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00:00:01

1970s Jack Nicholson

E6 · Triple Take Cinema

18 Plays20 days ago

Alex takes us into the 1970s filmography of the legendary Jack Nicholson.

Chinatown (1974) - 5:29
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) - 43:16
Five Easy Pieces (1970) - 1:19:30

Triple Take Cinema is where your hosts, Dustin, Alex, and Kyle, dive into three movies with a twist. In each episode, one of us takes the reins and picks a theme—whether it’s a wild connection or a subtle thread—and assigns three movies that fit the bill.

We all watch, and then the real fun begins as we dish out our takes.

There are no rules and no limits—just a wild ride through movies we love, movies we've never seen, and a few we hope to forget.

Transcript

Introduction to Triple Take Cinema

00:00:00

Alex

Welcome to Triple Take Cinema. I am Alex. I'm here with my other two co-hosts, Dustin and Kyle. Three dudes, each episode, one of us picks three movies, united by some common theme or element.

00:00:15

Alex

In the past, we've done directors, we've done ah ah types of genre, and we've done obscure things like color.

Exploring Jack Nicholson's 70s Filmography

00:00:25

Alex

Today's the first time we're getting into an actor. I could not resist picking Jack Nicholson, the most nominated actor.

00:00:36

Alex

for Oscars. I think he's got 12 noms. And I wanted to really delve into his 70s filmography. So we are going to be talking about five easy pieces. One Flew Over to Cuckoo's Nest and Chinatown. Three classics, three iconic characters and performances. And as we kind of dive into this, I would love to hear from you guys. kind of what your relationship was to these three movies before watching them for this app, and also how watching them i changed how you think about Nicholson as a performer. Dustin,

Dustin's Experiences with Nicholson Films

00:01:16

Alex

let's start with you.

00:01:18

dustinzick

Yeah, so I the the only one of these three that I had any familiarity with was one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I think I watched that with my dad for the first time when I was probably in my teens early teens or something like that. I feel like I had heard the name five easy pieces at some point.

00:01:41

dustinzick

But I don't even know if I connected it as a Nicholson movie or if I had no other conception of what it was. then Chinatown was something that I feel like I had seen on lists I had. I don't even know if I directly associated it with Nicholson or not. But whatever conception I had of that film was wildly inaccurate to what it actually was. I don't think I realized it was directed by Polanski. I don't didn't really know much about it at all. and then i mean In terms of Nicholson, like my earliest Jack Nicholson experience, which I think is probably pretty common for our generation, is

Kyle's Struggle with Film Noir

00:02:27

dustinzick

Batman.

00:02:29

dustinzick

and

00:02:29

Alex

I knew you were going to say it before you did. It had to be.

00:02:31

dustinzick

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Like that's probably like the first time I ever saw him in something. And then honestly, like, I mean, I like The Shining. I love The Shining, but I didn't see that until I was like in college. arm i I do like one of my favorite movies of all time is The Departed. I think I saw that like five times in the theater.

00:02:52

dustinzick

so that's like a huge Iconic role for me when I think of him. Uh, I think most of my Familiarity with him is definitely in the latter half of his career like prior to watching these The only movie before batman that I had seen him in was uh, well actually not true the shining and one flew over the cuckoo's nest so I definitely like appreciated him as a dramatic actor and like that background and everything but I had no other, I mean these other two movies were very big blind spots to me and and Chinatown again was one that I feel like had recurringly seen and like best of lists and things like that but Five Easy Pieces I knew nothing about and in spoiler like I loved both of those movies

00:03:41

dustinzick

phenomenally, like so. And as much as I do enjoy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I think of the three, that's probably the weakest one here. And we'll get into that more.

00:03:52

dustinzick

But yeah, so this these were definitely like, hopefully are catalyzing me to look at more of his work from the early days of his career, because these were all brilliant.

00:04:02

dustinzick

and Kyle, how about you?

00:04:04

Alex

Yeah.

00:04:06

Killer Kyle

Uh, I, I'd seen one of the Cougar's nets many, many times, it comes to this, I had ah ah attempted when I was getting into watching movies with, ah ah with intent, uh, I had attempted to watch Chinatown several times. and that's really, that's the only way I can say that is attempted to, cause I was, uh, every time I started it, I was, I was.

00:04:31

Killer Kyle

Didn't finish it. And i had never I'm actually shocked by this just because of the amount of movie podcasts that I have listened to with greater or lesser degrees of their noses in the air. I had never heard of five easy pieces before this. And it was interesting to see some young Nicholson. and I feel like the the role that I associate Nicholson with the most is probably in A Few Good Men.

00:04:56

Killer Kyle

that, that sort of that, that, that big scene with him and Cruz, both on its merits and because of, you know, how much I appreciated Aaron Sorkin's writing for a long time and still do most of it.

00:05:06

dustinzick

I'm curious. I'm curious with Chinatown like. Were you just like unable to get interested in it or was there something that turns you off from it initially?

00:05:20

Killer Kyle

I mean. I mean, if we want to get into Chinatown, we we can certainly start off with Chinatown, but but i I find film noir painfully boring.

00:05:33

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

00:05:35

Alex

Interesting.

00:05:35

Killer Kyle

Painfully boring. And I've

The Intrigue of Chinatown

00:05:39

Killer Kyle

never taken to any of that. There may be some, it probably is it probably has some kind of, film noir for me is kind of like country music, or if I like something that people would call country music, I'd be like, oh, well, it's not country.

00:05:50

dustinzick

Huh?

00:05:53

dustinzick

Hmm.

00:05:54

Killer Kyle

A little bit of that going on. but i And it's interesting to watch to watch it through this time. actually actually see it all the way through. I was able to successfully turn my wife's eyes when they showed who the director was, otherwise she would have not watched it with me. But I did tell her that at the end.

00:06:17

Killer Kyle

And yeah, I just, I also, yeah, I mean, it's it's a movie that is very, you know, and I i tried to It's a movie that's very much Los Angeles. And when I was watching Chinatown, I was like, oh, this is a very bad version of LA confidential in in very broad strokes, right? Like just this ode to that time period, those people, that city.

00:06:47

Killer Kyle

people doing messed up things. That's kind of what I was like, oh, what I like, yeah I see, I see ah where a lot of LA confidential and just this genre came from, but also specific to the LA world. I just feel like sometimes, yeah, yeah. So for Chinatown, it's that I find, I find film noir very difficult to get through. There's not enough happening. The pacing is very slow. And I don't think the stakes are all that interesting to me in this movie.

00:07:15

Killer Kyle

So that's that's yeah, so that I had tried a couple times of Chinatown, and I always just sort of tried like, all right, we're gonna sit down and watch this movie that's pretty universally regarded as one of the better movies ever made. And we're gonna you know, we're gonna do it and without without a structure like this or without watching it.

00:07:33

Killer Kyle

you know, with another group of people where you're all sort of invested to get into the end and having something to say. It just never, it never took for me when I was on my lonesome. So again, good good work on the podcast ah to get me to buckle down and see something through.

00:07:50

Killer Kyle

And then, yeah.

00:07:50

Alex

Yeah, I mean that that resonates with me just because I i also tried in college to to watch Chinatown and I just don't think I had the the patience for it, the attention span for it. And this watch, it definitely was a slow burn. And I'm going to give a slight spoiler for my rankings at the end and say that, you know, Chinatown was my favorite of three movies that I pretty much loved, all of these to varying degrees. But just the mastery of the script, of the direction, of all these themes coming together totally blew me away this time.

00:08:33

Alex

And I was going to have us end with Chinatown, but let's let's get into it and let's kind of go reverse chronological. We'll start with Chinatown, 1975, directed by Roman Polanski with a script by, I believe it's Robert Towne, it is.

00:08:54

Alex

And yeah, when I tried to watch this in in college, I think I got all the way there to the end, but my memories of it are very hazy. And I probably saw this for the podcast maybe two or three weeks ago at this point.

00:09:10

Alex

and i individual scenes are still like burned into my memory because of how strong of an impression they made on me. You know, I even loved that first scene with Curly, that kind of, you know,

00:09:24

Alex

maybe comic relief character who ends up playing a big role at the end, we're getting introduced to Nicholson's JJ Gitties as kind of this slightly sleazy hard-boiled detective, former cop, and just his delivery when he's talking to Curly and he's showing you know sympathy for him and his situation. but

00:09:54

Alex

What I think was interesting, Kyle, to your point about film noir, is that from the get-go, it feels like this is kind of undercutting a lot of those film noir tropes. You've got Curly like chewing on the Venetian blinds. And to me, that's a very classic film noir like trope, is to have like the detective peering through the Venetian blinds. And here you've got this kind of sad sack just trying to eat them.

00:10:21

Alex

and i think Throughout this movie really undercuts your expectations about What's going to happen and you know who who is kind of hero and and villain in this very you know dark kind of cynical story, but Lots of directions we could take this in where do you guys want to go from here with Chinatown?

00:10:41

Killer Kyle

what what were some of i'd like to What are some of those scenes that really grabbed you? because i that's i can yeah What are some of those scenes that really grabbed you? I'm curious to to hear sort of like some and i mean dustin i'd love to hear at some of the scenes that grabbed you as well because I don't have one.

00:10:52

Alex

Yeah.

00:10:58

Killer Kyle

So I'm curious as to what and so what like really sunk its teeth into both of you. yeah

00:11:03

Alex

Yeah, I'll go first and then Dustin can take over. i I really love the first scene where ah JJ Gitz is tracking Hollis.

00:11:17

Alex

Hollis Mulray, the the water inspector, and he's at that that city council meeting. And I just love the way that that plays out where he's so laser focused. He doesn't give a shit until until

00:11:35

dustinzick

The guy with the goats shows up.

