Terms of Endearment

Year 2, Day 268 - 9/25/10 - Movie #634

BEFORE: I know Nicholson's only got a supporting role here, but it counts, and it's another of those great big ol' important movies I never got around to.

THE PLOT: Aurora and Emma are mother and daughter who march to different drummers. The movie covers several years of their lives as each finds different reasons to go on living and find joy.

AFTER: For me this was a film about life's little awkward moments - being nervous on dates, saying goodbye when someone moves away, finding out your spouse is having an affair, getting caught up in one yourself, and having phone conversations with your mother when you're not exactly seeing eye to eye. The movie seems to revel in these disturbing events, bringing about as many different ones as possible. But that's OK, because life often is awkward, and maybe Hollywood movies have spent too much time over the years not showing those times.

Nicholson plays the next-door neighbor here, a former astronaut who chases younger women, frequently drinks, and is more than a little self-absorbed. The part really fits him - everything sort of rings true, if you think of him as past his prime, and no longer fit for space travel.

Among the chaos, there are a few moments when people manage to genuinely connect with each other, but mostly people are at odds - feuding neighbors, fighting spouses, screaming babies. Maybe it's a little TOO real...

And the ending - do I need to discuss it? Geez, I've never seen the film, and I already knew how it ends. But again, it's a cross-section of life, and doesn't everyone's story come to an end at some point?

Also starring Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jeff Daniels (last seen in "Dumb & Dumber"), Danny DeVito (last seen in "Hoffa") and one of my fave actors, John Lithgow (last seen in "A Civil Action").

RATING: 5 out of 10 swimming pools. Sorta neutral on this one, it's a well-told story but it's not really my kind of film.

JACK-O-METER: 7 out of 10 - despite not having a lot of screen time, Jack shines here by being abrasively charming (or is it charmingly abrasive?), driving a speeding sportscar along the beach, and putting the moves on Shirley MacLaine.

Man Trouble

Year 2, Day 267 - 9/24/10 - Movie #633

BEFORE: Well, I changed my plans again, from "The Bucket List" to this film, and accidentally found another film directed by Bob Rafelson, how about that? Nicholson must be this guy's muse or something...

THE PLOT: A sleazy but affable guard dog trainer is blackmailed to steal a manuscript for a tell-all book from one of his clients.

AFTER: Yeah, same director, same problems. The plot seems just as contrived as last night's, Nicholson plays a married man who sleeps around (again...), the only difference here being the object in question, the thing that everyone is after, which this time is a tell-all book manuscript about a woman's time spent as a mobster's girlfriend.

More contrived coincidences here, and the plot points that weren't predictable were so random as to be completely unbelievable. What are the chances that the main characters would be looking at a TV news broadcast which gives them the exact location of the place they'll find the missing woman? Bloody unlikely...

Also starring Ellen Barkin (last seen in "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai"), Beverly D'Angelo (last seen in "Christmas Vacation"), Michael McKean (last seen in "1941"), Harry Dean Stanton (last seen in "A Civil Action"), Saul Rubinek (last seen in "Wall Street"), Veronica Cartwright (last seen in "The Right Stuff"), David Clennon (also last seen in "The Right Stuff").

RATING: 3 out of 10 glasses of iced tea

JACK-O-METER: 3 out of 10. Same. This character is definitely in Nicholson's wheelhouse - the charmer, the adulterer, the man looking for the sacred object - but he chooses to not do any heavy lifting with it.

Blood and Wine

Year 2, Day 266 - 9/23/10 - Movie #632

BEFORE: I don't know much about this film - other than Nicholson, the connection is Bob Rafelson, writer/director of this film, and writer/producer on both "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces". He also directed a bunch of Monkees TV episodes, so if you're wondering how Jack ended up in the movie "Head", blame this guy. The title has a nice autumn-y feel to it, but honestly I'm thinking about beer tonight - the historic 200th Oktoberfest is taking place in Munich, and NYC Craft Beer Week starts in 2 days - I missed it twice before, so this year I'm determined to go to several beerfests and beer dinners.

