Tag Archive: Jack Nicholson


Stephen King – shining a light on the dark stuff

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April 22, 2021

Some blatherations* on the novels and movie adaptations of Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’ and ‘Doctor Sleep’.

Getting to grips with the dark stuff of Stephen King’s novels and short stories is a major challenge for filmmakers. This hasn’t dissuaded many from trying. Some have succeeded but many have failed, some miserably.

Metacritic helpfully lists the ratings of 45 movie adaptations. Entertainment Weekly’s assessment of ‘Riding The Bullet’ (2004) is that the film “falls short of its source” and this is a common criticism for other adaptations. One reviewer wrote that the only scary thing about Creepshow 2 is the prospect of Creepshow 3!

The difficulty of making convincing on screen versions of King’s works can largely be put down to the author’s steadfast refusal to gloss over the grimmest aspects of the human psyche. King relishes the prospect of delving deeply into dead zones like a persistent psychoanalyst. By these means he uncovers a veritable plethora of dark secrets, frustrated sexuality, sadistic urges and murderous inclinations. Continue reading →

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KICKING THE BUCKET LIST

Filed under: Atheism, Health and fitness, Movies — Leave a comment
March 29, 2014

THE BUCKET LIST directed by Rob Reiner (USA, 2007)

Death is no laughing matter but mainstream movies still have a hard time taking it seriously. How we come to terms with our mortality is rarely addressed at anything more than a superficial or sentimental fashion.

The story of two terminally ill men making full use of their final months ought to be different but isn’t. It is also dishonest in its unwillingness to show the true ravages of cancer or the messy business of dying.

The premise of the movie is that the bucket list, things to do before you kick the bucket, takes on a new urgency when you get to learn how long you have left to live. The subtext is that procrastination or postponement of these actions is never recommended.

Morgan Freeman plays Carter Chambers a car mechanic with a high IQ whose humility is at odds with brash billionaire Edward Cole played in typically over the top manner by Jack Nicholson.

Remission following surgery and intensive care is tantamount to a miraculous recovery. One minute the two men are lying in their hospital beds, seemingly at death’s door, the next they are skydiving and road racing or gadding about the globe to visit the seven wonders of the world.

Carter is a man of faith while Edward is a sceptic. Mercifully, we are spared crass religious propaganda but Christian morality is still implicit in the film’s advocacy of family values and kindness to strangers,

The underlying message is that it is the things that money can’t buy that bring joy and fulfillment in our lives. This is something I knew already and didn’t need this lame ass movie to remind me.

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TRANSLATING BUCKET LISTS

Filed under: Blogging, Health and fitness, Italy, Movies — 1 Comment
November 1, 2012

Jack Nicholson ticks off one of his ‘bucket list’ items .

As a teacher of English as a foreign language, I have more than a passing interest in linguistic conundrums.

Idiomatic and general slang expressions are notoriously hard to translate particularly when there is no direct equivalent in the target language, in my case Italian.

‘To kick the bucket’ is one example which, if translated simply as ‘to die’,  would lose the casual, even jokey register. You wouldn’t make a formal announcement that someone has passed on by saying that they had kicked the bucket.

In the last five years the term ‘bucket list’ has gone viral on the blogosphere and it’s a term that , until recently, left me mystified mainly because I missed the movie from which it originated.

The Bucket List (the film) is a kind of buddy movie  directed by Rob Reiner. It stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two terminally ill cancer patients who make a list of things they want to do before they ‘kick the bucket’. One critic described it as a feel good movie about death. Reviews are mixed and suggest that , while  it has its moments, it is no masterpiece. Continue reading →

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MONKEE GONE TO HEAVEN

Filed under: Movies, Music, Television — Leave a comment
March 1, 2012

Saddened to learn of the death of Davy Jones aged 66.  Peter Tork was my favourite Monkee but I always appreciated Davy as the sole Brit in the other Fab Four. They were quite a phenomenon at the time and while the TV shows look very dated now the goofy clean-cut commercial music still sounds pretty good.

Though they were created as a fictional band they proved they had minds and talent of their own so were able to transcend the plastic manufactured image. The psychedelic 1968 movie Head was their own Sergeant Pepper moment and the fact that it featured cameos from Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Frank Zappa illustrates that they were not the antithesis of cool some have claimed. Zappa can be seen at the end of this clip of Jones’ loveable song and dance  routine telling him dryly how “the youth of America depends on you to show the way”.

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MOVING IMAGES

Filed under: Movies — Leave a comment
March 7, 2011

If you like movies and/or movie quotes then  If We Don’t, Remember Me is a great site of animated gifs and one-liners.
Here are two of my favourites:

“Hi, Lloyd. Little slow tonight, isn’t it?”   – The Shining (1980)


“She’s young, she’s in high school, she’s sexually active, she’s taking drugs, she’s crying out for help. … Well damn Cooper, that really narrows it down, you’re talking about half the high school girls in America!”  – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

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