00:11:37

Alex

Yeah, until ah right well until the guy with the goats comes in. But you know he kind of yawns at the plight of the farmers, which is kind of a funny little joke when you're when you're watching it. But thinking about it afterwards, you know if he had realized all those other pieces, he could have solved the mystery way sooner. So I just think there's a lot of interesting characterization happening at that scene. I love the performances. I love kind of Hollis's.

00:12:06

Alex

like very stern.

00:12:10

Alex

Yeah, just, you know, I won't build this dam. I love the the confrontation scene where he gets his nose sliced open by by Roman Polanski, absolutely.

00:12:19

dustinzick

Bye, Roman Polanski.

00:12:24

Alex

I think all the scenes with him and Faye Dunaway Dunaway as ah who you think is the femme fatale, and then turns out to be kind of the heroine slash victim of the movie.

00:12:38

Alex

I think the way those unfold are really narratively and dramatically compelling. yout Yeah, go for it.

00:12:44

Killer Kyle

I have just yeah.

00:12:44

dustinzick

just to interject, like I thought the whole like the whole piece with Faye Dunaway and like her character, not like it being clear that there was more to her story than she was sharing, even though like JJ was getting into like getting details and was like progressing and like unraveling whatever the hell was going on. The fact that there was like She was clearly withholding stuff, but while also giving up stuff like I thought that was kind of compelling and interesting like there there was constantly like new More layers to the onion of her story that kept getting pulled back that kind of pulled me in right when I was starting to lose interest a little bit like When and and I this is a good way like i'm sorry to totally cut you off alex, but there was two

00:13:38

Alex

Now you're buying it into it.

00:13:40

dustinzick

There was two things that he did as a detective that I thought were fucking awesome. One was in the beginning when he was following the water guy around and he, you know, stalked him for hours. And then it was the middle of the night and the guy's car was parked over the cliff where he was and he's like, I'm not going to fucking stay here the whole night. And so he goes into his glove box and there's like dozens of pocket watches.

00:14:04

dustinzick

And he pulls out two pocket watches and he goes over and he puts them on both sides of one of the tires of the car. And I'm like, what the fuck is he doing? Fucking brilliant, absolutely brilliant, like analog way to figure out how long the dude stayed there because he put the pocket watches there so that when the guy moved his car, whether he went forward or backward, he ran over one of the pocket watches because he set them correctly when he pulled them out of his glove box.

00:14:31

dustinzick

And then the guy he's following runs over the pocket watch, stops it at whatever time he ran it over. And then someone has to go physically pick him up, which is associated. But like i I just loved like learning like what he was doing there. And because at first I was like, what the fuck are you doing? I don't understand. And then the other thing that he did that I thought was really cool was after him and Faye Dunaway spend the night together.

00:14:56

dustinzick

And she gets called away to go to the ah ah her butler's house. and But he doesn't know that. She just tells him, tells Nicholson, like, I have to go. Don't worry, like, wait up or whatever.

00:15:09

dustinzick

And she hops in the shower. Nicholson goes out and breaks one of her taillights. I thought he was breaking the headlights. At first, I thought he was breaking the headlights so that she couldn't leave.

00:15:18

Alex

I did too.

00:15:19

dustinzick

it turned out he was breaking one of the taillights so that he could better follow her in in the dark and see where her car was by identifying it as the one with the broken tail light. And so and and that was a catalyst into another scene of her of him going like that whole mystery there of like who that girl was that ended up being her

Unpacking One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

00:15:43

dustinzick

daughter and her sister. I thought like that kind of unveiling was compelling. I mean, for me, what really sealed

00:15:52

dustinzick

the deal in my enjoyment of this story was that n sing and how morose and sad and like truly tragic yeah yeah totally tragic which is where the the line of you know it's chinatown comes from and stuff and i will say for a movie called chinatown

00:16:02

Alex

It's super fucking and bleak. It's incredibly dark and cynical.

00:16:15

dustinzick

Disappointing lack of Chinatown in the entire movie, but oh Like I don't know I think I saw LA confidential last year for the first time and I really loved it and and Kyle I won't disagree with you that like film noir is drawn out is oftentimes more boring than not but like

00:16:39

Alex

It's formulaic, it has certain beats that it follows.

00:16:43

dustinzick

Yeah, and like for me, I think what what makes a film noir movie enjoyable is maybe, ah ah you know, 10 percent of it is like an interesting, compelling mystery that's being solved. Many of them are very stereotypical and, and you know, someone gets murdered. Like, not that that's ah not a bad thing, but like low stakes, as you said.

00:17:09

dustinzick

But it's the that the actors and actresses and their performances that pull me in. And I feel like Nicholson's charm here and something I look forward to talking about extensively when it comes to five easy pieces.

00:17:25

dustinzick

Uh brings me into like wanting to see what his character uncovers and like those nuggets of how he does his detective work like I wish there was more of that because that was probably the most interesting stuff to me when he was like truly like going around and asking questions and figuring stuff out and like Had figured stuff out at least for me before I did as a viewer and then he's explaining it to someone i'm like, oh shit Yeah, like okay, like when they go to the the old folks home and are like talking to the old folks that don't know that their names are on all the property and stuff like that.

00:17:58

dustinzick

All the scenes with him and John Huston and their conversations and like how polite those are, but also like there's something weirdly off about John Huston and his character and like not knowing what that is until you find out at the end like how real fucked up it is.

00:18:03

Alex

Uh-huh.

00:18:19

dustinzick

Like that was all the stuff in Chinatown that like kept me Compilled I will say I'll give the caveat that like I didn't watch this in one sitting I think I watched it across two sittings because I started it too late one night and couldn't stay awake for it But it I think that might have even furthered my enjoyment of it, because after like spending a night thinking about being halfway through it and like wondering, like what about that what did that? What was that for? I came back to it the next day, I was like, no, I really want to see this guy get resolved kind of a thing. But for me, yeah, it was a lot of like

00:18:54

dustinzick

I don't think I would have enjoyed this. I'm sure there's other actors that would have I would have enjoyed in Nicholson's role here, but like a lot of it was enjoying him and his presence. He brought to the role that I feel like made it interesting to me.

00:19:12

Killer Kyle

i I certainly appreciated Jack Nicholson's performance.

00:19:12

Alex

Yeah.

00:19:15

Killer Kyle

I did in in Five Easy Pieces, which we can get into as well. I found Faye Dunaway's performance. and I don't know if this is what she was asked to do. so I don't necessarily want to, take that's that's always a tricky line for me is like, what are they asked to do? And what do I see? And how much do I want to lay that at the feet of the actor? I found it to be difficult to watch and would take me out of every scene that she was in that sort of overly affected 60s, 70s woman character, I just

00:19:48

Killer Kyle

i didn't It's tricky to have that performance juxtaposed constantly with Jack Nicholson and his ability to deliver the character and the lines and the actions just flawlessly. Again, I don't know if she was asked to do that. I certainly think it's possible given the the director we're dealing with here.

00:20:13

Killer Kyle

but That though it was just hard for me to watch. I didn't believe, I didn't believe that she believed what she was saying. didn't in ah ah in a sense of like, I, you know, both those things you're talking about Dustin with like, Oh, she would say things. It was obvious that she was holding things back. It felt like her performance to me felt so giving away all of the information so easily.

00:20:38

Killer Kyle

to a point like um and I don't want to be too harsh here, but ah ah whatever, like a high school play style. Like someone who's just like, oh, I get to be this character and yada, yada, yada. And I'm going to do this like overly affected stuff. like it It just was so hard for me to to watch that with all the other stuff that was going on. And you guys mentioned the scenes with Houston.

00:21:01

Killer Kyle

you know

00:21:03

Killer Kyle

It takes a lot for me for a movie to kind of give me everything and still deliver. And I'm thinking a movie that that room that did that effectively would be like Midsommar, like truly giving you everything and then delivering.

00:21:21

Killer Kyle

I don't know if you've seen it, Dustin. I don't know if you've seen it, Alex.

00:21:24

Alex

I have.

00:21:25

Killer Kyle

Yeah. but Yeah, I just like all those all those moments where I'm supposed to be interested because the movie is is the movie's going along and there's little bits of information being dropped that I'm supposed to be interested in. As soon as Houston's on the screen, I'm like, oh, this guy's obviously the devil. You know what I mean? like it's just it just there's this scene These things just seem very clear to me with the information that I was being given on screen. yeah and

00:21:55

Killer Kyle

I don't know, just like just even like the salt water, you know, bad for grass stuff was like that type of I don't know, and it didn't not going to and i like i didn't I didn't foresee them being sister and mother, daughter, whatever. you know like That weird connection, I'm not saying that I saw through this movie like ah like a pane of glass, but there's there was nothing, that no piece of information that was given to me during this that I was like, oh, now I'm like, i'm i'm like you like you said, Dustin, like you were sort of losing interest and then it pulled you back in. like I never had those moments. And some of the more interesting

00:22:36

Killer Kyle

scenes, I guess, for me, are really any scene where you're getting completely decontextualized information, almost like, you know, a la like a rear window, where you're just seeing things happening with no sound.

00:22:46

Killer Kyle

And so it's all left to your mind to kind of fill in those gaps, which can be very alluring as a viewer. Just that, that like voyeurism.

00:22:55

Alex

some of those investigation detective scenes. I think that Dustin was talking about being compelling. Were you just watching, you know, Jake go about his work?

00:23:05

Killer Kyle

Yeah, and i that and like i i did I did find that sort of interesting and almost like you're watching a documentary but aspect kind of thing of of that stuff, the the watch stuff is cool.

00:23:18

Killer Kyle

and And yeah, I mean just the dedication to the craft.

