Jack Nicholson

  • Wolf (1994)

    Wolf (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2021) Jack Nicholson plays a mild-mannered book editor who becomes a werewolf in romantic horror Wolf and, well, that’s really all you need to know. Now, I’m not going to suggest that Wolf is your run-of-the-mill Hollywood film — helmed by Mike Nichols (in an atypical choice given his filmography) and co-written by Elaine May (making this a reunion between a legendary creative pair), it’s a blend of very light horror with romance, drama and some comedy as well. It doesn’t really all fit together, but the attempt is both more restrained (in horror) and more ambitious (in drama) than what used to be shown in the mid-1990s — although considering the evolution of genre-crossing since then, the premise may be less special nowadays. Michelle Pfeiffer does add a lot, as does James Spader as the antagonist, but this is really Nicholson’s occasion. It does get silly from time to time—watching near-sixty-something Jack hunt a deer with his new lycanthropic powers can’t be otherwise—but Nichols’ sure-footed direction helps ground the film where a less-experienced director may have flopped. For a long-time Science Fiction reader such as myself, there’s a big surprise in the editorial boardroom scenes — the shelves behind the characters are filled with early-1990s Tor hardcovers, many of which I have on my own shelves. The Tor logo is immediately recognizable on the book spines, and Tor founder-publisher Tom Doherty is credited at the end of the credit, most likely for lending use of his offices as a shooting location — although it’s arguably even weirder to see the inside of Los Angeles’ famous Bradbury building being used to portray a Manhattan-based publisher. Still, back to the basics: Wolf isn’t particularly memorable or striking, but it does have just enough weirdness to it to make it a decent watch even today. It’s not quite “the same boring werewolf movie” it could have been even if it doesn’t quite manage to become something special.

  • The Raven (1963)

    The Raven (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Some movies should come with warnings along the line of “don’t watch this before you watch those other movies.”  If that was applied to The Raven, the prerequisite would probably include movies featuring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre just so you’d come into it expecting their screen persona. You would probably also want to include at least one of producer/director Roger Corman’s horror films of the period just to give an idea of what audiences were expecting. Finally, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to throw in a later film from Jack Nicholson to show how far he’d go from this film to superstardom, and probably a modern fantasy film just to highlight what happens when a genre becomes fully defined. But let me explain — Roger Corman, at the time, was adapting classical works of horror literature (many of them from Edgar Allan Poe) as pretexts for horror films. Price and Karloff were already horror movie icons, whereas Lorre was a fixture as “creepy guy” in a variety of films. Jack Nicholson was barely beginning his long career, and fantasy as a genre (not just as movie genre) was at least a decade from being codified. But The Raven tried something weirdly different, delivering a fantasy comedy based on Poe’s “The Raven” that allowed Price and Karloff to portray rival sorcerers trying to one-up each other. The poem’s “Lenore” is a traitorous harridan, while Lorre portrays The Raven, occasionally spitting feathers. It’s definitely a comedy, although modern viewers may want to temper their expectations regarding the density and impact of the jokes. Sometimes, The Raven seems to bask simply in how weird it is, without going the extra mile of making itself funny — but then again, I suspect that Corman’s idea of what’s funny wasn’t that of a conventional comedian. From modern lenses, the weirdness of the film also comes from working with unbuilt tropes — picture “wizard” in your head, and you won’t match the film’s vision of “wizard” because it came in ten years before the printed version of The Lord of the Rings and, in turn, the way wizards have been portrayed in fantasy literature since then. Any circa-2021 attempt to retell the same story would be far more overly funny, but would also deal in visual archetypes familiar to audiences from decades of fantasy films all going for the same iconography. Where that leaves The Raven for modern audiences is more akin to interesting experiment… as long as you’re familiar with the prerequisites of the film. Seeing Karloff and Price in a lighter register than usual is fun, but the film stops well short of hilarious. If you’ve seen the prerequisites, though, go ahead and have fun — The Raven is meant to be playful all the way to its closing lines: Nevermore!

  • Blood and Wine (1996)

    Blood and Wine (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2020) I don’t think that Blood and Wine is all that good, but the rather amazing cast bolsters a nicely effective neo-noir plot and leaves enough of a good impression to make it worthwhile. Any movie that pairs up Jack Nicholson with Michael Caine as would-be jewel thieves, then adds Stephen Dorff and a splendid Jennifer Lopez as a younger couple (plus Judy Davis and Harold Perrineau Jr. to round things up) definitely gets some attention. Once you start weaving a twisty plot of thievery, betrayal and revenge, however, things get far more interesting. The sultry atmosphere of Southern Florida polishes things to a warm entertaining finish. Plot-driven without neglecting characters, Blood and Wine proceeds without mercy throughout its own fatalistic hit list: As a film noir from the 1990s, it can be less than subtle at times, but still worth a look for pure entertainment.

