![\"1083_019971.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/field2.jpg\")
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Field of Dreams<\/a>. The undisputed king, for sure. But here’s ten other great ones.<\/em><\/p>\n It was a really tricky thing putting this together because they’re ranked on niceness, not goodness.\u00a0 Number two and number five are the best movies on the list.\u00a0 But they aren’t the nicest.<\/p>\n Niceness is even harder to define than coolness<\/a>.\u00a0 Niceness is a warm and fuzzy feeling that a lot of art can generate.\u00a0 Probably the most popular example would be Norman Rockwell paintings. Niceness, like coolness, taps into our primal brains somewhere.\u00a0 We’re wired to feel it because it connects us to each other.\u00a0 But the problem with niceness is that it borders so heavily on cheese.\u00a0 Cheese done right is transcendent. \u00a0But cheese done wrong is, well, cheesy. Most movies have nice moments, because stories need emotional peaks and valleys to sustain interest.\u00a0 The peaks will generally be nice, like when the couple finally kisses or when the boy and his family are finally reunited.\u00a0 Those are certainly nice things, but what I searched for while making this list is movies whose entirety<\/i> feels nice.\u00a0 They all have their dark moments (the happy times wouldn’t work without them) but these movies create an overall tone of niceness that is pervasive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 10.\u00a0 I Love You To Death<\/a> (1990) | Dir. Lawrence Kasdan | 96 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Larry Kasdan is one of the most impressive screenwriters in movie history, penning both The Empire Strikes Back<\/a> and Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/a>.\u00a0 His sons aren’t slouches either\u2014Jake\u2019s directorial debut was the charming Zero Effect<\/a>, which was followed by work on Freaks and Geeks<\/a>, and the underrated Orange County<\/a>.\u00a0 Jake\u2019s younger brother Jon helmed the small but affectionate and watchable In the Land of Women<\/a> and was also a writer on Freaks and Geeks at only 20.<\/p>\n Larry’s filmography is a bit hit-or-miss, with hugely overrated clunkers like Body Heat<\/a> and The Accidental Tourist<\/a>. But he’s also the man behind The Big Chill<\/a> and French Kiss<\/a>, two other \u2018nicers\u2019.<\/p>\n I Love You To Death\u2019s casting is terrific: a light-hearted Kevin Kline that you like despite his character being a sleazy scoundrel, a quaint River Phoenix, the prolific Joan Plowright, and of course the ever likable Tracy Ullman, whose entire aura is like a likability tractor beam.<\/p>\n The score is delightful, the hijinks terrific, and the tone is, well, nice\u2014despite the film being about adultery and murder!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 House II: The Second Story<\/a> (1987) | Dir. Ethan Wiley | 88 min.<\/b><\/p>\n This easily could’ve made my ten best movies you’ve never seen<\/a> list, but its niceness actually tops its obscurity.\u00a0 As you may have guessed, this is a sequel to House<\/a>, a Bill Katt vehicle directed by Steve Miner in 1986.\u00a0 House II doesn’t have much to do with House, and is a very bizarre and delightful comedy that’s extremely effective and fun.<\/p>\n The entire cast is phenomenal and any movie that features a fake band called \u2018Puce Glitz and the Avoiders\u2019 is okay in my book.\u00a0 Keep an eye out for John Ratzenberger stealing the movie in what, in a perfect world, would be\u00a0 be a well-known, iconic scene, and a terrific Royal Dano jerking your tears in the movie\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n The niceness here lies in the crazy web of zany nuttiness, glued together by straight man Arye Gross, and comically illuminated by Jonathan Stark (a TV writer for Ellen<\/a>, The Drew Carey Show<\/a>, and Cheers<\/a>).<\/p>\n The niceness epicenter lies in the charming dinner scene where a \u201ccaterpuppy\u201d becomes a member of the family.\u00a0 They don’t make \u2018em like this anymore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 Elizabethtown<\/a> (2005) | Dir. Cameron Crowe | 123 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Cameron Crowe is one of the greatest purveyors of cinematic nice.\u00a0 His movies are so nice you don’t even notice how angular and edgy they actually are.\u00a0 For Jerry Maguire<\/a>, Crowe teamed with James L. Brooks, the father of nice, and looked to Billy Wilder for inspiration, who along with Frank Capra is the grandfather of nice.