As Good As It Gets

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

What worked for McCloud in the 70s worked as well for Due South in the 90s. The idea of a visiting law enforcement official coming into a strange environment and working with local police. In the process everybody learns something. It was certainly a success for McCloud it also worked for the British series Dempsey&Makepeace with an American cop over in London and a shortlived series called Houston Knights where a cop from Chicago works with the Houston PD.In Due South a Canadian Mountie Paul Gross is sent on assignment to Chicago and is partnered with David Marciano, Italo-American detective. Let us say that both fit stereotypes perfectly. And the chemistry was perfect.When Marciano left the show and Gross was partnered with someone else the show definitely lost something. Marciano may have been annoyed at times with Gross's perfect character, a Mountie straight out of Nelson Eddy. But Gross is well read on a seemingly unlimited amount of subjects that actually help on investigations. Marciano learned to respect that.One joke was strictly for Canadians. Gross has his dog as every Mountie since Sergeant Preston did. He called him Diefenbaker. Very few south of the 49th parallel would get calling a dog after one of Canada's Prime Ministers. But Diefenbaker was a blunderbuss of a character and I'm sure Canadians found that hilarious.I wish the show was still running, but only with Marciano and Gross.

Long overdue a repeat... ------------------------One of the best TV series it back! Now being repeated in the UK on BBC Two, after a long await!!! Just have to count how many cars Ray had replaced - he loved that car! Having been axed once, the BBC saved it. It was axed again and got saved, but nothing could save this series when the axed fell for the third time :-( But it would be nice for a catch up mini-series -- can't remember how the series concluded...-------------------------Enjoy!

I just wanted to give you an example of how terrific the writing was for this show. (This may not be an exact quote, but it's close enough for you to get the idea).Frasier and Ray are chasing the bad guy through the streets of Chicago, and the bad guy gets away in a car.Frasier and Ray, being on foot, decide to hail a cab and pursue him.They pull the cab over, get in, and Frasier says to the cab driver (wait for it): "Follow that car".The cab driver takes one look at them and says "Do you have any money?"Frasier pulls out a $20 bill and hands it to the cab driver, who looks at it and says "I can't take this. It's Canadian!" Ray says to the cab driver: "So, drive 20% slower".

I loved the show first-run and was thrilled last December (2002) when a local tv station in southern Sweden began to replay every episode as a daily filler. It's extremely clever, with wonderful, witty dialogue. The exchanges that Fraser has with the deaf Dief and his father's ghost are priceless as is the subtle (and not so subtle) sarcasm.Just a few complaints:*My favorite storyline was "Victoria's Secret" -- but what happened to Victoria? There should have been an ending there.*By the time I got used to the "other" Ray (Stanley) being in the cast, they made him cartoonish and dumb.*I think at the end, there was too much junk about women mooning over Frasure. All the googly-eyed stuff from his superior just plain embarassed me.*Fraser should have ended up with a woman -- a good woman who would make him more human and save him from his own perfection.It was a clever, clever bit to use actor Paul Gross' (Fraser) real-life wife as the ghost of his mother in the last episode. I have read that Gross "is sick of" this show and resents being remembered for it. If it's true, that's a shame. "Due South" will forever be one of my favorite television programs.