THE PLOT: Nicholson is a wealthy wine dealer who has distanced himself from his wife with his philandering and from his stepson with his negligence. After he steals a diamond necklace with the help of a safecracker partner, Victor, things start coming apart.

AFTER: I didn't realize this was a "heist" movie, and an average one at that. There were many plot elements that seemed very contrived, almost unbelievable. Why does she pack her son's hat in the zippered pocket of the suitcase? (so he can accidentally discover the jewels) Why does Michael Caine's character have a persistent cough throughout? (so he will need to pause and cough at a critical time) Why does everyone seem to leave their golf clubs lying around, within arm's reach? (so there's always a weapon handy)

The seams of the plot are showing, and that's never a good thing. You can see where the pieces of ideas got stitched together, and it should flow a lot better. It's a classic move to have a love triangle, but having the older man be the stepfather of the younger man seems a little too coincidental, too.

I will say that there was an exciting climax, and it was a little interesting to see how the relationships between the major characters brought about a scenario where it seemed that nobody WANTED the jewels, or even knew what to do with them. So why steal them? What was the point of this little criminal enterprise? I love a good double-cross or even triple-cross movie, but you shouldn't be able to see the betrayals coming.

Also starring Michael Caine (last seen in "The Prestige"), Stephen Dorff (last seen in "Public Enemies"), Judy Davis (last seen in "Absolute Power"), Harold Perrineau (last seen in "Romeo and Juliet") and future American Idol judge Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Money Train"). And frequent character actor Mike Starr (last seen in "The Hudsucker Proxy") as a security guard.

RATING: 4 out of 10 houseboats

JACK-O-METER: 5 out of 10. A couple good Nicholson shout-outs, one that almost calls to mind his yelling at Ann-Margret in "Carnal Knowledge" (I'm out there in the jungle 8 hours a day!) but mostly he's pretty stone-cold here. He gets hit a few too many times with golf clubs, too - he should be the one doing the clubbing!

Five Easy Pieces

Year 2, Day 265 - 9/22/10 - Movie #631

BEFORE: Let's pause for some blog math - I'm now 631 movies into this crazy project, with 368 movies still on the list (I started with 435, and I've been adding as well as subtracting). 631 + 368 = 999. Watching a nice round number of films like 1,000 in a row doesn't seem so impossible now. I've got 100 days left in the year, and if I watch 99 more films, I'll be on track. So maybe if I don't add too many more films to the list, I can get it down under 300 before Dec. 31, that would be a nice accomplishment.

THE PLOT: A drop-out from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil-rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.

AFTER: Dropping out and running away from society is a theme that carries over from last night's film, so in many ways this is a good follow-up to "Easy Rider".

On one level, this is about a man traveling back to his childhood home to visit his sick father, but it's also about a man's reactions to bad situations - like his dead-end construction jobs and failing marriage. Then there also the petty annoyances of everyday life - like traffic jams, and people who just won't shut up, and the boringness of visiting a small town, where there's nothing to do. The kind of things that make you want to just chuck it all, and go find yourself an island somewhere, with no one else around.

But you can only push a man so far, and this is why you get Nicholson - for his reactions. His diner freakout where he tells the strict waitress to "Hold the chicken salad..." is as quotable, for me anyway, as Brando's "I coulda been a contenda" speech.

There's something stunningly realistic about this film - I could certainly connect with it better than I could with two stoned hippies riding cross-country on motorcycles. Of course, my mother was a music teacher, and when I go back to visit, it always reminds me of things I never accomplished. People who haven't known me for long are sometimes shocked to learn that I have a background in music and theater.

As for the ending, hey, at least it HAS one that's motivated by the plot. And every ending is a new beginning, right?

Also starring Karen Black (carrying over from "Easy Rider"), Ralph Waite, Lois Smith (last seen in "Twister"), Fannie Flagg, Sally Struthers, and Toni Basil (also carrying over from "Easy Rider")

RATING: 5 out of 10 mobile homes

JACK-O-METER: 7 out of 10 - Really, how many times have you just wanted to tell a room full of pretentious people that they're all full of crap? Jack does that here, and more.