\u00a0 Billy Wilder was even supposed to play Dicky Fox (a role that went to actual agent Jared Jussim) the lawyer who\u00a0 drops tidbits to the camera throughout the movie.\u00a0 Wilder didn’t want the role, but then after seeing the movie and loving it he said, “who’s the guy playing my part!?”<\/p>\n Jerry Maguire is so oozing with nice that it out-niced itself for this list.\u00a0 It’s beyond number one.\u00a0 But as I said, the funny thing is, Jerry Maguire is actually a pretty in-your-face movie with the spirit of an indie. It’s littered with fast paced jokes, outlandish performances, jagged editing, and brilliant photography (some amazing wide angle stuff) by Janusz Kaminski.<\/p>\n It gets picked on because of Tom Cruise, and for having four of the cheesiest lines in movie history: “show me the money”, “help me help you”, “you had me at hello” and “you complete me”. (Hard to believe a single movie can have four famous lines!) These lines incidentally totally work in the movie and are a perfect example of how to do cheese right. Basically, Jerry Maguire is one of the most brilliant screenplays ever written and one of the best movies ever made.<\/p>\n Elizabethtown isn’t quite as good, but it’s not too far off.\u00a0 I’ll take out the trash first: Orlando Bloom is not bad in the movie, but his accent is, and what’s worse, he’s the fucking narrator.\u00a0 Don’t do that.\u00a0 The opening ten minutes is rough.\u00a0 It’s one of those unfortunate movies where you have to wait until the inciting incident for it to be good.\u00a0 Once it finally starts, it never lets up, but the beginning is brutal.\u00a0 Miscalculated jokes and awkward dialogue are the pitfalls.<\/p>\n Now the good:\u00a0 Elizabethtown’s first foray into niceness comes in the form of a phone sequence that is the best depiction of a budding romance in movie history.\u00a0 You know when you meet someone and you begin flirting and talking and then you have that one long conversation that solidifies your connection?\u00a0 That’s the scene, and it’s perfect.\u00a0 I think those scenes are missing from movies because they’re difficult to handle.\u00a0 In life, these conversations are, by definition, hours long.\u00a0 Somehow, Elizabethtown dodges all the laser beams and truncates the conversation perfectly, delivering all the necessary beats, giving you the feeling of time, but not being boring.<\/p>\n And then the entire third act is nice city.\u00a0 Enough said.\u00a0 Go watch it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 Parenthood<\/a> (1989) | Dir. Ron Howard | 124 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Depicting family dynamics in a movie is damn near impossible.\u00a0 Family dynamic exists based on familiarity that has been forged, literally, out of time.\u00a0 You have lived with these people your whole life, you know them,\u00a0 and your household is full of minutia that creates your life.\u00a0 Movies have to be stories, they have to move forward, so that minutia must be a part of that forward momentum.\u00a0 The tightrope you walk is trying to create an organic family that clearly has a rich history, but not belaboring things so that we’re just looking at hidden camera footage of people sitting around together.\u00a0 But you can see the difficulty here: how do you both create familiarity, which demands time, and also keep forward momentum?\u00a0 The answer really lies in the movie Signs<\/a>, where all of these ideas converge.\u00a0 Every piece of information in Signs is character-building and story-developing at the same time.\u00a0 It allows the movie to move forward while feeling like it’s hanging out.<\/p>\n The master of this is Spielberg, who is the best director of all time at depicting family dynamics.\u00a0 Jaws<\/a>, Close Encounters<\/a>, and E.T.<\/a> all have the best families-hanging-out-in-their-homes scenes of all time.\u00a0 The reason is because each has a well-defined story that doesn’t linger, but instead, create themselves as they flow.\u00a0 The scene in Poltergeist<\/a> where the parents smoke weed together (which I like to think inspired the similar scene in Eyes Wide Shut<\/a>) is one of the most realistic scenes in movie history for a plethora of reasons.\u00a0 One, the actors look like people\u2014still attractive, but people.\u00a0 Movies today are obsessed with unrealistic looking models populating all roles.\u00a0 Every wife is a young, gorgeous, size two.