Goodbye to that Girl
The other night, spurred by a reminiscing of a classic 70’s performance and an ignorant roommate (she gives me lots of excuses to re-watch old movies, so I can’t complain), I decided to rent what will now be termed ‘the original’ Goodbye Girl for a slow detox Monday. Another secret reason is that I have been inundated by promotions and Hootie-covers of TNT’s remake, but wanted to watch ‘the original’ first to get my fix. Personally, I didn’t think this was a film that needed to be redone, but maybe I was wrong.

Well, after this most recent viewing I can firmly say "The Goodbye Girl" was very good, just as I had remembered it. However, I was reminded that Marsha Mason's part made me cringe at some points (she was a bit clingy -- admittedly coming directly off being dumped -- and her idea of cohabitating with a man is to declare "I'll spend your money!" with glee at least twice in the picture as if it is a romantic slogan), and that Richard Dreyfus deservedly won an Oscar for his role (he gets most of the good lines, of course). Now, my interest is peaked to see what TNT does with the movie; really two-fold – if Jeff Daniels can step up to the part and make it his own (tough act to follow) and if the writers and Patricia Heaton can expurgate some of the less savory parts of Mason’s original character. At least I’ll have “3 chances to catch it”.

Update: People are already making comparisons.