00:23:19

Alex

What's interesting Yeah what what jumped out to me Kyle is you know everything you were talking about with Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Mulray is that there's definitely a falseness to her performance that I interpreted as inherent to the character of Evelyn and for me like really worked and really tied back to who she is and what she's trying to do where she you know is trying to come across as this uber confident

Diving into Five Easy Pieces

00:23:53

Alex

You know again kind of femme fatale but she's really a terrified victim so I think that like that high school play acting impression that that you got for me that was kind of deeply rooted in her her character.

00:24:08

Alex

But I could see like how you know that that wouldn't work or that wouldn't feel authentic in the moment as you're watching her, especially when i Jake is someone who, you know for all of his faults and the fact that he doesn't really see the big picture, is very sure of who he is and you know kind of And he's grappling with the morality of what he's doing, but he he thinks he's honorable. He defends himself. you know He sticks up for himself in that scene at the barber shop, and he lashes out at that guy for you know implying that he's you know doing doing slimy things, which he is to a degree. but

00:24:51

Alex

Yeah, that that is kind of how I read Dunaway's performance is that like, that facade and that falseness was, you know, her trying and failing to mask kind of her her trauma.

00:24:55

dustinzick

Thank you.

00:25:06

Killer Kyle

Yeah. and i And I see that, which is why I kind of like really hesitate to be like, I think these are i think these are conscious choices. right I don't think that that much is happening here without Polanski's direction and like his touch and his desire to create what we saw. and I don't think he was i don't think you i don't think you I think he accomplished his goal. I also think like you know and we can we could talk about this at the end, but I'm pretty sure I picked what I picked for the next tranche of movies because I really wanted to see some female characters that had any kind of like so so i don't know strength is not necessarily the word.

00:25:43

Killer Kyle

but

00:25:44

Alex

agency, maybe?

00:25:44

Killer Kyle

yeah it's just a Yeah, agency. I guess it was just like, you know, for for like Faye Dunbar's character, and this is me rewriting the movie, which is not criticism. For me, it's like, if I am creating that character, she breaks for sure at some point. And that's a big moment. But in order to keep that level of to keep that kind of lie going, that it's such a high profile type of place in a high profile family with all those things. I just think you'd have to be so much more rigid and precise and all that stuff and not be so easily, I don't know, broken, swayed, moved, affected by by certain things. Again, maybe maybe it's all just she's trying to

00:26:33

Killer Kyle

trying to have this come out in some way, but I don't know. It just, I mean, I also think it's noir, right? I do think it is the genre for me as well. Like her character is, that's kind of a lot of what you're looking for and that the way that information is given, the way that it unfolds is true to the project.

00:26:44

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:26:51

Killer Kyle

And so this is one of those movies where I can be like, yeah, you know, I i always kind of

00:26:54

dustinzick

It's Chinatown.

00:26:56

Killer Kyle

Yeah, exactly. The goal feels accomplished. I just like i i just never i never gave a shit. you know and i think that

00:27:09

dustinzick

Did you did you like LA confidential?

00:27:12

Killer Kyle

Yes, because in l LA continent,

00:27:14

dustinzick

I mean, I feel like there there's there's more going on there for sure.

00:27:18

Killer Kyle

There is, but what there isn't, in my opinion, in this movie, and I'm just like off the rip, like talking about Alejandro versus his movie, Guy Pearce's character, there's no there's no corollary to Guy Pearce's character in this movie.

00:27:34

Killer Kyle

There's no, and i don't need I don't need like a moral hero in every movie, you know, to whatever, but I guess I guess i sometimes struggle with movies where I don't feel like there's anyone to root for.

00:27:34

dustinzick

Oh, yeah.

00:27:45

dustinzick

Yeah. got Five easy pieces.

00:27:46

Killer Kyle

and, and I'm just kind of a long, yeah, we'll get into that too.

00:27:49

Alex

Yeah.

00:27:51

Killer Kyle

Yeah. Yeah. ah He's a modern player. Yes. it's just it's So it's it's just challenging when there's no one to root for in this complete, mucked up world where there very is very little redemption.

00:28:04

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:28:07

Killer Kyle

And you're just like at the end of it, you know, it's Chinatown. I guess we'll just move on. yeah And also, I have

00:28:12

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:28:15

Killer Kyle

And I just struggled with Los Angeles. like I don't like Los Angeles as a place. And so the the obsession that that movie makers have with it, for good reason, obviously, and kind of how l LA can be this thing that can give movies power because of the hype machine of LA. you know As much as I did like it, you know I think about something like La La Land, where movement directors like making movies about Hollywood.

00:28:43

Killer Kyle

I mean, it's like, it's a thing, you know what I mean? And so, and not that this is about Hollywood, but it's it's you know it it Los Angeles.

00:28:47

dustinzick

it's interesting yeah It's interesting to me that that you've like that you're expressing that Disdain for la for lack of a better word. Not that I just I mean I Not that it's not an opinion. You're you're totally entitled to have but I would argue that like I agree With like I don't find it la Or present modern day or recent modern day la to be a particularly compelling Set or background or or you know environment for film but I guess

00:29:29

dustinzick

From an N of 3, I would say that I think like early turn of the century of the 20th century l LA to me is compelling.

00:29:38

Alex

That's what I said.

00:30:05

dustinzick

ah

00:30:07

dustinzick

But I also do like I don't I also don't find like New York to be like I don't like I don't like mobster movies that much and like New York in the 1920s and 30s. I don't find super interesting. I think what l LA is more compelling to me about it is like in that time frame is that it is this bridge between urban and rural much more than you get on anything on the East Coast in that time frame and uh I think this movie in particular like portrayed that really well of it developing LA I mean the water thing being a huge thought point in it alone like I just felt like that environment to me and in the last few years I'm coming around to realize like oh but yeah like there's it's kind of like a blind spot to me in terms of understanding

00:30:48

Alex

Right.

00:31:00

dustinzick

I'm sure there are a lot of blind spots in US history for me, but in more recent US history, pre-industrial LA is is still an interesting set piece for me. and But I totally can like empathize with the fact, I mean, going back to comparing this to LA Confidential, not that they're, I mean, all the storylines in LA Confidential I think ultimately intersect, but there are different, there's multiple leads in that movie.

00:31:29

dustinzick

And so you you have these different narratives that if

Ranking Nicholson's Performances and Previewing Next Episode

00:31:33

dustinzick

one's not doing it for you, there's two or three other opportunities to hook into it and get interested. And then those paths kind of intersect or whatnot.

00:31:38

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

00:31:41

dustinzick

Here, if it's not a central narrative, it's the narrative. And if that story, that mystery is not compelling to you, this movie is going to be a slog.

00:31:51

Alex

It

00:31:51

Killer Kyle

long It's a long movie too if you're not if you're not like really, yeah.

00:31:53

dustinzick

you Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and and that's where we talked.

00:31:56

Alex

is.

00:31:58

dustinzick

I mean, a little bit earlier, like nor in general, like it it moves. It's it moves that like if you're lucky, three quarters of like normal pace is what it feels like.

00:32:07

Alex

Yeah.

00:32:08

dustinzick

And so I feel like by and large, like, yeah, I could argue that this movie you could have trimmed quite a bit fat off of this if you really wanted to. And like probably wouldn't work today.

00:32:20

dustinzick

I will say I'm curious.

00:32:22

Alex

But then you would lose those scenes that you really liked Dustin, like of him with the watch, and that you were even saying you you appreciated Kyle was those you know kind of dialogue-less scenes of just watching the action unfold.

00:32:26

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:32:36

Alex

I think i think you do lose something by having a more heavily edited version of this story where you don't get to follow along on those those steps.

00:32:46

Alex

and I do want to jump in on the LA part of the conversation real quick and say that I I agree with LA being played out as a movie setting and kind of the navel-gazy, you know, fetishization, for lack of a better word, that Hollywood often does when it's setting movies in LA. I really liked how, again, that was undercut here with LA being kind of this, again, it's it's smoke and mirrors. It's this kind of, you know, city built on a desert,

00:33:21

Alex

where they're manufacturing this water crisis to exploit farmers out of their land and then sell it for a profit. like I thought that that bit of satire was kind of a fresh take on, you know to use your example, Kyle, the the La La Land Hollywood.

00:33:39

Alex

And in terms of this being pre-industrial, I thought there was a really nice visual texture to all the different locations we go to where we've got the CD office scenes, we've got kind of the mahogany of Mulre and the other engineers like Office. You've got the orange groves where everything's really lush when Jake goes out to confront those those farmers And yeah, it takes a while getting there, but we do end in Chinatown and we do end with that like very classic, you know, neon.

00:34:16

Alex

nighttime cityscape. So i think I think it uses the LA setting in really interesting ways. And I think thematically it subverts kind of the you know the myth and the allure of LA to a really cynical place where it's like, no, this is all corruption and deceit and despair. And it's cyclical, like the same shit that happened to Jake when he was a cop and he was powerless to do anything.

00:34:44

Alex

in chinatown happens at the end of the movie and you know as famous as that line is like forget it jake it's chinatown i think my favorite moment in the ending is when he kinda whispers to ask about where he like mumbles like as little as possible.

00:35:03

Alex

You know implying like that's what you do if you're a beat cop in chinatown as you do literally as little as possible to not disrupt the status quo and that's why escobar freaks the fuck out and kind of you know goes to attack him is cuz he he really hits the nerve.

00:35:20

Alex

But, yeah, I kind of jumped from talking about the setting to talking about the ending there. But, you know, those are things I think I appreciated about how it played with Hollywood and how it takes you to all these different different places. Dustin, you were saying that the ending like is when this really locked in for you and kind of brought the picture together. Is that what was your experience with that kind of very famous last, you know, five, 10 minutes, Kyle?

