comment #1

Jeremy Smith says ...

Bizarre. I was just reminded of that whole POWER PLAY scandal the other day (brought back memories of Inside.com and everything!). I wonder if Bart's wife is still credited with the adaptation of his novella.

Anything that gets Jack and Anderson together sounds fine to me - even if it lines Bart's pockets a little.

comment #2

MilkMan says ...

The idea of Jack Nicholson and any director at this point, let alone one as great as PTA, does not make my mouth water.

If there's any filmmaker alive who could coax any actual character work out of Jack, it would be PTA, and I'm afraid his magician's skills only extend so far.

Jack is cooked, baked, seared, totally overdone.

He likes his pot and his art and his ping pong paddle on the tushy too much to do anything other than what he's been doing since Missouri Breaks and Goin' South.

I know it's kind of cliche to paint Jack as a cliche, but he is what he is, and what he is is an icon that has no interest in being an iconoclast anymore, which is what he used to be.

He can't be anything or anyone other than Jack, which is why the only legitimate part I would buy him in is as Jack Nicholson.

Point towards his work in The Deaprted and all I can do is kind of shrug my shoulders, dance on the balls of my feet, raise my eyebrows, and tip my shades, thus evidencing that Jack is inside us all, diluting whatever gravitas or menace he used to flavor his performances with.

Someone writes a script about an egomaniacal Hollywood Producer, and I would say that Jack is your man.

That is the last role that might define him.

But Jack as some kind of Navajo Businessman taking on the Big Boys of Vegas? Jack as an Underdog? Funny.

Jack is about as far from an underdog as you can get.

He is the King of Los Angeles, The Duke of Mulholland, A-1.

Now get this fucking thing out of my neck.

comment #3

Richard_Stone says ...

I sort of hope PT doesn't become a blowhard director of Important Issue movies. I liked the epicness of the middle class universe he filmed before There Will Be Blood, an effort that did not fully convince me.

Good for PT if he wants to grow as a director and try different things though. And I'm not familiar with this particular story. But I like his smaller character-driven pieces just fine. I'm not so interested in Stanley Kubrick Jr.

comment #4

Jeffrey Kunze says ...

MilkMan: "He likes his pot and his art and his ping pong paddle on the tushy too much to do anything other than what he's been doing since Missouri Breaks and Goin' South."

THE CROSSING GUARD

THE PLEDGE

I agree Jack has taken the easy road on many roles in his career, but you just can't count him out of the game that easily MilkMan.

comment #5

JD says ...

Jeff, some rudimentary research would be nice. C&RV is not PTA's blog, it's a fan site... and it's pretty clear from what they posted that they're totally skeptical about these rumors.

comment #6

Arizona Joe says ...

As I have said before, PTA should do a story about his old man. Because it would not only be about Ernie Anderson, it would be about American culture.

It would be about this country coming out of WWII and into the Cold War, and beatniks and the 60s before hippies, and the counterculture versus the system.

Ernie Anderson's ragtag softball team played games for charity, and 12,000 kids showed up. Why? Because they hated school regimentation, and nuclear bomb practice, and Lawrence Welk, and Wonder Bread.

Ernie Anderson, aka Ghoulardi, the horror film host in Cleveland, had a deal with the local Big Boy restaurants to market a milkshake/soda called a Ghoulardi Fizz.

The shake was an odd green, and it was sort of minty, as I recall. However, the real novelty of this shake was that it came with a six-foot straw, so you could place it in the front of the station wagon, and drink it from the third seat facing the window in the back. This appealed to me at 8 years old.

So when Daniel Day-Lewis said, "I drink your milkshake." I said, "Hell, I drank Ghoulardi's milkshake 45 years ago."

I kid you not.

comment #7

Bocephus says ...

Don't forget About Schmidt. Definitely not a typical Jack character.

comment #8

Richardson says ...

I can't believe somebody would be describing the typical Nicholson role of the past thirty years and point to 'Missouri Breaks' of all things as an example.

I would argue that there are basically two Nicholson performances that exist, with certain subtle variation. One of them is "Jack", the guy who peeked his head out a bit in 'Easy Rider' and a scene or two in 'Five Easy Pieces' before appearing full scale in 'Last Detail'; over time, this became the typical Jack Nicholson performance that people expect from him, and still serves him well, from 'The Shining' to 'The Departed'.

The other is a low key introspective character (I'll say "Nicholson" for clarity)... 'Chinatown', 'Ironweed', 'About Schmidt', 'The Pledge', 'Blood and Wine'. And *definitely* 'Missouri Breaks'; he's so low-key in that movie that it makes Brando seem even crazier.