  • Five Easy Pieces (1970)

    Five Easy Pieces (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, December 2019) The most distinctive aspect of Five Easy Pieces is that it’s a pure undiluted example of New Hollywood filmmaking: Unlikable protagonist, aimless dialogue, not much plot, filthy sets and gritty cinematography all feature heavily here at the expense of just about any classical Hollywood virtue. Yeah, so I don’t really like New Hollywood, which I see as a necessary but transitory period between the restrictions of the Production Code era and the more entertainment-driven era of filmmaking that followed Star Wars. The best I can say about Five Easy Pieces is that it’s relatively short and, as such, doesn’t completely overstay its welcome despite trying really hard. Jack Nicholson deservedly stars as a manual labourer trying to escape the burden of his upper-class childhood as a musical prodigy. He rebels against … well, he rebels, anyway. He meets women, sleeps with them, or at least tries to get a breakfast according to his exacting preferences. Nothing works. He leaves. The end.  Relief.

  • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

    The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) After watching both the 1946 and 1981 versions of The Postman Always Rings Twice back-to-back, I feel as if I’ve been handed a quick course on the importance of style. More faithfully adapting James M. Cain’s novel to the big screen (including going back to its depression-era setting), this 1981 version ironically feels more dated and less respectable than the noir-era version. That’s an important clue as to the enduring popularity of noir—by discussing distasteful topics of murder and sex in a restrained, even glamorous style, noir now often exists out of time as a style of its own, to be appreciated by audiences at all periods. (Also useful to compare: Double Indemnity and Body Heat, another pair of noir and remake released along a nearly identical timeframe.)  Also, Jessica Lange isn’t Lana Turner, but then again only Lana Turner was Lana Turner. But, back to the 1981 version: Jack Nicholson portrays the qualities of the remake—he’s humourless, gritty, disreputable. There is a lot more detail to this version, and the rough eroticism is played up in ways that would have been unthinkable back in the 1940s. The feral cat subplot of the novel is back (featuring none other than Anjelica Huston), the lead character is far more criminal than drifter, and the entire thing is far more cinematic (by modern standards) than the previous one. It does, mind you, make for a decently entertaining watch, perhaps closer to an erotic thriller than to generic crime fiction. But for all of its realism, polish, harshness and style, this version of The Postman Always Rings Twice just can’t quite measure to the deliberate approach of the 1946 version.

  • Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

    Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2017) I’m usually a forgiving audience for older movies—I’m getting into the mindset of forgiving the limitations of the time, and it certainly helps that what has survived until now is usually what deserves to be seen again. But even this patience has its limits, and I could feel it being tested during Little Shop of Horrors, an ultra-low-budget Roger Corman effort that seems memorable more for outrageousness than quality. Reportedly shot over two days for a paltry five-figure budget, Little Shop of Horrors makes up for its limited means through high invention: What if it was a comedy about a carnivorous plant? Of course, comedy is subjective and black comedy even more so—to me, Little Shop of Horror is more grating and mean-spirited than anything else. It is, I’ll concede, memorable: In addition to the ludicrous premise, Jack Nicholson shows up in a manic Jim Carreyesque performance as a masochistic dental client. Still, even at a running time of merely 72 minutes, the film is more of an ordeal than I had expected. Much of its contemporary popularity can be explained by how it’s in the public domain, and was later adapted as a musical and then another bigger-budget movie. As itself, though, Little Shop of Horrors is not as much fun as it could be.

  • The Pledge (2001)

