The Shining

Year 2, Day 274 - 10/1/10 - Movie #640

BEFORE: The last 3 films in my Jack Nicholson chain are also the first 3 films in my Halloween horror chain. That's right, it's ShockToberfest - the sequel! For the next 30 days I'm going outside my comfort zone (and into my un-comfort zone). Really, isn't the world scary enough, without so-called "entertainment" that focuses on death, gore and made-up monsters? Seriously, what's wrong with you people? I guess I'm in the minority here - though I do like a good Edgar Allen Poe story, but to me it's a long leap from there to something like "Night of the Living Dead". This is also the first of 11 films I'll be watching this month that are based on Stephen King books.

THE PLOT: A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

AFTER: This is another one of those films that I've seen parodied everywhere from MAD Magazine to the Simpsons Halloween Specials - so much that the original has lost a good deal of its punch, almost becoming a parody of itself. But that's OK, anything that tones down a horror film and makes it easier to watch is fine by me.

This is a Stephen King story, but a Stanley Kubrick film, and I do see some similarities to "2001" - the kid riding on a big wheel around the hotel reminded me of the astronauts jogging around the spacecraft - and essentially, isn't Jack going crazy the same as HAL the computer breaking down?

And boy, they sure give away the whole film in the opening act, don't they? When the hotel manager is giving the family a tour of the hotel - "Now, here's the hedge maze, and over there is where we store the axes, and did I mention that the hotel was built on an old Indian burial ground? Now let me show you the walk-in freezer..." Ummm, can we go back to that burial ground thing for a second?

In the end, cabin fever plus writer's block, plus demonic possession is a recipe for disaster. I suppose it only takes a month for your wife and son to get on your nerves when you're snowbound in a Colorado hotel. You know what they say about women - "Can't live with them, can't chop them up with an axe." Oh, wait, yes you can.

Hey, now I get the reference on "Web Soup" that introduces their "WTF?" segment...

Also starring Shelley Duvall, Barry Nelson (last seen in "Airport") and Scatman Crothers (back-to-back Scatman, nice...)

RATING: 6 out of 10 broken doors

JACK-O-METER: 9 out of 10. Might be a solid 10 if not for the slow build to the Crazy Jack. By the end of the film, he's pinging the needle on crazy, but I have to average it out.

SPOOK-O-METER: 8 out of 10. Creepy more than scary - I thought it would be gorier, and more frightening. Very suspenseful, unless you know all the plot points in advance, as I did.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Year 2, Day 273 - 9/30/10 - Movie #639

BEFORE: ...and from homeless drunks to drugged-up inmates in an asylum. I watched a crazy-person chain of films last month of course, most of which starred Jim Carrey, but I held this one back for the Nicholson chain. Always good to end the month with a film that won the Best Picture Oscar.

THE PLOT: Upon arrival at a mental institution, a brash rebel rallies the patients together to take on the oppressive Nurse Ratched.

AFTER: Now this felt like a really worthy classic film to me, forget that "Easy Rider" stuff...this had some weight, some heft.

I suppose the debate has raged over the years about whether McMurphy, Nicholson's character, was truly insane in the membrane, or just playing to get out of a harsher prison sentence. If that was his plan, man, did it backfire.

And boy, they really cast a bunch of actors with odd faces to play the mental patients...

The only thing that sort of spoiled this film for me is the fact that I read the MAD Magazine parody when I was a kid. Not that I consider that to be a substitute for watching the film, but I knew all the major plot points in advance. Curse you, usual gang of idiots!

When we drive up to visit my family at the holidays, we go right past a mental facility as we go over the Triborough Bridge - so I always make a joke about how my wife should drop me off there on the way back. And I'm only half-kidding. We always call the place "Creedmoor", but just last week found out that Creedmoor is in Queens Village - on the complete opposite side of Queens. I think what we're passing is really the Manhattan Psychiatric Center - where I'll end up one day at this rate.

Also starring Louise Fletcher (last seen in "Blue Steel"), Danny DeVito (last seen in "Terms of Endearment"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "The Dream Team" - now I get the joke), Brad Dourif (last seen in "Alien: Resurrection"), Vincent Schiavelli (last seen in "Death to Smoochy"), and Scatman Crothers (last seen in "Silver Streak").

RATING: 7 out of 10 shock treatments

JACK-O-METER: 9 out of 10. Classic Jack - fighting against the system, complaining about the hospital conditions, and punching out the staff.

Ironweed

Year 2, Day 272 - 9/29/10 - Movie #638

BEFORE: From drunk drivers to homeless drunks - originally I was going to watch this right after "Chinatown", since they're both period pieces - but then I found out the story takes place on Halloween 1938 - and I'm very close to starting up my horror movie chain for Halloween.

THE PLOT: A schizophrenic drifter spends Halloween in his home town after returning there for the first time in decades.

AFTER: Yeah, this was a better fit here - as in last night's film, Nicholson's character has a deceased child, whose grave he has never visited. That's an odd coincidence. Also in both films, he is estranged from his wife and children, forced to watch his ex in a new relationship from afar.

