With the whole world taking the Ella McCay challenge in whatever state they were born and raised, let’s take a fond look back at his first major upset, the wonderfully ambitious “I’ll Do Anything,” in which the WASP romcom was given a one-of-a-kind remake, which scared people so bad they ran into the arms of Woody Allen’s dreadful “Everyone Says I Love You.”
The director of “Terms of Endearment” and “Broadcast News” was not meant to shake things up and follow his passion into a critique of the very industry he was part of, using the verve of his TV show “The Simpsons” as his guiding principle. He paid the price, and his next film, the confusingly heralded “As Good As It Gets,” was a retreat away from experimentation and into pure neurosis. 30 years later, “I’ll Do Anything” is still as charmingly weird as ever, and a reminder of why we went to James L. Brooks in the first place.