Easy Rider

Year 2, Day 264 - 9/21/10 - Movie #630

BEFORE: Another of the "classics" that I have to admit never watching before - I think I need a term for a film that I'm embarrassed to admit not having seen, a "mea culpa" of sorts. Perhaps a "cinema culpa"? Or a "Cine-mission" (cinematic omission)? The best thing about my Nicholson chain is that I'm going to cross off about 5 or 6 of these - "Chinatown", "Easy Rider", and more to come...

After the 2 weeks of Jack, the biggest cine-missions on my list are probably: "Gone With the Wind", "Rebel Without a Cause", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Cool Hand Luke", "Bridge On the River Kwai", "The Philadelphia Story", "The Third Man", "Twelve Angry Men", "The Manchurian Candidate", and "Midnight Cowboy". There are probably many more, but those are the most egregious classics missing from my "seen" list. I can probably only get to two more of these this year, if I stick to my plan - the rest will have to wait for 2011.

THE PLOT: Two counterculture bikers travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans in search of America.

AFTER: Well, this worked out OK - after spending the last two (and a half) nights in cinematic Los Angeles, tonight's film was about leaving L.A. and heading out across the desert, on the way to Mardi Gras.

The problem here is that this film is SUCH a product of 1969, SO indicative of the year it was made, that it seemed (to me) just as relevant in 2010 as, say, a film about 1930's gangsters. The hippie culture has come and gone (except for pockets in San Francisco and Oregon), and there wasn't anything here that felt timeless. Oh, I could substitute goth kids or slackers, or even Muslims for hippies, but that feels like a forced analogy somehow.

I feel like I was born too late to get this movie - I was a mere infant in 1969, so I missed out on the counter-culture. I'm too young to be a hippie, and too old to be a slacker... I feel at least a generation removed from the Woodstock folks.

The film's climax involves an LSD (?) trip in a New Orleans cemetery with a couple of hookers - visually it seems like a combination of "A Clockwork Orange", "2001" and "Eyes Wide Shut" - but isn't a drug-trip a complete narrative cop-out? Just move the camera around at random, and throw in some religious imagery - that shouldn't be allowed as a substitute for an actual plot.

The film's got a killer soundtrack, but the ending is a total bummer. What's the message here? Some people in the 1960's didn't like hippies? Don't drive cross-country and sleep outdoors? Why did Wyatt say that they "blew it"? Explain, please...

Starring Peter Fonda (last seen in "Escape From L.A."), Dennis Hopper (last seen back in "Waterworld"), Karen Black (last seen in "Capricorn One") and future 80's music one-hit wonder Toni Basil. Oh, and a quick cameo from Phil Spector.

RATING: 3 out of 10. (this film would score higher if I were measuring cultural influence, but in terms of entertainment value, I can't ignore the narrative flaws)

JACK-O-METER: 8 out of 10 - this film scores pretty high on Jack-itude, even though he's only in the film for the middle third. He really makes the most of his time on screen, playing a Southern lawyer who decides to join the motorcycle trip, and after just one hit of grass, he's going on and on about UFO's and aliens. His character decides to drop out, get high and get freaky, in rapid succession. Even more priceless? Watching his reaction after a shot of booze.

The Two Jakes

Year 2, Day 263 - 9/20/10 - Movie #629

BEFORE: About 15 years after making "Chinatown", Jack Nicholson reprised his role as J.J. Gittes in this sequel - interestingly enough, it seems like about the same amount of time passed in the fictional world - this one takes place in 1948, post-WWII L.A.

THE PLOT: The sequel to "Chinatown" finds Jake Gittes investigating adultery and murder... and the money that comes from oil.

AFTER: According to IMDB, the storyline of "Chinatown" was planned as a trilogy, and the third film was never made. The first film was about L.A.'s water supply, this one centered on oil and natural gas, and the 3rd film was going to be called "Cloverleaf", and would have focused on the formation of the L.A. freeway system. Reportedly some of those plot elements instead turned up in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". (I'm not sure this makes sense, considering that animated film was released 2 years before this one)

As before, a simple detective case involving infidelity turns into much more, and as Gittes keeps digging, more and more secrets are revealed, proving conspiracies and murder. Oh, and Gittes gets to sleep with a few more ladies - already I've spotted a common theme to the last few Nicholson movies - Kathleen Turner, Faye Dunaway, and Madeleine Stowe are all stunning leading ladies. I'm guessing that's not a coincidence.