00:35:50

Killer Kyle

I guess by by that time, I'm so far out of it because i the the scene where he where he kind of confronts him and he's got the glasses and there's nothing to be done. and like that From that all the way to the end, I'm I'm just, I'm i just, I'm just, at that point, I mean, truly, I'm just wanting it to be over because it's, and you know I don't.

00:36:19

Killer Kyle

so much then it smashed at the end and I don't know they're just shooting at her and then they get her and the daughter's sister is screaming in that way that's just so what I'm talking about that's turning me off I mean so in truth is I don't like it yeah

00:36:42

Killer Kyle

and There is no satisfaction on any level. and i mean Maybe that's the point. Maybe that's part of the point. you know I don't think i think that certainly is.

00:36:54

Killer Kyle

but Yeah, I mean, I guess at that point, like I said, I have no one to root for. I'm not rooting for anyone in this in this story.

00:37:00

dustinzick

yeah

00:37:01

Killer Kyle

And so I don't really care what happens to anyone. And he's Houston is so creepy at the end with how he's behaving that it's just like so utterly distasteful.

00:37:06

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:37:15

dustinzick

It's almost I feel like you you came to like the the same Concla conclusion is not the right word but like the same resolution and you're like emotional resolution to this film as like Alex and I did but for like a completely different reason and like disconnected like Yeah, like I mean not because like we well we enjoyed the material very much and like ah ah enjoyed the film and felt completely gutted in like a

00:37:15

Killer Kyle

And

00:37:48

dustinzick

just miserable at the end like you you also felt miserable at the end but like for like a like a complete opposite reason kind of a thing you know

00:37:51

Alex

Yeah.

00:37:53

Killer Kyle

Mm hmm.

00:37:56

Alex

Right. to great Very different experiences, even though we ended up emotionally at similar places.

00:38:01

dustinzick

Yeah and and I mean again like the rationale like the the pathway to get to those emotions drastically different path so like different iterations of that emotion but it's just kind of funny to me that like yeah like this is this is not a feel-good movie you think I mean if if you if you're invested in it as I was like

00:38:02

Alex

That's really funny.

00:38:16

Killer Kyle

No.

00:38:22

dustinzick

It seems like there's going to be a maybe not a positive end, but like a somewhat hopeful end. And the opposite direction it goes is like literally like the worst possible scenario between they done away dying, her sister, daughter, conceivably going back with her father, grandfather.

00:38:44

Alex

grandfather, yeah.

00:38:46

dustinzick

And like Jake not having you know any sort of resolution that he had like tried to move the Pieces on the chessboard to make happen and stuff and so like yeah I just think that's funny to me that like yeah like you were equally miserable But for a completely different reason because he just like did not feel connected or interested or engaged in with it so your misery really just came from the experience of having to watch it for this podcast.

00:39:15

Killer Kyle

I mean, yeah, and it's it's it's good to it's good to you know it's good to it's good to push your boundaries. It's good to see things. And I don't want people to come away thinking I hate every movie about LA because it's about LA.

00:39:26

dustinzick

no but i I mean, it seems like.

00:39:26

Killer Kyle

It's obviously you know not the case. But there's there's times when i there's there's there's there's times when it feels like it's used as a background

00:39:31

dustinzick

Go ahead, sorry.

00:39:40

Killer Kyle

as a way to just kind of raise the floor. right like Very similar to how New York is used.

00:39:45

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:39:46

Killer Kyle

I don't want to say New York isn't used this way as well.

00:39:47

Alex

There.

00:39:48

Killer Kyle

I totally agree with you. but you know And and like mob I agree with you on like mobster movies and that whole thing. like there's it's got to be It's very specific for me.

00:40:00

Killer Kyle

And this is going way off off to the left. But like and what I want from some of these some of these genres, like when you're talking about undercutting stuff, Alex, and kind of subverting things and re-imagining, but still sticking true to a lot of the stuff that it's re-imagining at the same time.

00:40:17

Alex

Sure.

00:40:19

Killer Kyle

I think about like a mobster movie like Road to Perdition, and Do either you see Road to Perdition?

00:40:23

dustinzick

That's when I got a revisit. I saw it 20, 20 some years ago.

00:40:25

Alex

I have to say that.

00:40:27

Killer Kyle

it's a much it's Yeah, it's a mobster movie that like, you know, they're all connected to some city. But none of it takes place in any place that's like, oh, this place is cool.

00:40:40

dustinzick

Hmm.

00:40:40

Killer Kyle

You know what I mean? and And even it's not even like taking place in New York adjacent in New Jersey, like the Sopranos does like it's so It's so like country and and out there and and like old. Yeah, I don't know. But that's that's the kind of thing that... so So there's so much going... I love that movie. There's so much going on there, but it takes like what could have very easily been a story done in kind of a traditional mob city.

00:41:05

Killer Kyle

And it it does go there. But like to in a traditional mob city, that's kind of what I feel like l LA does for a lot of these people is like, oh, well, if it takes place in LA, I mean, I lived in New York and I know the actual feeling of walking around in New York being like, oh, I guess what I'm doing is more important because I'm here.

00:41:25

Killer Kyle

And ah it's this it's this it's this it's this juice that the city has, which is why people go there and try to find themselves and think they do and all that stuff. And LA has the same juice. Chicago has the same juice. like People go there and like you feel because you're on like the heartbeat or the pulse of of society or humanity or America or the world in some of those places.

00:41:46

Killer Kyle

like that things are more important because they happen there. So anyway, that's kind of what I feel like sometimes people use l LA as, whether it's intently used that way or that Roman Polanski loved LA. But it is interesting, we both got to the to the same place.

00:42:05

Killer Kyle

when when it's all said and done. And I'm glad that I like saw it through and watched it all because I always, I don't like having such strong opinions about things that I haven't finished.

00:42:10

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:42:15

Killer Kyle

I kind of, you know, I mean, exactly, exactly.

00:42:15

dustinzick

say Why you hate it so much? I don't know. I never finished it.

00:42:20

Alex

I saw 30 minutes and I shut it off.

00:42:21

Killer Kyle

Like there's the, the ability to like, just push through so that I can lay this, this spiteful stuff.

00:42:28

dustinzick

Confidently say.

00:42:30

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

00:42:30

dustinzick

Well, I'm sure there's stuff too. I mean, i I can't think of them off the top of my head, but I'm sure I have a ah ah short list of movies that I struggled with. And once I finally either A, finished them from start to finish or B, like, revisited it 15 years later, I'm like, actually, no, I really do enjoy this kind of a thing.

00:42:49

Killer Kyle

Mm hmm.

00:43:11

Alex

All right, well, speaking of emotional journeys with with movies, let's keep going backwards in time from 75 with, or sorry, 74 with Chinatown. We're gonna go ahead in time to 75 with a Cuckoo's Nest.

00:43:30

Alex

one flew over to Cuckoo's nest, and Nicholson as the character of Randall McMurphy And I first saw this in high school. And while this time that I saw Chinatown scenes really stuck with me, I was surprised by how clearly and distinctly I remembered so much of this movie. And I don't know if it's because it's become such a big part of pop culture, but yeah, I just remembered all these key bits, the

00:44:07

Alex

you know, McMurphy fighting with Nurse Ratchet about the the baseball game, you know, the big spoilers for a 50-year-old movie, but the big kind of gut punch at the end with Brad Durb's character getting suicide, i you know, Chief taking the water fountain and busting through that wall and kind of, you know,

00:44:33

Alex

finding his freedom after smothering, McMurphy, all that I just remembered clear as day, even though it's been like, you know, 20 years since I've seen this movie. And Nicholson's performance here.

00:44:51

Alex

i is such a strong anchor. He's got that manic energy that he would turn up to 11 in The Shining. He's got that same sly smugness that he plays perfectly in Five Easy Pieces. you know He's got that that kind of too-cool-per-school charisma that you see in Chinatown.

00:45:13

Alex

But yeah, you know it deserves all the accolades it got. I think it won like all five major Academy Awards, Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay. And yeah, I i think, you know, it's it's a it's a great movie that I really enjoyed, as emotionally devastating as it was. Would love to hear kind of what your experiences were with One Floor by the Cuckoo's Nest this time. Dustin, what did you think?

00:45:46

dustinzick

You know, I like I said ah at the start, I first saw this probably in high school with my dad and I remember being like profoundly like not touched by it, but like the intensity of it and it like

00:46:04

dustinzick

feeling very emotional in like the narrative and stuff. And I feel like maybe I didn't feel that quite as much this time, which I'm fine with. I watched it with my wife who like largely did not enjoy it.

00:46:19

dustinzick

because she just didn't find it like as we've talked about like didn't find anyone to be particularly likable and rootable and like to that extent I had no recollection of like the crime that McMurphy did to land him in this position and so finding out that it was like rape kind of You know like initially soured me and specifically the way he talks about it with the doctor at the beginning kind of like soured me on his character in a way that I don't recall it doing the first time. But I mean I guess the other thing that I'll

00:47:02

dustinzick

note that I feel of this is my second time seeing it is like not that Nurse Ratched is not a villain. She very clearly is the villain here and not that she isn't villainous. I think in particular when she tells at the end Billy bread doors character, ah ah you know when she makes the comment about like what will your mom think like she knows that's gonna trigger him I don't think she Knew that it was gonna trigger him to end his life per se but like she did not have to say that like that was not germane to Solving the situation that they were in and and that was clearly a malicious kind of move on her behalf, but like Ultimately

00:47:49

Alex

Thank you.

00:47:52

dustinzick

there's a an angle I feel like to look at that character and I don't think that's the the the intent of the writer and director and the author of the story is to look at this character this way but like if you try and look at the situation through her eyes I think it's a lot easier than I remembered, and not to say it's super easy, but easier than I remembered to kind of like understand where she's coming from to a certain extent, or to like not to to to see how she justifies the decisions that she makes.

