Disposto a Tudo

Writer & Director James L Brooks has a very sure touch when it comes to movies. I'll Do Anything was conceived as an old fashioned musical. A parody of actor's lifestyles and film clichés.

Test audiences were not impressed with the film and at the time musicals were out of fashion.

I presume the songs were actually rubbish which tends to be the case with a lot of musical films.

Re-cut and re-edited, this is now a straight story with Nick Nolte, playing Matt Hobbs, a once promising actor who has not managed to get a regular acting gig in some time. He ends up driving around an arrogant film producer (Albert Brooks.)

Things take a turn when his ex-wife dumps their daughter Jeannie on Matt for what he thinks is for a few weeks but turns out to be longer as she is off to jail.

Matt's daughter is used to getting her own way and he is not used to fatherhood.

Matt's career may have some brightness as he gets friendly with with an attractive production assistant (Joely Richardson) who has a script idea and thinks Matt could be the lead actor.

The film was hampered from the start with its production troubles. Nick Nolte does well as a down on his luck actor with a brat of a daughter and trying to bond with her while dealing with machinations of the film industry.

James L Brooks succeeded so well when he turned his eye on TV news with Broadcast News. The story here is not strong enough and although the actors try hard the film comes off as hollow.

It would be very interesting to see the original cut of this movie, which was a musical but had its songs cut out after a test audience indicated that the songs in the movie were terrible. (I'm surprised that not even a bootleg of this cut has leaked out.) I will entertain the possibility that the songs were indeed bad and that the movie was improved by the reworking. But as it is, the movie isn't particularly successful. It does have some interesting behind- the-scenes moments that show the working of the Hollywood machine behind the curtains, and the performances aren't that bad. However, the movie can't seem to make up its mind whether it is a comedy or a drama. It might have been possible to mix those two genres, but as it is here, the two extremes don't seem to fit together. Also, the key relationship in the movie - between the Nick Nolte character and his daughter - seems for the most part not very in-depth, so much so that the emotional ending doesn't seem deserved. The kind of slow pace of the movie as well as its length (almost two hours) doesn't help matters. It's not actively bad, but there's not much that will stick in your mind after watching it.

This is a movie about making movies and standing up for your beliefs and not having to bow down under the pressures of audience expectations and studio involvements, and it had musical numbers which were cut and writers come in to dumb it down because of audience expectations and studio involvements.

But I found all that out after I first saw the movie and thought it was great entertainment. I love Nick Nolte, he's so grave and gruff and depressed that I hope he doesn't kill himself cause I really like everything he's done, even The Hulk, and especially Affliction and that Martin Short with a kid movie. Joely Richardson is gorgeous! Julie Kavner and James Brooks are great. I highly recommend this film, and hope to see it again soon on DVD with all of the deleted scenes.

Just caught this flick on Cable by accident. lazy Sunday afternoon, and Contact was playing on TNT for the 50th 'premiere' time, so I figured, what the heck.

And actually, it's kinda interesting I thought. Nick Nolte and kids are always terminally cute for some reason (ref. Three Fugitives with Martin Short). He's like like a big St. Bernard dog.

Anyway, the story is OK, losta phony LA movie folks earnestly searching for themselves, blah, blah, blah. Somewhere in there, there is some genuine humor and heartfelt sentiment. Actually not all that mushy. Tracey Ullman is horrible as always, but apart from that an OK Sunday afternoon flick.

I saw this movie recently on cable TV and liked it a lot . I was looking for something other than the usual action/shootout/special effect types and ended up selecting this one. I'm glad I did. The supporting actors were excellent and Nick Nolte & Whittni Wright were outstanding in their roles. It was refreshing to see Nolti do this type of thing, although I'm not surprised that he did it well. He's an actor who has, over time, honed his skills to an art form. I'm not sure that he is appreciated as much as he should be. Anyway, in my opinion, "I'll do Anything" is underrated here. I give this flick a high mark and hope that my participation in the "vote" will raise the average score of this fine movie. For those who have had their fill of movies that focus on violence, try this delightful James L Brooks production for a change of pace. Or if you simply want to watch a movie that entertains... go for this one.