Jack

      I was reading online somewhere that Jack Nicholson is going to star in the old coots version of The Hangover. The plot synopsis that I read was that some old friends get together to send the last bachelor of their group off in style in Las Vegas meanwhile Jack (as the playboy) and some other old fart (a widower) both fall for the same girl and the game is afoot. So I am thinking Space Cowboys meets The Hangover would probably be the fastest way to describe the film.
     Let me start off by saying two things, I LOVE Jack Nicholson the man knows how to get down to work when challenged with the right part and a director that can tell Jack what he wants. Second I am not a person who is afraid of seeing aging film stars in movies, in fact I love it. Aging is part of life, deal with it. Some of the best movies over the last decade have been about aging, About Schmidt and Gran Torino to name two. Clint has made two or three movies concerning getting older and age, Unforgiven , Million Dollar Baby, Absolute Power, Space Cowboys, the first thing that happens to him in  Blood Work is he suffers a major heart attack.

The Lie

The Truth 

     I know it is hard to see your heroes getting old but Dirty Harry is 79, Indiana Jones is 67. Rocky and Rambo are 63, The Terminator is 63 and John McClane is 55. Think about that when you see them running, jumping, boxing, whipping, yippee ki yaing. and terminating. Truth be told these guys are getting to old for this shit (Riggs and Murtuagh, 54 and 63 though actually the characters are older).
    We all have parents, hopefully they are still around but most of us know that while they are still smart, funny loving people they ain't what they used to be. Dirty Harry would have to take a piss every 30 minutes while on a stake out. Rocky would have to remember to take his heart pills. John Rambo must have been living next to the Thai Snake and Hair Emporium because he didn't have one gray hair in that last movie. He was a 63 year old man living in the tropics and hasn't had what I would call an easy life. You'd think after being involved in combat for all of his adult life and living the hard life that he does, he would have more than just scars but a few gray hairs.
      Back to the Nicholson movie, from what I understand Jack is going to be a rich playboy womanizer type which fits him because basically he just comes to work and cashes the check. On the other hand if I wanted to see that, I'd watch The Bucket List or Somethings Gotta Give both movies in which he played a rich playboy womanizer type. Maybe to shake it up a bit I could just watch him in As Good As It Gets in which he plays the rich part but was terrible at the womanizer bit (Some would say that he does get the girl at the end but I have to remind those people that the woman was Helen Hunt). I mean we've seen it and though they might add some new fart jokes I really don't know how this isn't going to be another lame ass baby boomer movie all shot in soft focus and everyone just happens to not have a day job or never had a day job. Shit, at least Morgan Freeman had a day job for about 5 minutes in The Bucket List of course that was to establish the difference between rich asshole and smart blue collared dude. Of course he still lived in an awesome house with 15 kids.
     Let me tell you why I am writing all this bullshit, cause there is a movie I really wish Jack Nicholson would make and it doesn't involve him skydiving with cancer ridden Morgan Freeman or walking on the beach with Diane Keaton after having a heart attack while trying to pork her daughter (awkward). No, I'd like to see Jack put on his fedora one last time to play one of the best detective on the big screen since Phillip Marlowe, Jake Gittes. Originally Chinatown was supposed to be the first part of a triology of films about the development of California, the first movie was about water rights, the second The Two Jakes was about oil and the third was supposed to be about land.

Jack ~ photo by Anne Lebovitz

     Unfortunately the third never happened because The Two Jakes didn't do well at the box office in 1990 but I think that after 20 years time that most people would be ready for another shot of J.J. Gittes. The next film in the series was supposed to have been shot 20 years after The Two Jakes so it isn't too far fetched to see an older, retired Jake Gittes go back to unraveling a mystery. It would be entertaining to see a 70 year old man walking around 1968 Los Angeles trying to find clues and talk to people. The first movie had The Great Depression in the backdrop , the second had Post-War America and the third could have the political and cultural upheaval of the times. Get Nicholson with someone like Scorsese directing and I think that this movie would work well. 

