Though possessed of enormous gifts, he’s yet to make a film that’s as good as its best moments. He has elicited deeply felt performances from the most unlikely actors. He can write dialogue so unforced that it sounds like overheard conversation even while it delivers belly laughs. And scene by scene, his work is often quite touching: he has a knack for making unguarded emotionality credible. But the sincerity that allows him to hit such highs too often tips over into sentimentality, drowning his work in corny bathos. And since his skill at individual scenes doesn’t translate into coherent structures, even his best work – Say Anything and the script for Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High – is burdened with perfunctory exposition and distracting subplots.