Project X / As Good As It Gets

PROJECT X, 1987, 20th Century Fox, 108 min. Dir. Jonathan Kaplan. Matthew Broderick plays a grounded Air Force pilot who befriends some chimpanzees involved in a top-secret military project, only to become enraged at what his own government is doing with the animals. Helen Hunt and William Sadler are excellent alongside Broderick, as are some of the most impressive simian actors in the history of movies.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS, 1997, Sony Repertory, 139 min. Director James L. Brooks (BROADCAST NEWS) displays his gifts for witty dialogue, emotional range and complex characterizations in this story of an obsessive-compulsive novelist (Jack Nicholson) and the people who force him out of his anti social shell. Like Nicholson, Helen Hunt won an Oscar for her performance in the film, as a waitress and single parent who becomes the dysfunctional writer's unlikely love interest.