As Nicholson's character, Francis Phelan, works odd jobs for change and visits soup kitchens and seedy hotels, he interacts with ghostly figures from his past - and through flashbacks, we see various pieces of his past life, and learn a bit about how some of those people died. It's a unique framework for a story, but it made me wish there was more of a story to support it. Other than a stint playing pro baseball, his life seems incredibly ordinary - certainly there must have been a multitude of drifters and vagrants roaming the U.S. during the Great Depression.

And depression is what this film is about, on so many levels. I suppose one could posit that Halloween is an appropriate time to be visited by old ghosts, but essentially we're just watching a man take a drunk tour of some of the lowest points of his life.

Meryl Streep (last seen in "A Prairie Home Companion") plays another drifter, Phelan's companion on the streets, and her story is similarly ordinary - though in her past she was apparently some kind of musical performer or radio star. I sure didn't need to see her barfing up toast, though, or giving a handjob to a skeevy homeless guy in the back of an abandoned car.

UPDATE: The night after watching this, I went to a beer dinner at the Tribeca Grill (DeNiro's restaurant in Manhattan). Very elegant, with crab + shrimp spring rolls, duck with cashews and bok choy, and chocolate mousse cake, all paired with craft beers. On the way home, I passed 2 homeless people sleeping on loading docks, and this was in Tribeca, one of the toniest NYC neighborhoods. It's interesting to note how much has NOT changed since the days of the depression. It also makes me want to keep supporting City Harvest, so I can enjoy these great dinners with a clear(er) conscience.

Also starring Tom Waits (last seen in "The Two Jakes"), Carroll Baker (last seen in "Kindergarten Cop"), Michael O'Keeffe, and Diane Venora (last seen in "Heat") with cameos from Fred Gwynne (last seen in "On the Waterfront"), Margaret Whitton (last seen in "The Secret of My Success" with Fred Gwynne), James Gammon (Whitton's co-star from "Major League", nice...), Frank Whaley (last seen in "Hoffa") and Nathan Lane.

RATING: 2 out of 10 boxcars. Ultimately I didn't feel the story pieces came together on this one.

JACK-O-METER: 3 out of 10. There's some pathos as Jack's character reflects on his past and tries to reconnect with his wife, but it's a slow simmer that never really comes to a boil.

The Crossing Guard

Year 2, Day 271 - 9/28/10 - Movie #637

BEFORE: I've got a mini-theme going on within my Nicholson chain - the last few films have all been centered on the death of a loved one, and its implications.

THE PLOT: Freddie Gale is a seedy jeweler who has sworn to kill the drunk driver who killed his little girl.

AFTER: This seems like a basic compare and contrast film - once we become aware of the "incident" that sent a drunk driver to prison, his life following his release is compared to that of the little girl's father. One man is trying to put his life back together, while the other man's life is slowly falling apart.

A simple framework, but an effective use of it.

Since driving drunk is a key element of this story, and I am right in the middle of celebrating NYC Craft Beer Week, I feel the need to point out that I never drive to any of the drinking-related events I attend. New York is the best drinking town I know, because there are so many other ways for me to get home - subway, bus, taxi, call home for a pick-up, or just plain stumble down the street. And I always make it home safely, even if I'm a little fuzzy the next day on how exactly that came to pass - I've got some crazy kind of auto-homing system in my brain. Even in the bleariest of drinking emergencies, I can also make my way to my office in Manhattan instead of my home in Queens - I've been known to crash there on occasion, especially if I need to be there first thing the next morning, which is rare.

Also starring David Morse (last seen in "The Negotiator"), Anjelica Huston (last seen in "Prizzi's Honor"), Priscilla Barnes, Robin Wright Penn (last seen in "The Last Castle"), Robbie Robertson and Piper Laurie (last seen in "The Hustler").

RATING: 6 out of 10 strippers

JACK-O-METER: 6 out of 10. Always proper to see Jack as the man coming unraveled.

About Schmidt

Year 2, Day 270 - 9/27/10 - Movie #636

BEFORE: From a film about dying to a film about the alternative - getting old.

THE PLOT: Warren Schmidt enters retirement - soon after, his wife passes away and he must come to terms with his daughter's marriage to a man he does not care for.

AFTER: In some ways, this is the opposite of last night's film - "The Bucket List" was about a rich man traveling around the world to do everything he can, and this was about a middle-class man driving around the country doing...well, not much.

Warren Schmidt needs some time to get over his wife's death, so he takes off in his RV to drive to his daughter's wedding, and see the sights along the way - like his old college, Buffalo Bill's house, and an arrowhead museum.

The film works as a character study of a man who, once he has time to reflect, comes to consider that he might be a failure, that he might not have had a positive impact on the world, and will eventually die and be forgotten. His thoughts on life and death are written in letters to an African child that he sponsors through one of those TV charities.

Ultimately, though, I didn't think that this movie had a lot to say - there just wasn't much to grab on to. If the goal was to demonstrate that life is hopeless and pointless, well, then, mission accomplished.