00:48:26

dustinzick

and and so like I thought that was kind of an interesting layer that I digested watching at this time and that like in my internal narrative Having watched this for the first and only time 20 some years ago. I was like, oh she's like a raging bitch in this entire movie and like clearly is you know, maybe not screaming but is like going toe to toe with him and like like Bringing that same energy and she does not I mean she's largely like pretty calm cool and collected Arguably like sociopathic in some ways but like I think it's

00:49:04

dustinzick

I came in with it you know expecting her to be like matching his energy from what I misremembered and like watching it this time. i'm like no like i i mean like I don't find her character empathetic or anything, but I find it like oh like yeah like, you can tell that she thinks she's doing the right thing to a certain extent. And then I think at the very end with Billy is when that elevates to her being just malicious for the sake of being malicious.

00:49:37

Alex

Right. I mean, that's when the, that's when the switch gets flipped kind of into more full on villainous performance. But I think I had a very, very close experience.

00:49:47

Alex

And I think it's what makes it such a great performance. And what makes Nurse Ratched a great villain is that she is, you know, emotionally regulated. She is mostly in control of her, you know, her, her emotions and her delivery.

00:49:59

Killer Kyle

Thank you.

00:50:02

Alex

And she even exudes you know, what could be perceived as warmth or a compassion in certain scenes.

00:50:08

dustinzick

one

00:50:09

Alex

And there are little cues in the performance, like, you know, I always kept thinking about the the actress who plays her, why am I blanking on her name?

00:50:16

dustinzick

Luis Fletcher.

00:50:21

Alex

Louise Fletcher. She does such great work with her eyes, where, you know, even when she's like kind of saying things calmly or poorly,

00:50:29

Killer Kyle

especially when she's getting strangled.

00:50:32

Alex

Yeah, especially when she's getting strangled. But even in like those scenes where she's leading therapy sessions, there's like this vague twinkle of kind of malicious glee. And I think that's where like the banality of evil kind of comes in with her character because like,

00:50:48

Alex

she's clearly enjoying like exerting her control over these people, you know and clearly kind of enjoying pushing their buttons. And you know even if it's under the pretext of, you know I am doing this because it's what's best for you, and I know best to like help with your mental health care, you know that little twinkle of malicious glee in her eyes, you know is very subtle, but I think it's just dialed in enough to make her you know one of the all-time villains that people are still talking about.

00:51:23

dustinzick

Oh for sure.

00:51:25

Killer Kyle

Yeah, I mean, this this movie, I don't remember when the first time I saw it, I've seen it countless times because it really tapped into and still does. I haven't seen it. I i probably haven't hadn't seen it in a decade. But it really tapped into when I was younger, my big anger at the world and the control that it exerts on you and then the removal through lobotomization of a McMurphy's, you know, mind at the end and the the whole, like the lines he says about like, yeah, she's a fucking cunt and you know, she, they she likes a rigged game.

00:52:03

Killer Kyle

That all that, all that interplay and all that desire for control and

00:52:04

Alex

Mm hmm.

00:52:09

Killer Kyle

you know, the the closing of the vote before Murphy had been able to do it, just all these little things where she, and yeah, the the line she says to to Billy at the end, which is totally unnecessary, and also like the line she says to him in the therapy session when they're all having some kind of connection and she brings it back down like, oh yeah, isn't that the first time you tried to kill yourself, Billy?

00:52:32

Killer Kyle

And it's just like, gu deep come on, stop, you know?

00:52:33

Alex

Yeah. she She's provoking provoking a response. She wants to trigger and push that button.

00:52:38

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

00:52:41

Killer Kyle

Yeah, and I mean, it is it is difficult to look back on the things that were done and this for the with the idea of mental health, but a little bit more at the idea of like control, which is a very difficult line.

00:52:55

Killer Kyle

It's a very blurred line and knowing the intentions and stuff with what we were trying back then is like difficult to watch.

00:52:57

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

00:53:02

Killer Kyle

But this movie makes me... so viscerally angry about, and i for me the the moment that always, I'm like upset thinking about it, for me the moment that always really brings that home is when McMurphy finds out that most of the people in there are in there voluntarily.

00:53:09

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

00:53:30

Alex

Yeah.

00:53:31

Killer Kyle

And ah I I can remember the first time, and all those side characters are amazing. like there is There is not a weak performance in this thing, I feel like.

00:53:37

dustinzick

Oh, yeah.

00:53:43

Alex

No.

00:53:44

Killer Kyle

just All those side characters are amazing. I love the scene on the boat where he doesn't call Harding a doctor. He's calling everyone else a doctor, just just you know just like those little things. And yeah, it taps into, and I think it you know it really, what's interesting is how much the movie is, I've appreciated it and I guess enjoyed is the word, but like, watched so many times. I've never actually read the book by Ken Kesey, which is maybe something I should do.

00:54:14

Killer Kyle

but Yeah, it just makes me so angry for, for and I think it's a movie, it's it's one of the rare movies that I can watch and feel like.

00:54:25

Killer Kyle

I can tap into a little bit as much as is possible through art when you have not lived through a time period. The feeling of a time period, the feeling of you know when this movie came out and the things when you think about the end of the 60s and into the 70s and we're now in the mid 70s and like getting closer to the 80s and like there's Just that the the loss of of everything, you know everything we're we're out there, we're having fun, we're doing crazy shit. you know we're and i mean I totally agree with you on on on like watching watching this movie when I was 20 and hearing him talk about why he was going in before 20 years ago. right

00:55:12

Killer Kyle

before all the things about just the level of horrific shit that has happened to women in the i mean forever, but like more recently, it only gets worse and more damning as as I get older.

00:55:26

Killer Kyle

that that not Not that it wasn't ever, but like it just continues, the volume on that continues to go up every time I see it.

00:55:26

Alex

Yeah.

00:55:33

Killer Kyle

and Like I said, I think I saw it last time, I was probably in 30-ish, And so yeah, there isn't there isn't too many characters to root for, although I will say Chief is is kind of a character to root for, but it's a difficult character to root for because he is muted for most of it, right?

00:55:44

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:55:50

Killer Kyle

Like it's not like you're getting us necessarily all that much. And so i i and I totally get how, but I think it it for me it really captures

00:55:54

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:56:01

Killer Kyle

the angst, and oddly enough, through a character who was not young in many respects, but like the angst of being young and controlled by things that you don't necessarily agree with.

00:56:13

Killer Kyle

that other The other scene that really gets me, similar to the one of him finding out that everyone is in there voluntarily, is when he's like, oh, I just got to deal with this for like 68 days.

00:56:25

Killer Kyle

And the warden, or one of the orderlies,

00:56:25

dustinzick

hu that Yeah.

00:56:29

Killer Kyle

is just like, oh no, nope, we have you for as long as we want.

00:56:29

Alex

Yeah.

00:56:32

dustinzick

Yeah.

00:56:33

Killer Kyle

And so there's, and I, there is like a, I am, I mean, in a, in a very fantastical sense, I am like rooting for Ms. Ratchet, Nurse Ratchet to die at the end.

00:56:44

Killer Kyle

Like I want him, I am just like, yes, get her, get her.

00:56:48

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

00:56:49

Killer Kyle

And yeah, and just, I mean, I just, I want, I do want like, yeah, just burn the whole thing down. It's so cool, man.

00:56:57

dustinzick

It's it's But the brilliance in that moment when he's in the pool and the order and he makes that comment about you know I've got 68 days or whatever is it hits two notes, right? Like it gives you that that hopeless feeling that he's feeling in that moment of like fuck I can't get out of here and then also it underscores how incompetent he is as a person, that he put himself in this situation and had no kind concept of like what it meant. right like That he made the choices he did to make the legal system think that he was insane or mentally incompetent, that they put him in this place.

00:57:46

dustinzick

but had no concept of like what that meant logistically for his legal situation and predicament until that moment, which is wild.

00:57:53

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

00:57:56

dustinzick

like it's just it's It's such an interesting choice to have a character like that who makes decisions that are so reprehensible and sloppy and incompetent and then also be like your you protagonist and your quote-unquote hero.

00:58:19

dustinzick

I want to point out, so after I watched this, I was like curious about the book and did some digging on like the characters in the book and i and and typically how I choose. like I'm not ah ah not a big like novel reader. I'm a voracious reader, but like articles and news stories and and Wikipedia.

00:58:40

dustinzick

And a lot of times what I choose like for my own like headcanon with movies and TV shows is like if it's based on a book or another medium, and and the movie adapts these characters from the book, but it doesn't change part of their their backstory from the book, but it maybe just doesn't explain it.

00:59:01

dustinzick

then I still think that their backstory is canon. and There was two characters that I found profoundly sad in terms of what their backstory was based on the blurbs Wikipedia talks about in in the book that aren't portrayed in the movie, but there's nothing in the movie that's portrayed to the contrary. so I choose to believe this is still canon. and and The first one is Bancini. He's one of the chronics who who was not self-committed.

00:59:27

dustinzick

in the institution on his own accord. He's the one that in the beginning when ah ah when they're playing basketball on the court that Nicholson climbs on his shoulders and the description on Bancini and what is wrong with him is that Bancini had brain damage at birth but managed to hold down simple jobs such as a switch operator on a lightly used railroad branch line until the switches were automated and he lost his job after which he was institutionalized.

00:59:36

Alex

Right.

00:59:56

dustinzick

Now that's heartbreaking enough. The chief because the chief is like the narrator in the book Uh, the chief remembers how once and only once he lashed up violently against the aids telling the other parents that he was a living miscarriage born dead Uh, and that was like I was like, holy shit like and how he's portrayed in the movie is like not a goofball, but like just kind of like

01:00:01

Killer Kyle

Mm hmm.