    The Pledge (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) I will vigorously defend the right of filmmakers to make the movies they want to make … but then again I will also defend the right of viewers to have the reaction they want to the movie they’re seeing. This is relevant to The Pledge insofar as director Sean Penn wanted to make a movie that upended the traditional conventions of a crime thriller. (Warning: Spoilers.) The point of the script—based on a novella significantly titled “The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel”—is to show that not all investigations end up finding the culprit, and some of the time this can be a mere stroke of luck (or bad luck). The ending doesn’t go for full bleakness by killing the killer without the investigator knowing about it, but such meagre comforts do nothing to save the protagonist from ending up a ruined alcoholic mumbling to himself about his failure. Such a downer ending, coupled with the grim premise of a child killer, means that The Pledge will never become a crowd favourite. There are plenty of vastly more entertaining and deliberately satisfying crime thrillers out there if you’re looking for that kind of stuff. On the other hand, there’s quite a lot to like in The Pledge despite its intentionally downbeat nature. Jack Nicholson turns in one of his last good performances as an out-of-persona retiring detective who comes to obsess about the murder of a young girl, and promises to her mom that we will find the truth. Director Sean Penn delivers a rather good movie, handled with some care and unusual flourishes despite insisting a bit too much on some elements at time. I also suspect that Penn is the reason why the film is studded with known actors in small roles, from Benicio del Toro’s early brief turn to people such as Hellen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave and Mickey Rourke in rather minor roles. There’s even an intriguing plot point midway through, as the protagonist spends his retirement funds buying a gas station in order to gather more information on possible suspects. The Pledge works much better when considered as a drama rather than a thriller: it places more emphasis on the cost of obsession (even justified) and less on the achievement of detection. Still, it is a kick in the gut and I can certainly understand why many won’t like that.

  • The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

    The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2017) There is, without question, a lot of fun to be had watching The Witches of Eastwick on a basic level, as three likable women are seduced by the devil incarnate, only to take revenge. Jack Nicholson playing the Devil is as perfect a piece of casting as you can imagine, and there’s no denying the combined sex-appeal of Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon as the titular coven. The film does have a good go at satirizing various relationship conventions (What do Women Want? Indeed) before predictably moving toward a female empowerment finale. But therein lies the rub: There was no other way to finish the film, and it kind of goes wrong in subtle and no-so-subtle ways. I would feel far better if a woman had written the screenplay, because the male gaze (and male privilege) shown here is problematic. I’m not sure that all three women being ga-ga over babies of a dubious father makes sense. (It makes even less sense to consider that one of the female characters already has half a dozen children that practically never show up during the movie—where are they and why isn’t she spending time with them???)  In some way, The Witches of Eastwick is an artifact of a time that is hopefully past—a dumb producer’s (i.e.: Jon Peters) brute-force vision of something that should be far more delicately handled. The Witches of Eastwick is funny and sexy, but it’s a guilty fun and an even guiltier sexiness. It doesn’t help that the script seems patched-up at times. The cherry pit-vomiting sequences are just gross and take away from the generally amiable remainder of the picture. (Then again, this is directed by George Miller, who’s made a career to strange tonal shifts) But this was 1987 and we’re now thirty years later—I’d be game for a less problematic remake, but I’m not sure who could step up to Nicholson’s performance.

  • A Few Good Men (1992)

    A Few Good Men (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2016) Nearly everyone can quote Jack Nicholson’s furious “You can’t handle the truth!” but watching A Few Good Men highlights how that line works best as a culmination rather than a standalone quote. A somewhat sombre judicial drama in which a hotshot lawyer (Tom Cruise, remarkably good) takes on the US Marines establishment in an effort to discover what happened to a dead soldier, A Few Good Men is the kind of slick mainstream drama that has almost disappeared from the box-office top-ten. Slickly made with a roster of good actors, it has the means to present its story as effectively as possible. The result is a good comfortable film, handled with old-school care. It may not be all that efficient (the opening act is notably slow, and missteps in initially focusing on a character who’s not the real protagonist) but it’s competent and slowly makes its way to a conclusion heavy on shouting and courtroom excitement. Jack Nicholson is good in a surprisingly small role (it looks as if he showed up for a few days of work), Kiefer Sutherland pops up as a soldier, while Demi Moore doesn’t impress all that much in a fairly conventional role that leaves far too much glory to Tom Cruise’s character.

  • The Bucket List (2007)

    The Bucket List (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2015) I don’t often cry while watching movies, let alone slick soulless Hollywood comedies, but taking in a film about men dying of cancer days after attending a funeral for a friend who passed away from leukemia is asking for exceptions.  So it is that, uncharacteristically enough, I felt a few manly tears roll down my cheeks during the last few moments of The Bucket List, as I started contemplating life, death, legacies and whether it’s even possible to go gently into the night.  I really didn’t expect this from this film, which is as pre-packaged a glossy Hollywood comedy as it comes.  But we are creatures of circumstances, and for a few minutes I was able to let go of my usual analytical mind and just feel purely sad.  So it is that I’m not going to attempt to review The Bucket List itself: Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson each play to their strengths, and the result just short-circuited my logical circuits.  Given how deeply my departed friend was into movies (he was once nominated for a Genie screenwriting award), may this serves as a significant epitaph of sorts.