Also starring Kathy Bates (last seen in "A Civil Action"), Hope Davis (last seen in "Synecdoche, New York"), Dermot Mulroney (last seen in "Flash of Genius"), and Howard Hesseman (last seen in "The Sunshine Boys").

RATING: 3 out of 10 Advils

JACK-O-METER: 4 out of 10. Jack's character has essentially given up here, there's not much fight left in him. After about 90 minutes there are some signs of life, but it's too little, too late - by then he's been out-acted by Kathy Bates.

The Bucket List

Year 2, Day 269 - 9/26/10 - Movie #635

BEFORE: I took some time off this weekend, and I went to a Craft Beer Festival in Long Island City - 2 oz. samples of many different beers, but I can usually drink enough 2 oz. samples to equal a rather large portion of beer, enough to ensure a long nap when I got home - and then we drove up Sunday to hit the last day of the annual Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo Park, NY. Now it's late Sunday night, and I've got to get back into my routine. I've got a busy week coming up, too - I'm playing in a high-stakes team trivia game tomorrow, plus it's NYC Craft Beer Week, so I've lined up a couple of beer dinners to attend. Hopefully my team will win the trivia game, to cover the cost of the beer dinners...

THE PLOT: Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

AFTER: Huh, a film that exceeded my expectations - I was thinking this was just going to be some fluff about old guys having a final fling at their dreams, but there was some heart to this one, along with some bite. I was expecting something crappy like "Wild Hogs", but this was touching in a very different way.

There were a few parts that seemed a little gratuitous - I wonder if we were actually watching the actors crossing famous locations off of their own personal wish lists - like the Great Pyramids, or the Great Wall of China. I'm guessing some special-effects trickery was involved - you don't actually get mega-stars to do their own drag-racing, but the movie shoot was still probably more fun than work. My one complaint is the movie plot was only possible because Nicholson's character was super-rich - I'm all for seniors spending their money in their golden years, but if both characters were on a fixed income, we'd be looking at a totally different movie.

I did enjoy that Nicholson played the first character I've seen in a film whose views on the afterlife mirror my own - namely that there probably isn't a life after this one, so you've got to make the most of your time on Earth. But if there is a heaven, well, hey, even better - I win. Not that it matters, since my plan is to live forever - so far, so good.

But what's on MY bucket list, you might wonder? Well, for the most part, you're soaking in it. (It sounds vulgar, but I'm referencing a set of ads from the 1970's where we were led to believe that people would soak their hands in dishwashing liquid at a nail salon. People in the 70's were crazy like that, always switching restaurant coffee with Folger's crystals and so on...) One of my bosses gave me one of those "Things to Do When You Turn 40" books as a birthday gift, and although I had no interest in skydiving or swimming with sharks, it did cause me to think about how I wanted to prioritize my time, which led to the formation of this blog.

But beyond that? I'm a man of simple desires - an innovative pairing of food and beer on my table, and I'm usually satisfied. But I suppose I do have goals - I'd love to get a real shot as a contestant on "Jeopardy!" someday, or "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" - I've passed their written tests several times each, but can't seem to get chosen for the shows. Either I'm not "TV-pretty" or my personality isn't impressing the producers.

Other than that, I'd like to get humanity to stop using the words "basically", "literally", "actually" and "technically" so much, especially when most people use them incorrectly. Here's a tip - if you take that word out, and the sentence means the exact same thing without it, it's better to leave it out. Basically, they're just flavoring words. Technically, they're just flavoring words. (See what I mean?)

Of course, I'd like to travel more - who wouldn't? But screw the 7 Wonders - only one of the originals is still standing (the Pyramids) - so how wonderful can they be? If I could go anywhere, I'd go back to Germany and just tool around, making sure to stop in Munich in late September - the famous OktoberFest is having it's 200th Anniversary this year, and I'm sure that's a party and a half. I was 15 when I visited the motherland, (or is it fatherland?) and while it was fun, I really should go back as an adult.

And while some people might have "Win an Oscar" on their list, I've got a strange twist on my list. My goal is to be thanked in an Oscar speech. See? Much more attainable, and for me, maybe even possible. Again, I'm a man of simple desires. If I can get a few friends together for my upcoming birthday (my 4th Annual "39th Birthday") and raise a few at a bar, I'll be happy. See, it's called Happy Hour for a reason...

Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot about that 12-egg omelette at the Broken Yolk Diner in San Diego. I better add that to the bucket list - and a few other eating challenges as well...

Also starring Morgan Freeman (last seen in "10 Items or Less"), Sean Hayes, and Rob Morrow.

RATING: 8 out of 10 sherpas

JACK-O-METER: 9 out of 10. Gotta rate this one pretty high, since Jack takes his persnickety grumpy-pants persona to an all-time peak. It's a spin on Nicholson characters we've seen before (a string of failed marriages, being very particular about his likes and dislikes), but his terminal condition adds a particular FTW attitude.