01:00:21

dustinzick

a weird guy like but because like it's always talking about one thing and that's it and then the background on the chief He's really fascinating. And to your point, Kyle, if this had been better, or not better, but like had been implemented in the film, then he would truly be like the one person you want to root for.

01:00:41

dustinzick

So he's been in the mental hospital since the end of World War II.

01:00:42

Killer Kyle

Mm hmm.

01:00:46

dustinzick

He's presumed by staff and patients alike to be deaf and mute. And through this guise has become privy to many of the word's dirtiest secrets. As a young man, the chief was a high school football star, a college student, and a war hero.

01:00:57

dustinzick

After seeing his father, a Native American chieftain humiliated at the hands of the U.S. government and his wife, his white wife, Chief Bromden descends into clinical depression and begins hallucinating.

01:01:10

dustinzick

Soon he is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He believes society is controlled by a large mechanized system, which he calls the combine. So there's there's like enough layers in that background that makes me want to like read the book and understand more of his character.

01:01:23

dustinzick

But even some of the context of like

01:01:24

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

01:01:27

dustinzick

Because we never get an indication of like why he's there or any of that. And and really, I mean... and i I feel like deliberately so, like once he reveals to Nicholson that he is not mute and that he can speak, he seems like the sanest person there, right?

01:01:42

Alex

right

01:01:49

dustinzick

In some ways, you could argue that Nicholson's character is like the most insane person because of how stupid he is and the fact that he thought this was the right decision for him to like get out of his legal problems

01:01:50

Alex

Right.

01:02:02

Alex

Right. The choices he makes that end him up here.

01:02:06

dustinzick

Yeah are like indicative and in a much ah like a much more sick person than some of the people that are in there so like I yeah, I think that it's just That's there's so many layers to this that make it I mean yeah i'm even feeling like talking about it more with you guys Not that I like disliked it on the second viewing but like like I said before it like it wasn't as quite as profound to me But talking through it more i'm like no actually like it really is like it's just a fucked up story and like he's again I mean somewhat as a theme in these three movies but Nicholson is like this character is not supposed to be likable uh it's it's not demonstrating a likable character in a likable system kind of a thing but it's using this

01:02:56

dustinzick

intensely unlikable person to show a momentously flawed system and broken system that is under the oppressive thumb of a sociopath in Nurse Ratched, which we fully realized by the end of the movie. the The last piece I'll say there is that like you could argue in Headcanon that you know ratchet was In her mind.

01:03:28

dustinzick

I mean she conceivably knows why he's there, right? Like she's got to have access to that information of what he's doing in there and why he What his crime he committed and stuff and so maybe she rationalized the

01:03:36

Killer Kyle

Mm hmm.

01:03:42

dustinzick

lobotomy by the combination of how disruptive he was to the lives of the other patients, but also like the crime that he committed. and and knowing i mean She's smart enough to know that he's but he thought he was getting a good deal by going into the institution versus into prison.

01:04:03

Alex

Sure.

01:04:04

dustinzick

and so it is it's

01:04:05

Alex

I mean, that's one of the points the movie's making, right? It's that like institutional punishment is kind of indistinguishable from the way that we used to treat mental health conditions. Like, you know, it it doesn't it doesn't matter if he is mentally ill or a threat to the state in the eyes of the system that seeks to, you know, subdue him either way.

01:04:29

dustinzick

Yeah, I mean, it's truly like a textbook example of a catch-22, right? Like by him pretending he's insane, that he needs to be in this institution versus in prison, ultimately is an insane thing to do. And so oh like, I mean, it's kind of like a reverse catch-22 or something.

01:04:53

dustinzick

I feel like I've talked a lot here but I think it's just it's it's really interesting to just think of of like the

01:04:55

Killer Kyle

Very good.

01:05:03

dustinzick

Yeah, I don't know of just how fucking stupid his character is across the board and all of his all of his decisions, because most of I mean, as evident by the fact that once he learns that he is not getting out in 68 days, he like tries to like I mean, he ultimately can't bring himself to do it, but like he tries to get in line because he suddenly realizes that it's it's not just a matter of a clicking like a ticking clock before he leaves.

01:05:06

Alex

Yeah.

01:05:31

dustinzick

Nurse ratchet has to sign off on it and he's done everything in his power to like make her life miserable And so he's suddenly like fuck like I can't I can't unring this bell.

01:05:42

dustinzick

So like It's just yeah, I don't know. I find it interesting the other thing I find interesting about this movie I like it my wife and I were trying to like talk about it a little bit after is like um I mean like I I think the simple answer is like you could not make this today because there's not a

01:05:58

Killer Kyle

Mm.

01:06:00

dustinzick

A, there's not a equivalent system. I mean, systems in place for the mentally ill are still immensely flawed and broken. But you could not portray that today. And then I feel like if you tried to portray how it was 50 years ago in the 60s or 70s, you would also be running into, like,

01:06:25

dustinzick

political correctness and things like that. and like it's it's It's always interesting when I watch movies like this that are highly regarded like kind of cultural touch points and I am always like asking myself the internal question of like

01:06:28

Killer Kyle

Yeah.

01:06:41

dustinzick

Why hasn't someone remade this or tried to remake it?

01:06:44

Alex

Right.

01:06:45

dustinzick

and not Again, not that I think it needs to be remade, but it just seems like Hollywood today is so you know quick to just like do reboots and re reimaginings of stuff.

01:06:58

dustinzick

It's interesting to look back at a movie like this and kind of hypothesize of like but kind like why something that is is widely regarded as a classic and and a great story, how come it hasn't been revisited? and I think the answer for this one is maybe easier than some other films, given the subject matter and the environment that it shows and things like that.

01:07:19

Alex

Yeah, and I think it's deeply rooted in the 70s counterculture in kind of a similar way as Five Easy Pieces is where you can read like, you know, it works on a metaphorical level where, you know, this institution and this oppression that's being, you know, exhibited on these these patients is kind of, you know, a metaphor for 70s.

01:07:21

Killer Kyle

And.

01:07:48

Alex

you know, civil civil unrest and kind of just the counterculture that rose in in response to that. And one thing you kept going back to, Justin, it's interesting is kind of the un unlikeability of McMurphy. And I think that's a feature of this movie, not a bug. And one thing that makes it really compelling is that that tension, that huge contradiction between McMurphy as the statutory rapist who exhibits violence against women who like, you know, throttles and nearly kills Nurse Ratchet, however much she might deserve it at that point.

01:08:28

Alex

And McMurphy is like the lovable rapscallion who like you know shakes things up and takes these you know these patients and and shows them that life is worth living. like I think there are two very different dimensions to his his character that you know, even even if it doesn't make him likable, I think he brings enough charisma in those scenes where he's, you know, taking him fishing, even when he's bringing the the prostitutes in at the very end and kind of they're all getting drunk, like, you know, there's enough like kind of cheeky, you know, revelry to like to soften you just enough to his his character.

01:09:16

dustinzick

Yeah, well, and he does it

01:09:16

Killer Kyle

Well, there's a little bit in in McMurphy as well with what you're saying there, Alex. It's like that period of time and that loss of, I don't necessarily want to say innocence in the 60s, but like that loss of pure enlightenment, that loss of enlightenment, I guess you could say in the 60s or whatever, perceived enlightenment, and then getting back into

01:09:37

Alex

Right.

01:09:42

Killer Kyle

you know, fucking getting back to Vietnam and like getting back into all and like that that period of time in the early 70s to the mid 70s and then into the 80s where it's just like cocaine and and business and I mean, you know, a whole different set of set of rules. There's a little bit to me and McMurphy's character in this in this movie in the story. That's like, oh, you don't get any more White Knights.

01:10:06

Killer Kyle

you don't get any more heroes. you want you want to you want You want enlightenment again, you're going to have to get dirty. You know what I mean? like You look at Billy, who isn't necessarily a paragon of enlightenment or anything, but like he's the innocent character in a lot of ways in this in this story.

01:10:14

dustinzick

Mmhmm.

01:10:16

Alex

Right.

01:10:22

Alex

Yeah, there's a parody to him.

01:10:22

Killer Kyle

and And he gets his moment of becoming in a lot of ways, from McMurphy bringing in these friends who are, you know, hookers, prostitutes, loose women, whatever you want to call it.

01:10:38

Killer Kyle

Or as they would, you know, saying, lonesome dubs, sporting women. And ah yeah, I, that to me, that to me is something interesting that there's like, you know, and then even the orderly that's like, Oh, yeah, you guys can come in, let's have a good time tonight.

01:10:52

Killer Kyle

Let's party down.

01:10:53

dustinzick

Scatman Cruthers.

01:10:54

Killer Kyle

There's a little bit of like, yeah,

01:10:54

Alex

Mm-hmm. Yes, and then freaking cruthers, man.

01:10:58

Killer Kyle

There's a little bit of you have to, yeah, you don't get any more white nights. This is who's going to bring you.

01:11:05

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:11:05

Killer Kyle

This is who you're going to have to follow to get to the other side of whatever this is. and and even and And that even is reflected in like the Harding and McMurphy relationship of like this person who's extremely resistant to this character and what he's bringing, even though he's there voluntarily. And even though he's like, yeah, but I see you know this like trying to live and and have an exciting yeah relationship to being alive, what what that kind of character can can tease out of people and what it says about the current state of the world at that time and how people were feeling.

01:11:41

dustinzick

I think the I mean, my last note here, too, to like just kind of amplify what you just said, Kyle, is like I think. And to maybe course correct from my lamenting on how unlikable Mike Murphy is as a character, like what what Nicholson does so exceptionally well here is you you you're introduced to him and you learn the worst thing you can about him, why he's in prison. And it's not like you robbed a bank or or you know.