And Gittes finds a connection to the land deal seen in "Chinatown" - I have to say that the connection was pretty obvious, I figured out its exact nature about an hour before it was revealed...pretty much hiding in plain sight.

Still, I liked this one a little more than "Chinatown", I think - which goes against the conventional wisdom that places "Chinatown" near the top of many notable "must-see" film lists. The sequel was a little more complex, though it still suffers from the boredom inherent in land deals, mineral rights, real-estate titles....see, I'm drifting off just thinking about it. We want to see sex, and murder, not drown in paperwork!

One question - if Gittes was so haunted by the fate of Mulray's daughter 15 years ago, how come he never once tried to track her down?

I did like how the got the same actor to reprise his role as Capt. Escobar, Jake's contact/tormentor on the police force (sort of the Inspector LeStrade role...) and also that one of the cops had the same last name as one of Jake's associates from "Chinatown" - so I guess that was supposed to be his son on the force?

Also starring Harvey Keitel (last seen in "Clockers"), Madeleine Stowe (last seen in "The General's Daughter"), Meg Tilly, David Keith (last seen in "The Rose"), Eli Wallach (last seen in "Nuts"), Ruben Blades (last seen in "Predator 2"), and Richard Farnsworth (last seen in "Papillon"). Oh, and character actor Tracy Walter (last seen in "Death to Smoochy") and an uncredited cameo by Tom Waits (last seen in "Coffee and Cigarettes") as a cop.

RATING: 6 out of 10 cigarette lighters

JACK-O-METER: 4 out of 10. Sort of felt like Jack was just going through the motions here - he also directed, so his stamp should have been all over this. But his character was older and mellower, and less prone to cursing and major freakouts.

Chinatown

Year 2, Day 262 - 9/19/10 - Movie #628

BEFORE: Another one of the "True Classics" that I should have seen before, but haven't. I used to work at the NYU Library Media Center, and people came in and watched this one just about every day - me watching bits of it over their shoulders doesn't count. Neither does reading the MAD magazine parody version... As an extra bonus, John Huston, the director of last night's film "Prizzi's Honor" appears in this film as an actor.

THE PLOT: A private detective investigating an adultery case stumbles on to a scheme of murder that has something to do with water.

AFTER: After watching a number of films about government scandals and big business ripoffs, about the only thing more boring would be a detective film about land zoning and the Los Angeles water supply - but that's just what we've got here. Jack Nicholson plays J.J. Gittes, a 1930's detective who specializes in cases of marital infidelity - but his latest case, investigating a cheating husband, is not what it appears to be, and he ends up uncovering a web of deceit and corruption.

The title of the film ends up being somewhat ironic (or is it incongruous?) since none of the movie takes place in that neighborhood - Nicholson's character used to be a cop on the Chinatown beat, and his experiences there are referenced several times, but no scenes are set there...

Without revealing anything about the ending, it is a rather dark one - speculation about this centers on the fact that director Roman Polanski was still mourning his murdered wife, actress Sharon Tate. This was in fact the last American film that Polanski directed before fleeing to France to avoid prison - make of that what you will.

Also starring Faye Dunaway (last seen in "The Thomas Crown Affair"), John Huston, Diane Ladd (last seen in "Christmas Vacation"), John Hillerman (last seen in "High Plains Drifter"), and Burt Young (last seen in "Rocky V"). Cameo by Roman Polanski himself.

RATING: 5 out of 10 orange trees

JACK-O-METER: 5 out of 10 - While Nicholson appears in almost every scene, he's really subdued here, as opposed to, say, "Carnal Knowledge". He essentially plays it straight, like the noir detectives of old, except for a few times where he's cursing or telling an off-color joke.