\u00a0 JoBeth Williams is pretty, but not insanely untouchable; it seems plausible that these two would get together.\u00a0 Two, their performances and the unobtrusive staging puts you right in the room.<\/p>\n This long winded explanation leads me to Parenthood, which is an entire movie built out of those scenes.\u00a0 The families feel real because they aren’t constructed out of dumb, faux-grittiness like in Thirteen,<\/b><\/a> or flat nothingness like on a sitcom.\u00a0 They have earnest, relatable problems, handled with care by a team of filmmakers who were living through them.<\/p>\n Parenthood tackles all kinds of parent\/offspring relationships and weaves them together perfectly.\u00a0 Since there’s no missteps, the entire piece feels cohesive and the niceness flows throughout\u2014like the roots in a family tree!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 Cocoon<\/a> (1985) | Dir. Ron Howard | 117 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Look at Opie coming through with two in a row!\u00a0 Parenthood is actually a better movie, but old people with boners always trump teenagers with boners, and the Wilford Brimley fishing scene is nice enough to out-nice all of Parenthood (yes, even Rick Moranis crooning to his wife in a elementary school classroom).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 As Good As It Gets<\/a> (1997) | Dir. James L. Brooks | 139 min.<\/b><\/p>\n This movie is like a winding road to nice, at times literally, such as when the characters take a dramatically fruitful road trip towards the beginning of the third act.\u00a0 Maybe it’s ironic that a movie about an incorrigible, obsessive-compulsive dickhead is one of the nicest ever made.\u00a0 But, if you’ve been following along, you know that niceness can come from surprising places.<\/p>\n As Good As it Gets is the only romantic comedy ever made where we’re left knowing our lovers won’t walk away into the utopian sunset.\u00a0 Hell, they’ve probably broken up before the credits stopped scrolling.\u00a0 But it\u2019s in the honesty that designed that result that the niceness lies; the niceness here can be found in the true human interactions, the true human performances, and the true human writing and direction by the father of nice, James L. Brooks.<\/p>\n He’s a prolific TV producer responsible for a litany of nice, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show<\/a> to the most touching moments on The Simpsons<\/a> (one of the most shockingly nice shows on TV).\u00a0 There is nobody else with a tone like James L Brooks\u2014so rich and layered, so intricate and intimate.\u00a0 Terms of Endearment<\/a>, Broadcast News,<\/b><\/a> and As Good As It Gets are not only three of the best movies ever made, but three of the most complex dramas in the history of the form (and three of the nicest experiences of all time).\u00a0 Whether it be the horrors of cancer, the media, or interpersonal relationships, Brooks’s camera finds the nice inside and creates a tone that is so beautiful, living inside it would be a true taste of heaven.<\/p>\n As Good As it Gets really is just that as far as movies go.\u00a0 And lets take a moment to give props to Greg Kinnear’s agent, for apparently being the best of agent of all time by transforming him from Talk Soup host to Oscar-nominated all-star in one year.<\/p>\n Side Note: I saw As Good As it Gets in the theater with my Mom when I was ten. I felt like an adult (and you remember how important that was as a kid) for genuinely liking it in a theater full of thirty-somethings.\u00a0 Then, on the way home, we were rearended by the woman who was sitting in front of us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Tootsie<\/a> (1982) | Dir. Sydney Pollack | 116 min.<\/b><\/p>\n I have a constant fear that Tootsie is being forgotten.\u00a0 It’s one of those classics that people don’t talk about enough because they’re too busy caring about stark, \u2018edgy\u2019 things like Raging Bull<\/a> or something.\u00a0 Tootsie is where the fun in movies lives.\u00a0 Only a movie could offer such a delightful premise, present it with such honesty, and execute it with such fluid craftsmanship.<\/p>\n Dustin Hoffman is one of those guys that you can say \u201che’s the best actor of all time” about and nobody really argues\u2014the others being Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson.\u00a0 And it’s deserved.\u00a0 From Kramer vs Kramer<\/a> to Outbreak<\/a> to The Graduate<\/a>, the guy is batting .300 and Tootsie is no exception\u2014in fact it’s one of his best.