01:12:09

dustinzick

Did something That didn't harm someone it was truly like one of the more detestable things you can do But then the rest of the movie He I don't want to I mean he he does enough to make you root for him uh, and if you're not rooting for him you're at least like like supportive of him because like when he takes all the guys on the boat cruise like when he hijacks the bus like I thought he was going to escape like he could have easily just like walked off and probably gotten caught down the line or whatever. But like instead, he like is like, no, like these are my friends. I want to take them out on a boat like you don't do that if with with these people that have mental illnesses and stuff unless you genuinely like enjoyed their company or at least some of their company and things like that. Or at the end, when he's ah ah he is about to escape,

01:13:04

dustinzick

But then he has the opportunity to to help billy Get laid and and to him is ah a positive kind of a thing.

01:13:09

Alex

Right.

01:13:13

dustinzick

So he he stays And truly walks away from his opportunity to escape at the end ultimately to his his Downfall but like those are moments where you're like, no like he's maybe it's it's not necessarily redemption but he's like he's he's a good guy in that context and like For me, like watching it as evident by the fact that I did not remember what he did as a crime, and I had in my head assumed he had robbed a bank or something like that. is He's charismatic enough as an actor playing that role that you're like, yeah, like I support him. like Yeah, fuck Nurse Ratchet. like

01:13:54

dustinzick

Yeah, like you should want to be able to watch a fucking baseball game Why can't you watch a fucking baseball game like all of that stuff is is Nicholson like?

01:13:58

Alex

Mm hmm.

01:14:03

dustinzick

pitch perfect performance that makes you root for him and in the him delivering on these beats that like kind of just underscores that, yeah, you should be rooting for this guy because he, to some extent, you know, however, misaligned and and poorly executed, like cares about these other guys in here and wants to do well by them.

01:14:24

dustinzick

It's not just about fucking the system and fucking with Nurse Ratched.

01:14:24

Alex

Sure.

01:14:29

dustinzick

Like there's some degree of it where he has empathy and affection for his fellow residents of the asylum that he wants to support them kind of a thing.

01:14:41

Alex

And there's always like that tension where even when he's doing things that are, you know, again, like to to help them come out of their shells, to have a good time, giving like hard liquor to people who are severely medicated and could have like serious fucking complications like that's very much like reckless endangerment so you know i think it's never it's never purely like black and white whether it's you know the good nature of humanity shading out the statutory rape or like the kind of reckless choices he makes were like.

01:15:09

dustinzick

Mhm.

01:15:18

Alex

Is he showing them how to live and is he showing them to like perceive life outside of the institutionalization that they've been committed to? Yeah, but he's also like, you know, there is a degree of risk that he's exposing them to, that, you know, Nurse Ratched through all of her evilness, you know, some of that desire for control in her mind, I think is to protect them from from those things.

01:15:32

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:15:42

dustinzick

Yeah, but it's like it's not like for him at least I don't interpret it as like malicious exposure to that risk like that's just his That's just the groove in life the level at which he lives at and that's to him.

01:15:49

Alex

No, no, definitely not.

01:15:56

Alex

Right.

01:15:56

dustinzick

What is a good life and he wants to expose Yeah,

01:16:00

Alex

He wants them to ride that that wave with him. Exactly.

01:16:04

dustinzick

yeah, which is severely flawed and totally wrong and like morally like Unideal, which as we as the viewers see and conceive, but the fact that he's trying to impact upon these individuals what he finds as positives in life, however negative it ultimately may be to them, it makes you think like feel like, oh, like he's again, it's hard, like the easy thing to say is, oh, he's a good guy. I don't i never felt like he's a good guy, but like I felt like he was genuine.

01:16:40

dustinzick

Right. Like he was doing these things genuinely, not just to fuck with people besides Nurse Ratched.

01:16:40

Alex

yeah

01:16:48

dustinzick

And I think that's what makes it so compelling.

01:16:48

Alex

Yes.

01:16:50

dustinzick

It's like why you're able, why I was able at least to like still be invested in what he's doing as a character, despite I know how despicable and stupid he is, is ultimately he seems to care about these other people.

01:17:05

Alex

Right.

01:17:05

dustinzick

That might be a good go ahead.

01:17:05

Alex

And mix it. Yeah, no, and just makes it so heartbreaking what ultimately happens to him at the end, like you wouldn't, you wouldn't have that tragedy and that pathos of, you know, the lobotomy and chief putting him out of his misery without the sense that like, he really does care and he really is a genuine guy.

01:17:26

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:17:28

Alex

And maybe that's a good pivot point to

01:17:31

Alex

a character who is fundamentally incapable of being genuine in any way and is terrified of genuine emotion. And we can talk about Five Easy Pieces and Bobby de Pee. And this movie got on my radar because One of my good friends, shout out to MC, recommended this movie a while back. So that's one of his favorites. And I was not really aware of its cultural impact or just status in you know in film film history.

01:18:10

Alex

And i I really, really love this movie. It felt like I was reading a great ah ah great short story. And it felt like a really complete and robust character study of Bobby Depey, this you know a former childhood piano prodigy who goes on to basically be a restless kind of drifter in

01:18:37

Alex

a California oil field and what his homecoming is like and you know him him reconciling with these different parts of himself and Yeah, maybe we can start with kind of that beginning section of the movie that takes place in California, where you're just kind of a fly on the wall for his life, where he's going through his blue collar job, where he's, you know, spending time with his his girlfriend, Rayette, played by Karen Black, and

01:19:14

Alex

Yeah, he's immediately characterized as not a good dude. know He's belittling and shitty to Rayette at the bowling alley when he like kind of insults her. you know he's

01:19:27

Killer Kyle

He's truly awful. He's truly awful.

01:19:29

Alex

Yeah, he's he's a total piece of shit to her like from the get-go.

01:19:29

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:19:34

Alex

You're not really given a chance to you know empathize or identify with him before like you know there's that scene in the car where he's berating her and she is kind of, you know, tears streaming down her face talking about committing suicide and you're like, wow. and the way that the movie slowly kind of peels back the onion to reveal that like there is some interiority there and there is like, you know, a human being behind like that shitty behavior.

01:20:09

Alex

Yeah, I just I dug the the journey this movie took me on. Even if I do ultimately find Bobby to be pretty, pretty detestable human being. Yeah, I would love to get into kind of what what you guys thought of this as as a character study.

01:20:26

Killer Kyle

I hated this movie from the beginning until the last shot and the last shot was incredible and well executed, dramatic, i'm amazing, amazing. I was shocked after watching this movie to read that anyone had liked it.

01:20:43

Killer Kyle

um I was shocked to read that it was a part of some new Hollywood movement.

01:20:46

dustinzick

Wow.

01:20:50

Killer Kyle

I read through a bunch of reviews talking about it as this ode to alienation and i yeah like the character study and all this stuff.

01:21:03

Killer Kyle

i This is a movie that um i don't know I don't know how often I've had this experience with a movie. i was watch I watched this movie with a friend, thank goodness, because I don't know how if I would have been able to watch it if we weren't together. And it's ah it's a friend that I like watch movies with and weird movies and good movies, but also like out there movies, push boundary movies. And we were both, multiple times, turning each other during and being like, what?

01:21:35

Killer Kyle

are we watching right now? what is What are we supposed to be getting from this? what like why what What is the pacing? The pacing felt so fast and for the first time in my life, i we were watching And I turn to him and I'm like, how much longer is in this movie? Because there needs to be like seven hours more for me to understand this person and like the depth and why I should care and why I shouldn't just pigeonhole him as a horrible human being. I don't care about the past. The past that I'm so that i'm showed is not redeeming at all.

01:22:14

Killer Kyle

is the way he deals with Rayette and his family is so reprehensible and unforgivable, no matter where he comes from, that I don't care about his plight.

01:22:22

dustinzick

Ha ha ha.

01:22:27

Killer Kyle

And so we're like, how much longer is in this movie? I hope a long time. And we pause it to see how much time is left. And we're like an hour and 26 minutes in, and it's going to be over in like 30 seconds.

01:22:39

Killer Kyle

And we look at each other and we go, what the fuck? Are you talking about right now? This movie is over?

01:22:46

dustinzick

Wait, so where were you were you at like when they left the house?

01:22:50

Killer Kyle

Yes, yeah before they before they get to the gas station.

01:22:50

dustinzick

If there's, okay.

01:22:53

dustinzick

Okay.

01:22:54

Killer Kyle

And I just had the the conversation with the dad, who doesn't say anything.

01:22:59

Killer Kyle

and Yeah, it was, you know, and for me, the scene, the scene where this movie lost the ability to redeem this character in any way, not that it's even trying to do that.

01:23:10

Killer Kyle

And I don't want to say that it's trying to do that, because it is not trying to do that at all.

01:23:12

dustinzick

No, it's not at all, no.

01:23:14

Alex

No.

01:23:15

Killer Kyle

But humanize.

01:23:16

dustinzick

I do think it's trying to, and i'll I'll talk about this more in a second, humanize it, but I do feel like part of why I liked it is because I feel like is that there was multiple points where you're like, oh, he's going to maybe not fully redeem himself, but he's going to turn a corner here and he never fucking does.

01:23:36

Alex

Yeah.

01:23:36

Killer Kyle

Yeah, you're interested.

01:23:37

dustinzick

And that's deliberate.

01:23:37

Killer Kyle

Yeah, you're. Yeah, for sure.

01:23:40

dustinzick

Go ahead.

01:23:41

Killer Kyle

Again, a movie that accomplished its goal, I think. ah yeah, like the scene for me where the I'm, I'm, I'm just kind of lost, right?

01:23:51

Killer Kyle

I can I'm, I'm, I'm along for the ride in the first part with the blue collar stuff and the, you know, the playing the piano and the on the truck bed and all like all that stuff in this relationship he has with this other guy who's like, just kind of happy with his kid and his wife and We go bowling and it's totally fine.

