About a Boy named Schmidt
Naming a movie with a preposition seems to be all the rage with the kids in Hollywood this year. It may have started a nasty trend. As Nick Hornby writes in his latest, Songbook:

“My advise to young writers: never begin a title with a preposition, because you will find it impossible to utter or to write any sentence pertaining to your creation without sounding as if you have an especially pitiable stutter, ‘He wanted me to talk about About a Boy.’ ‘What about About a Boy?’ ‘The thing about About a Boy…’ ‘Are you excited about About a Boy?’ And so on.”

And so it was that the book About a Boy became the wonderful movie About a Boy. Just as it seems the book About Schmidt has become the masterpiece movie About Schmidt. I am absolutely in love with this movie. I realized continually throughout Jack Nicholson’s performance that I was wearing a permanent grin on my face. He must get an Oscar for About Schmidt. My favorite thing about About Schmidt (I hear ya Nick, that is kinda weird to write) is the absolutely slow pace of this movie. The minimalism of the shot gave me time to interact with the scene and digest the meaning. No, that’s wrong. The pace of the movie gave me time to play with the scene, look at it from different angles and find similar parallels to my own world and life. Having been to so many movies lately where the story is crammed down my throat or where the pace just moves too fast for me to understand, About Schmidt was a welcome return to film making at the speed of life. Jack Nicholson just is this movie. I really enjoyed watching Jack act. He can say more in a facial expression than a thousand words of dialog can. There are several long scenes in About Schmidt that are simply close ups of Jack as he silently contemplates questions, answers them, questions again his answers, feels guilty about the answers and repeats the process. Just great. The rest of the cast is dynamic and pro. Kathy Bates is a riot. About Schmidt also brings back one of my favorite powerhouse actors: Howard Hessman. I always wondered what happened to Howard and am glad to see he’s back on the big screen. Alright, that’s enough. Go see this movie. It’s good.