<\/p>\n It’s the soundtrack and the touching love story, but really it’s the friendship between Dorothy and Jessica Lange’s character that delivers on the niceness.\u00a0 But who cares about that\u2014if we’re talkin\u2019 Tootsie we gotta mention Bill Murray, also one of the best actors of all time, who was allowed to improv his way to the deliciously pretentious, classic line ”I want my audience to be made up of people who came in out of the rain”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 The Majestic<\/a> (2001) | Dir. Frank Darabont | 152 min.<\/b><\/p>\n Frank Darabont is amazing.\u00a0 He’s grossly underrated.\u00a0 If you forget about his dollar baby (his 1983 short The Woman in the Room<\/a>\u2014\u2018dollar baby\u2019 refers to a series of stories that Stephen King offered to filmmakers for $1) and Buried Alive<\/a>, you’re left with an immaculate track record containing some of the best movies ever made.\u00a0 Shawshank is practically underrated despite being number one on the IMDb top 250.\u00a0 (Fuck you, Godfather<\/a>!)<\/p>\n The Majestic is his least talked-about movie, and it’s a shame.\u00a0 It also marks the first true departure for the ever brilliant Jim Carrey, who beautifully anchors the movie, proves he has dramatic chops, and solidifies himself as one of the best movie stars we’ve ever had.<\/p>\n The Majestic is a very classic, movie-esque movie, and not just because it takes place in the McCarthy era 50\u2018s\u2014the story just looks and feels like something that would be made in the 40\u2019s or 50\u2019s.\u00a0 Thank god it wasn’t.\u00a0 Proper staging, camera work, acting styles, and tone have fostered a modern era where old-style movies can all of a sudden be made the right way.<\/p>\n The Majestic is a movie about community, which is perfect fodder for niceness, because in triumph, it means people will be coming together.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the second act in particular that\u2019s nice central, as Carrey is inundated by niceness in a mysterious town.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Stone Reader<\/a> (2002) | Dir. Mark Moskowitz | 127 min.<\/b><\/p>\n See my review<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Doc Hollywood<\/a> (1991) | Dir. Michael Caton-Jones | 104 min.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n The small-town atmosphere helps.\u00a0 And Julie Warner’s smile.\u00a0 And David Ogden Stiers’ fatherly performance.\u00a0 But really, it’s Michael J. Fox’s arc and his ability to suck you in.\u00a0 It’s no wonder they held out for him after having already shot half of Back to the Future with Eric Stoltz as Marty.\u00a0 The guy is the perfect leading man.\u00a0 When he’s being a dick, you know why, and you know with tickling, predictable, movie-esque inevitability that by the end, he’ll be all turned around.\u00a0 Watching him do it is pure joy.<\/p>\n Doc Hollywood is the culmination of all things nice in cinema.\u00a0 The warm and earthy color palette, the pull at-your-heart-strings score, the kooky cast of characters in their home-y setting, and the movie-eque love story.\u00a0 There are not enough synonyms for the word \u2018delightful\u2019 to do it justice here.<\/p>\n They say it about a lot of things, to the point that it’s lost all meaning, but they really<\/i> don’t make movies like this anymore.\u00a0 They don’t make movies like any of the titles on this list, actually.\u00a0 In fact, looking at this list, it\u2019s strange to thin back to a time when movies like these came out.\u00a0 It seems like a distant planet, far out of reach.<\/p>\n A few of the directors on here have recently tried, but their efforts came out inverted and off-kilter.\u00a0 I’m thinking in particular of the notorious missteps We Bought a Zoo<\/a> from Cameron Crowe and How Do You Know<\/a> from James L. Brooks.\u00a0 Here\u2019s hoping that one day we see something truly nice from them again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nWhile coolness is fairly easy to define technically, niceness is much harder because it\u2019s not based in visuals, or any other surface aspect. \u00a0Niceness comes from the story, the way it ebbs and flows.\u00a0 The way the characters relate to each other.\u00a0 It certainly helps if your visual style is masterful and grounded, but since that’s true for all movies, it’s not niceness-specific.<\/p>\n![\"todeath\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/todeath.jpg\")
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