  • Anger Management (2003)

    Anger Management (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2015)  At the time of Anger Management’s release, there was something a bit clever in casting Adam Sandler in the role of a meek man who is led by circumstances into assuming his innate aggression: Early-career Sandler exemplified a violent man-child comic persona, so much of Anger Management is spent waiting for the inevitable explosions.  (After 2002’s Mr. Deeds, his persona would be softened to a gentler good-guy one.)  To see him paired off with Jack Nicholson (who has spent much of his late career perfecting abrasive characters) is a further wonder.  And, at times, Anger Management works: there are funny set-pieces, many showcase moments for Nicholson’s ability to be both unpleasant and compelling and Sandler navigates a fine edge between his early aggressive persona and his latter-day amiable everyday-man.  Marisa Tomei is likable in a somewhat generic role, with fun performance in smaller roles from Luis Guzman, John Turturro, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly.  (There are also more than a few celebrity cameos, as is often the case in Happy Madison-produced movies.)  Where Anger Management gets in a bit of a mess, however, is in its messy collage of absurd contrivances, late-revealed conspiracy, attempts to link back to a childhood prologue and ultimate claim to be about something else than simple anger management.  The last few minutes are a series of “Really?  Really??” that don’t add much to the film, especially when its reason for existing is simply seeing Sandler face off with Nicholson –if the film’s poster could get that right, then why didn’t the script?  Of course, Adam Sandler films aren’t exactly known for tight scripts and focused scenes – sometimes, it’s best to just enjoy the comic set-pieces and ignore the attempts at making it all mean something at the end.

  • As Good as it Gets (1997)

    As Good as it Gets (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2015) While As Good As It Gets was a good box-office hit and a monster award contender in 1997, I had somehow managed to avoid it until now.  Featuring iconic performances and oft-quoted material, I thought I knew what the film was about.  I was wrong, of course, but the idealized version of the film that I carried in my head remains more satisfying than the one on-screen.  Both don’t start to diverge until fairly late in the film: As a confirmed obsessive-compulsive misanthrope who has somehow become a much-loved best-selling author, Jack Nicholson has one of his signature character here, and the cockiness with which he delivers either put-downs or compliments is nothing short of legendary.  (And those quotes… they’re ever-green.) Opposite him, Helen Hunt has rarely been more appealing as a single-mom waitress whose boundless compassion is tested by a thoroughly detestable human being.  (Meanwhile, Greg Kinnear is just fine as a gay artist overcoming the trauma of an attack, although this is really not his movie.)  As Good as It Gets is enjoyable as it forces these characters to be together for a while, their eccentricities and neuroses bouncing off each other through great dialogue and telling details.  But the film seems to lose itself somewhere in its third quarter of the film: For all of the interest in the platonic friendship between our two leads, I feel that the film takes a step too far by matching them together romantically.  The age difference between the two is bad enough (twenty six years!), but the film itself seems to acknowledge how bad a fit they are, and the small moment of détente at the very end isn’t particularly convincing: I would have been far happier a viewer at seeing both of them heal each other, and evolve in their own respective directions.  But, eh, what do I know?  As Good as it Gets made money, got great reviews and remains a bit of a reference almost twenty years later.  Given that, I’ll take my opinion and keep it for myself.

  • How do You Know (2010)

    How do You Know (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On cable TV, April 2012) Watching well-made romantic comedies is so effortless that making them seems easy… and then you find one that doesn’t quite work as well as it could. On the surface, How Do You Know isn’t a hard movie to like: It has four good actors in the lead (Paul Rudd is charming as the co-protagonist and Owen Wilson is almost hilarious as a clueless baseball player but the film’s highlight is that Reese Witherspoon is aging really well –I can’t recall her looking any better), appealing characters, quirky details, a few big laughs and a somewhat witty script. Shot to glossy perfection in the streets of Washington DC, it’s the kind of film fully steeped in movie-magic, fit to send audiences in a feel-good trance. And yet… it never quite clicks. The dialogues, even from the first few scenes, seem willfully scattered. The scenes go on for longer than they should, and no amount of character charm nor scene-setting can excuse the tepid rhythm. While How Do You Know earns a few credits for avoiding the more obvious clichés of romantic comedies, it doesn’t quite replace those clichés with anything remarkably compelling. The look at the struggles of an aging female athlete seems eclipsed by the look at the idiocy of an aging male athlete, while the corporate malfeasance plot doesn’t quite boil at any point in the story. It all amount to nothing much; at best, a pleasantly eccentric but forgettable romance. But then, looking up the film’s production information, you find out that it cost $120 million, almost half of which was spent on five key salaries… and the film goes from unobjectionable to incomprehensible.  Really, writer/director James L. Brooks? Did you really need Jack Nicholson to play his same shtick for that amount of money? How Do You Know feels like the kind of low-budget romance given to hungry up-and-coming directors for a quick release a modest box-office… not blockbuster budgets and massive audiences: there’s nothing here to warrant more attention. No amount of “Eh, it was all right” can recoup those losses.

