Jack Nicholson

i voted the shining in spite of the hamminess; it's just such an indelible movie for me. i could have easily voted for any of his other classic roles.

i'd love to have a film festival of some of those lesser-known/underrated nicholson movies. i've never seen marvin gardens.

Anyone wanna make an argument for The Trip?

Actually, I think he directed that one. I can't remember if he appeared in it or not.

The Pledge is a fantastic novel (I got the Penguin w/Jack Nicholson's face on the cover). Glad to see the film is rated well by some here!

He was good in these films that I did not dig:

Carnal Knowledge (1971)
Terms Of Endearment (1983)
Hoffa (1992)
The Departed (2006)

He could do nothing to make me watch these films again:

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
The Witches Of Eastwick (1987)
Batman (1989)
Anger Management (2003)
About Schmidt (2003)

Chinatown easy. The Pledge is good.

Remake of Postman is awful.

gotta be the passenger for me. one of my favorite movies.

The Witches of Eastwick is fun -- my favorite of his hambone performances.

I'm going for Chinatown on this one, definitely. Has there ever been a thread on favourite director cameos? I adore Polanski in this.

Anyone wanna make an argument for The Trip?

I enjoyed that film a lot, but I don't think Nicholson was in it as an actor. Saw it too long ago to make a proper argument for it as a good film, but it was definitely fun.

the trip is the russ meyer one w/ peter fonda right? saw it recently...no jack. think he (co?)wrote it

Yeah, it was Peter Fonda. Corman was the director, not sure if Meyer had anything to do with it. It's kind of Meyer-esque in places, I guess.

Yeah, I just checked on IMDB & Nicholson wrote it. I'm not sure why I associated him so closely with the film. Was he in another, similar, film about the LSD experience?

Psych-Out? Or even Easy Rider?!

vote for easy rider so i'm not the only one

i prefer Wolf to The Shining and Blood & Wine and Batman to The Departed.

xxpost: Sure, ES is pretty psychedelic, but I'm thinking of something where the depiction of the "trip" is the central premise. I'm guessing Psych-Out is the one I'm (not really) remembering or, at least, so the title would indicate.

Also wrote Head, the Monkees movie, but not in it so far as I remember...

he is, for 5-10 seconds.

Poll also doesnt have the film where he played Peter Lorre's son.

I don't know anyone in charge of making movies, but I wish they would start making more movies like Hells Angels on Wheels.

Get on a motorcycle
Go to carnival
Get drunk and stoned
Paint Naked Women
repeat then have fight that goes wrong...

That is a movie. The end is pretty classic as Nicholson has a total 'what the hell just happened' look on his face.

Voted for The Passenger... Tremendous movie and gets overlooked a lot. The Shooting is my #2 pick

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Ironweed got a vote?!

far less scandalous than motherfucking Shining -- quintessential bad Jack, save for red bathroom scene.

aw come on it's a great, funny flick.

hmm, i just watched carnal knowledge. great film.

I saw it while ago, I hadn't even heard about such a film before, and was pleasantly surprised. Great performance by Nicholson as a smug bastard. I think it's quite rare to see Hollywood films where none of the protagonists are really sympathetic at all. (Though did feel sorry for Ann-Margret's character.)

Strikes me as one of those culturally necessary films after the kind of Mad Men era, and I love Ann-Margaret so it was sort of both compulsory and painful viewing. But like a lot of films from that time, it's just so clearly WRITTEN but without the joys of good writing--the worst of naturalism and mannerism, if that makes sense. I just watched The King of Marvin Gardens and had a slightly similar reaction, again with great performances in a game that seems both dreary and rigged. Nice study of classic '70s-film atmosphere though.

Agreed. Ellen Burstyn gives the best performance in KOMG anyway.

I don't think I saw this poll, but Prizzi's Honor deserved a vote. Too bad it was misspelled.

poor easy rider

Nothing for Batman :(

missed this, would have gone Shining.

yeah null points for batman, bit surprised

Really good in Hoffa, which, I was surprised to remember, had some good bits.

Hoffa's pretty ridiculous, but mostly enjoyable - devito's the best dude in that movie though

i think i would've voted for The Border

75 today. Sad scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vys2K_18uk

http://life.time.com/culture/jack-nicholson-unpublished-photos-1969/?iid=lf%7Clatest#1

watched both the border & the passenger today -- similar disconnected vibe in both, but hes consistently compelling to watch in p much every scene of each, think i actually preferred the border a little

the border's really good.

a few good men was on tv the other day so i watched it, jack's great in the 'i eat breakfast' scene. horrible score

it's nicely subtle in that nicholsons character isnt the boy scout cop caricature outraged @ his corrupt colleagues &/or w/ a crusading woody for mistreated brown ppl but more i think that he just realizes that even going along w/ it, getting $ & w/e would only mean his wife would buy more worthless furniture & whatnot so y not do the "right" thing~

otm

don't think I've seen it since '82 so it's time I spose

his best from that dark post-Cuckoo's Nest pre-Reds period.

Just to be thoroughly annoying, The Border came out after Reds...I've never seen it (meant to at the time); better than The Shining?

You're right!

His performance? Yeah. Whether the movie is better than The Shining I'll leave for the Kubrickiphiliacs.

I think you know my answer....

Does anyone like Goin' South? Never saw that one. In an alternate reality he could've been a comedic stalwart, as in The Fortune (or the Little Shop cameo).

I walked out on The Border after the first 50 minutes or so, ages ago, when I saw it in a theater back when it was released. I don't recall Nicholson's performance as being the main problem so much as the script and direction. I felt I was being intensely manipulated and I didn't like it. Still, it makes me wonder at all the favorable remarks that film gets on this thread. I couldn't stand it.