      Then again, this is just my idea. What do I know, maybe people would rather see a 72 year old man trying to have sex with a 30 year old girl in every other movie. That would explain the recent boom in G.I.L.F (Grandfathers I'd Like to Fuck) porn that is sweeping the nation. The thing is that yes Jack has had sex with quite a few younger women in his day. The problem is I don't think there has been a director yet that has been able to translate how he does it. You just can't film some kinds of cool. 

Iron Man of the Caribbean

Opening Weekend Results

The Dark Knight - $155 Million
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End - $135.5 Million
Iron Man 2 - $133.5 Million

     All I can say to that is, really? Pirates 3 did better than Iron Man 2? I don't see how that happened personally, I mean I guess the economy is kind of tough and all but really? I watched Pirates 2 in the theater and the entire time I was just wanting it to be over, I so wanted to get out of that theater. It just went on and on and seemed so slapped together unlike the first Pirates movie which was a surprise hit and a delight to watch. Pirates 2 was like getting your balls waxed by a very angry lesbian. It was painful and you knew she didn't care but by God you paid the money to do this to yourself so you are going to set through it. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to spend $8 to see the third installment unless they had already invested so much into the movies that by God they were going to see it through to the end or were into pain.
     The closest I came to seeing Pirates 3 when it was in theaters was when I read a synopsis on Wikipedia that I have to say was without a doubt the most rambling plot synopsis I have ever seen on that site before or since. I would say that it was at least 2 pages of typewritten stuff that sounded like something a high school student trying to meet a 500 word deadline hashed out the night before and really I don't even think the kid was grasping what he was writing. Through no fault of his/her own, there are just too many stories and plot lines for the usual two paragraphs. One reviewer opined that he liked the complexity of the movie but I have to say there is complexity and there are piles of horseshit like filler and Pirates 3 was mostly Horseshit.

     The first Iron Man happened pretty much the same way as the first Pirates movie, people thought it was good but didn't expect it to really take off as well as it did. It was just supposed to be a good popcorn movie that opened the summer, the hype of the summer was supposed to be Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. In Iron Man you have a guy that has never directed anything with action or CGI, director Jon Favreau (you are so money baby and you don't even know it) plus Robert Downey Jr's career was needing a shot in the arm. Jeff Bridges while being a pretty damn solid actor also has made more than his fair share of clunkers(let's face it without Iron Man and Crazy Heart he'd be heading toward Lifetime Originals in five years). The highest paid actor in the movie was Terrence Howard and he didn't even make it back for the sequel for some reason(rumor is he was an asshole or asking for too much). You have a lot of people here that are really hungry to make a hit and do some good work and that is probably why the movie turned out so well.
     I also think that is why the Iron Man 2 is good because these guys made it to the top and they don't want to go back to making shitty direct to DVD indie films. It's like this, Robert Downey just made his third career comeback and he doesn't want to go from making Pulp Fiction to Battlefield Earth if you know what I mean. Jon Favreau is getting to work with a big budget which I am sure he likes and besides, he gave himself a small part in the movie as Happy Hogan the Chauffeur which is kind of neat seeing that he started out as an actor. What I am trying to say is you got these people who are still trying to prove themselves, trying to hone their craft and make a really entertaining movie. That has also played into their favor because the studio that made this movie wasn't looking to beat The Dark Knight, sure they wanted to make a profit but I'm sure they didn't think it would take off like it did in 2008. That is why you have a sequel to Iron Man and not one to Superman Returns or The Hulk because both studios behind those movies were expecting bofo box office and when that didn't happen, you got a reboot of the Hulk and no mention of Superman since it came out.
     The other side of that coin is Pirates and the Matrix, both were to be stand alone movies without high box office expectations but when both took off they hurriedly slapped together two sequels to cash in as much as they could. Iron Man fits in because when the numbers started coming in better than expected they announced a release date for Iron Man 2 in 2010 which left Jon Favreau scrambling to get a script together in time to start shooting. I hope if and when he makes the third installment he beats the 3rd movie curse that has befallen all superhero movies as far as the mind can reach. Superman 3, Spider-Man 3, Batman Forver and even the turd X-men movie all kind of sucked. Good Luck Team Iron Man.