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.