a 20 million dollar film made almost 200 million dollars? Every picture in front of it on the all time list is a special effects extraganza (except "Home Alone," "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Pretty Woman"). Even the exceptions probably cost almost twice as much to produce.
And when was the last time a film spent 8 weeks in the top 5 before it finally climbed to number 1? (The modern answer, I suspect, is NEVER.) If a film doesn't debut at number 1 these days, then it will NEVER make it to number 1. (Although last year "Tomorrow Never Dies" came within a few hundred thousand dollars of debuting at number 1 over "Titanic"-- which would have lasted all of 1 week.)
"There's Something About Mary's" accomplishments should be applauded by all lovers of underdogs. I mean, it literally came out of absolutely nowhere to be the number 3 film of 1998, upending such heavyweights as "A Bug's Life," "The Waterboy," "Dr. Dolittle," "Deep Impact," "Godzilla," and "Lethal Weapon 4." It wasn't a great movie (not a bad movie either) but it did accomplish great things.
I'm not so sure about Best Original Screenplay (I eventually scratched it off my B.A.P. ballot), but I did include Cameron Diaz and Matt Dillon (who won Best Villain), and I continued my tradition of placing movies in my Top Ten that I didn't necessarily care much for but couldn't argue with the numbers.
But of course, I argued with both "Dr. Dolittle" and "Godzilla's" numbers. But "Godzilla" was not just a bad movie, but a complete financial failure ("TSAM" was its exact opposite in the respect), and I saw absolutely NO redeeming value to "Dr. Dolittle" for adults whatsoever. At least I chuckled now and then in "Mary." (The only other two movies of 1998 that I actually hated were "Practical Magic" and "The Man in the Iron Mask," neither of which was a hit, so I'm not really arguing with numbers there. I found some sort of redeeming value in every other movie I saw this year, but only a handful were actually GOOD. My life isn't devoted to flaming films... yet.)
So that's how I see it anyway.
The Creep, The Freak & The Loser
Responses to this message:
Post a response to this discussion thread