  • Batman (1989)

    Batman (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, on DVD, June 2009): With the critical and commercial success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, it’s becoming easier to forget about Tim Burton’s reinvention of the character, before it slid once again in franchise-killing high camp during the Joel Schumacher years. And that’s a shame, because despite some increasingly dated aspects, Batman still keeps an operatic grandeur that resonates even today. The story is thin and eighties-fashion still peeks through the self-conscious blend of historical references, but the entire film remains intriguing. Health Ledger may have taken over the Joker’s look, but Jack Nicholson’s take on the character remains magnetic. Only an underwhelming finale falters visibly: While everyone remembers the Batman/Joker showdown in the streets of Gotham, fewer will recall the following sequence taking place in a cathedral. Two decades after the film’s release, the special edition DVD can afford to be candid about the film’s rushed production, last-minute producer-driven script changes and casting choices. Alas, director Burton’s commentary track could have benefited from judicious editing: His “you know?”s start grating early on and never fade away.

    (Third viewing, On Cable TV, June 2016) I hadn’t watched Batman in more than ten years, but another look was more than warranted given rapid evolution of superhero movies since then. Tim Burton’s Batman turns out to be a significant step in the evolution of Batman’s movie portrayal from sixties silliness to Nolan’s grimmer portrayal. It’s certainly trying to be more serious, but it can’t completely manage it. It doesn’t help that Burton’s vision for his characters (and particularly the joker) is so colourful and exuberant: it’s tough to keep a straight face at what Jack Nicholson pulls off in his completely unrestrained performance. Otherwise, it’s fascinating to see in here the seeds of the modern superhero blockbuster, albeit with pre-digital effects, restrained cinematography and somewhat more silliness. (Not included in the movie, but far more important, are the media tie-in and marketing effort surrounding the film, which I remember more than the movie itself) Michael Keaton is better than anyone may remember as Bruce Wayne/Batman, while Kim Basinger is spectacular as Vicki Vale. The ending is a bit dull (the Joker shooting down the batwing is memorable, but the subsequent cathedral sequence isn’t), but there are enough good scenes along the way to make it worthwhile. It’s probably impossible to overstate Batman’s impact on the modern blockbuster industry, but there’s actually a worthwhile film underneath the hype.

  • The Shining (1980)

    The Shining (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, August 1999) So what happens when a very competent director decides to do a horror film—while having no idea what horror should be? You get The Shining, a “horror” film with 75 minute’s worth of setup, three or four really good scenes, no clear resolution and some interesting camera setups. Fans of classical horror won’t know what to do with the storyline, which mixes together monsters, hallucinations, split personalities, bloodbaths, ax murders, reincarnation and/or a whole lot of stuff. Yes, the technical side of the film is polished and the “classic” sequences stay in mind, but the movie itself flops around without too much vigor.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, September 2024) Oh my.  Ignore the above review.  I was wrong.  So incredibly wrong.  A chance re-watch of The Shining has me thinking that this is one of the finest horror films of the 1980s, if not of all time.  While I don’t disagree with my former self that the film is often incoherent, I think I now get why it is — or rather, what’s the story behind the incoherence.  The other thing is that an an older, savvier reviewer, I now place a lot more weight on execution than premise, and Kubrick’s work here is on the next level.  While I think that most of the various interpretations about the true meaning of The Shining are putting things together in outlandish ways, there’s no denying that Stanley Kubrick has crammed so much stuff in the background of this film that it makes viewers desperate to dig into it.  What’s more apparent to me, twenty-five years and thousands of movies later, is that you can recognize Kubrick’s genius here both by the amount of material that has been stolen from this film, but also by how the film remains original, surprising and subversive even after all these years.  One underappreciated aspect, for instance, isn’t just how axe-crazy Jack Nicholson’s performance becomes, but how Shelley Duvall’s weak and ineffectual character makes the marital-abuse-gone-murderous thrust of the third act even more terrifying.  Or how the camera work remains exemplary after so many imitators, or how much of a misdirection is the Scatman Crothers subplot.  Or the growing sense of dread that radiates from the film even as it takes its time to set everything up.  Or how deliciously effective the opening moments are at hooking viewers.  One of the marks of a great film is how much discussion it generates and my that metric, The Shining was, is and will remain one landmark piece of horror cinema.