Tag Archives: Jack Nicholson

Dec 29 2025
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

About Schmidt (2002).

This is about one of those retired characters who keeps on turning up to a workplace he’s no longer invited to. Or has nothing to do unless it’s scripted. The director excels at the awkwardness of human interaction and it’s the running theme of his oeuvre.

I’d like to imagine there are conscious, intended connections to Five Easy Pieces (1970), as it does feel like a companion piece, how the lad found his destination after the gas station pit stop.

It’s phenomenal work from Jack Nicholson in one of his last roles. He is a force of nature, and he doesn’t even have to shout. He’s just there with his presence and that’s enough, building a sad, bitter character into one with dimensions as the chap gradually learns to cope with his situation.

Jack has been missed.

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Jul 27 2024
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Prizzi’s Honor (1985).

Yet another doozy from the ’80s starring Kathleen Turner. She is synonymous with the decade and doesn’t exist outside of it in a cinematic sense, a fate shared by a rarefied club of period-tied stars like Burt Reynolds (1970s), a heyday of hits followed by relative obscurity and the occasional flourish. This movie is a swansong of sorts from the great John Huston; it’s a testament to his talents that he somehow made it from the The Maltese Falcon (1941) all the way to this, a career spanning, indeed making, the history of the superlative decades of cinema as we know them.

It’s a fine wee movie, even if the cast have way too much gravitas about them for starring in what is a bit of black comedy fluff. The score by the renowned Alex North is okay, the soundtrack less so. It’s a recycling of tunes popularised in other movies. Why do filmmakers do this? If a musical piece is in a seminal flick, just don’t bother appropriating it again.

Does my tits in.

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Aug 21 2023
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Hoffa (1992).

Without the performance, this movie would be nothing. It kind of still is a nothing motion picture, but for an intro to Jack, it works as just that. A tedious affair with so much unnecessary fictionalisation – like, what’s the point if it’s a biopic? – needs a bit more going for it than acting showcase material. As for the lad Hoffa, is he really as interesting as the surfeit of films suggest? Not really.

What’s the term, intimate portrait of an empty vessel?

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Aug 10 2023
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States, USSR

Reds (1981).

What a tragedy this Revolution was.

A mentally unhinged cluster of psychopaths managed to hijack a state and proceed to massacre hundreds of millions beyond their own country, putting their own in Gulags. An ideology which doesn’t even acknowledge its own nonsensical dialectic should be looked at. It’s a religion for the worst.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the movie.

I have a lot of time for Warren Beatty. He’s a one-man show with proper acting ability. Quite the handsome lad, I would say.

The film:

I fell asleep around the 15-minute mark. Seemed rubbish. Wikipedia informed me how it ends.

Next.

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Feb 13 2023
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The Pledge (2001).

Saw this years ago, a pal lending me it on an ex-rental VHS. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but viewing today, seeing it within the prism of the Indian summer of Jack’s film career, it’s given extra significance, the decade-long swansong exhibiting his craft and cementing his legacy.

The movie sets a grim and melancholic tone straight away, a scene of Jack on his retirement day looking forlornly out of his office window at a bloke on a zimmer, the room adorned with photographs of him in his heyday.

The film carries an air of convincing menace, the isolation of the milieu matching that of the character, the bloke always correct in his hunches but clearly losing his marbles. It’s not exactly an uplifting experience, but if you fancy dwelling in depression for two hours, this is the one for you.

Great.

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Aug 19 2022
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Wolf (1994) – where was this buried?

It’s like it never existed, a forgotten flick, a secret wee thing that few know of. But it’s very good.

A standard horror premise mixed with office politics, James Spader chomping on the Yuppie remnants of his late ’80s heyday, and Jack just loving his life. If I think of a black comedy/thriller done well, Wolf (1994) is sinking its fangs into my mind. Jack could do any role and be great; he’s not capable of ever being uninteresting.

And Ross Geller is in this. Jack steals his handcuffs.

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Dec 16 2021
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Crime, Movie, Movies, United States

The Departed (2006) is the last great Jack performance.

He is nuts in this, a total riot, and clearly loving his epic life. Some scenes approach a scale of madness, and it’s almost a parody of a Jack Nicholson role, but not quite. The masterpiece revolves around the whims of this lad, every other character in awe of him. Even if he goes full-Joker, he still manages to imbue Frank Costello with pathos, and dare I say it, tragedy. You can’t picture anyone else in the role, and it’s a tragedy in itself that Scorsese and Nicholson only tangoed for the one motion picture.

Best scene? Jack impersonating a rat. A decent impression.

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Sep 29 2021
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, United States

I’ve heard many times that Chinatown (1974) is the perfect screenplay. Accurate statement.

And the perfect movie. Disturbing, very clever, incredibly paced. Acting off the charts.

It defines ‘slow-burning drama’, and there is a joy in every scene with its peculiarities and what-you-think-are-pointless details. The explosions of violence are exactly that because they rarely happen but when they do they … do. It’s a noir that like the best of noirs becomes more than a PI job, ’30s Los Angeles the personal and the metaphorical. Best scene – J. J. “Jake” Gittes winding up the batty secretary to no end with his seemingly … pointless questions. Nothing in this movie is pointless.

It’s cliché to talk about masterful portraits of ugly capitalism. But this is one of them.

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