01:24:06

Killer Kyle

This is just what it is. The scene where he is talking to that character, who I cannot remember his name, about having potentially knocked up Rayette and just going to bail on it, and that character

01:24:18

dustinzick

Elton is the same.

01:24:20

Killer Kyle

Elton, that character essentially being like, yeah, that would be a really shitty thing to do. And I don't know how I feel about a person that did that type of thing.

01:24:31

Killer Kyle

And that, Jack Nicholson's character, amazing acting performance, incredible by Nicholson, just amazing from top to bottom.

01:24:38

dustinzick

Mhm.

01:24:39

Alex

Mm-hmm Yeah

01:24:41

Killer Kyle

ah there's the whole The whole movie. But his this character's response to that is so detestable.

01:24:47

dustinzick

Oh yeah.

01:24:47

Killer Kyle

that I just don't fucking care about him anymore. And I'm not interested in his character study.

01:24:51

dustinzick

Oh yeah.

01:24:53

Killer Kyle

I'm not interested in his background. You have soured yourself beyond any, I don't need you to be redeemed. I just need to care about watching your story unfold. And I need to care about learning about your complexity.

01:25:07

Killer Kyle

And that response was so simple. of like, well, yeah, well, fuck you. And just trying to run away from it that I was like, no, because if you want me to be interested in a character's complexity, I need more complexity.

01:25:26

Killer Kyle

And, and, and yeah.

01:25:26

Alex

that's so funny because I'm going to jump in real quick because that is the exact scene.

01:25:31

Killer Kyle

yeah

01:25:33

Alex

That's the exact moment that I locked into this as a character study because it was it was like the the shittiness of that response where you know Elton is basically like would that be so bad like you know if you if you like had a kid and like had this life and his just revulsion and like disgust and fear is like this cocktail that happens instantly and then he lashes out because he is just He's the biggest coward imaginable, and he is so scared of like that stagnation that that would imply. and he like you know He wants to be this blue collar guy, but he has such you know deep resentments.

01:26:20

Alex

and like you know kind of thinly veiled disgust for for these people in their lifestyles and that's the moment for me where the mask comes off and you know he's not able to hide that he's just kind of an elitist arrogant jerk who i think she's better than you know than these people And that's that's so interesting because that's the exact scene in moment where I was like, I want to know, I want to know what made this guy this shitty. I want to know like where this fear comes from. And like, you know, what could lead him to like, have such a visceral reaction to like, you know, basically, at this point, like a friend showing him humanity and being like,

01:27:04

Alex

that wouldn't be so bad like you know to have this lifestyle and he you know just reacts with revulsion.

01:27:11

dustinzick

yeah

01:27:12

Killer Kyle

Yeah, and I mean, one thing just before you jump in, that when you said there about like, the mask being removed, and he thinks he's bad, like, I don't get anything from this character that he thinks he's better than other people, he just hates himself, and he's trying to like, cover it up.

01:27:12

dustinzick

i think

01:27:35

Killer Kyle

So for me, that would If I had had that reading of it, I wouldn't be like a little bit more tuned in, but yeah, it just, no, it was just so, yeah, I don't know, it was just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm curious, Dustin, what do you got?

01:27:46

Alex

No, that's totally valid.

01:27:51

dustinzick

Well, no, yeah.

01:27:51

Killer Kyle

Because you you never seen this either, like me. And has none of us seen this movie before?

01:27:55

Alex

No, this was a blind spot for all three of us.

01:27:56

Killer Kyle

No. Blind spot for all of us.

01:27:58

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:27:58

Killer Kyle

Okay, okay.

01:27:59

dustinzick

And I mean, for me, at least like a huge like not just a blind spot and like, oh, that's on my list. Like I had no concept or idea of like what this movie was or anything. I mean, I when I think of.

01:28:13

dustinzick

Something I started doing, like, you know how on Letterboxd you can review a movie, like, one half stars, one to five stars, but you can also heart it? Like, I've started hearting a movie, liking a movie, if it's a movie that I would rewatch, like, revisit. And this is one that I gave four and a half stars and I did not like it. Like, I do not have any desire to rewatch this movie because it is a miserable, miserable movie.

01:28:42

dustinzick

and And that's part of why I liked it so much. like it's It's the kind of movie where if someone came to me and said, I'm thinking of watching Five Easy Pieces, should I watch it? I'd say absolutely. If it's something that popped up on your radar and you think you want to watch it, you should absolutely watch it.

01:28:58

dustinzick

If someone came to me and said, hey, do you want to recommend a movie to me? Like, I would not recommend this movie to you because yeah you have to like kind of want to see it yourself.

01:29:03

Alex

Right.

01:29:06

dustinzick

And then I think you're at least hooked enough into it where it might be interesting. But I think part of for me why I love this so much is because.

01:29:17

dustinzick

ah ah Because of Nicholson's performance, he's like so charismatic, especially at this stage in his career when he's young and like For me, it was like exciting to see him in his youngest role, like I don't like just being kind of like youthful and whatnot. But then everything he does is like miserable and detestable. And like I was saying before, there's there's a couple different moments where and it's nothing super bold where he like saves a

01:29:49

dustinzick

dog from getting hit by a car or rescues a kid that's drowning or something like that's like, oh, like this is his redemption arc or anything. But there's there's moments here and there where you're like, oh, like when you see him, when he goes in and sees his sister when she's recording the the classical music thing.

01:30:09

dustinzick

like That's kind of like, like oh, he has like a positive-ish relationship with her. Also, the actress that plays his sister is Helen Hunt's aunt from Twister.

01:30:14

Alex

Right.

01:30:19

dustinzick

Fun fact for you.

01:30:19

Killer Kyle

Yep.

01:30:20

Killer Kyle

I pegged that immediately. She walked on screen and my buddy was like, who is that?

01:30:24

Alex

Yeah.

01:30:24

Killer Kyle

And I was like, that is the mom from Twister. And he was like, holy shit.

01:30:28

dustinzick

Yep, yep.

01:30:29

Alex

She is also the creepy the creepy plant lady from minority report is where I clock.

01:30:33

Killer Kyle

From Minority Report as well, yes.

01:30:33

dustinzick

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

01:30:35

Alex

Yeah.

01:30:35

dustinzick

Yeah. But there's that moment. I think that the other huge one is is towards the end when all the like the annoying intellectual lady is is blabbing on about some intellectual bullshit and like Ray is trying.

01:30:53

Alex

Right. And he sticks up a rayette.

01:30:56

dustinzick

well You well he you think he's sticking up for rayette and then pretty quickly you realize like oh no like he just fucking hates them all and And wasn't really like he wasn't interesting in defending rayette.

01:31:04

Alex

Right.

01:31:08

dustinzick

He was just fucking sick of that lady's bullshit It could have just as easily been anyone else in the room that said that and he would have had the same reaction It wasn't about rayette, but like that was the moment initially where it's like oh, yeah like okay like he does care about it He does no he doesn't like it's very quickly.

01:31:24

Alex

Right. And to Kyle's point, I think he also hates himself and he sees himself in that lady's monologue.

01:31:28

dustinzick

Yes, yes absolutely. And so like I just thought it was intro like I don't. Without Nicholson in his performance like this movie would have been fucking miserable I mean it was miserable like truly miserable unwatchable miserable to me but like he like I like Nicholson enough that like I think he's gonna turn a corner somehow and maybe not fully redeem himself in the course of the movie narrative, but like at least you know inch in the right direction and you yeah like ah ah another note of that is at the end when he leaves and he leaves with a rayette and

01:32:06

dustinzick

who knows like they drive off into the sunset whatever but no he fucking abandons her at the goddamn gas station like truly the darkest fucking shit to do as a human being and to me like yeah and like in in that's you know it's one thing to like get her home and then leave her

01:32:14

Alex

the abandoned dirt.

01:32:21

Killer Kyle

Mmm, especially her.

01:32:32

dustinzick

But like the way he did that and the fact, I mean, the fact that you could tell when he got in the car and the truck driver was like, don't you have a coat? And he was like, no, it burned up. And the driver's like, oh, I got a coat behind the seat. You can grab that. And he's like, no, I'm fine. And then he says I'm fine like seven times. Like you can see something, some gear moving in his head of like the fact that he like doesn't know what he's doing. and And not that he's terrified, but like he just truly is like listless in the most miserable way. like This movie made me feel better about all of my boring life decisions and that I actually was willing to make decisions in my life.

01:33:19

dustinzick

and like yeah, I think why I enjoyed this Again, not a movie like maybe in seven or eight years if somebody I enjoy the company of wants to revisit this I will but like I have no No interest in like sitting down by myself and watching this again Because it it truly made me like like a detestable character uh, who was I don't want to say a joy to watch, but was fascinating to watch because of how Nicholson portrayed him.

01:33:48

dustinzick

And like like I said, there was enough of those moments where I was like, oh, he's going to do something like, not even redeemable, but likable.

01:33:49

Alex

Yeah.

01:33:56

dustinzick

like Oh, he's going to be likable for a split second. And then he never is. Anything he does that you think is like decent is either a means to a different end of his own like aimless direction or like it's almost like he catches himself mid likable action. And it's like, actually, that's not being a dick enough. Let me pivot how I'm like responding to this person to be an asshole again, kind of a thing. I mean, even the shit like I would argue like the most likable thing he does, but it also just speaks to how aimless his character is and how like he's incapable of like analyzing a situation and like making a rational choice is right after he gets in that fight with Elton about getting ray ah pregnant.

01:34:45

dustinzick

And then he goes and tells the foreman that he's quitting, which I love the foreman's like non like nonplussed response of like,

01:34:53

Alex

Yeah, he doesn't give a shit.

01:34:54

dustinzick

I'm happy the two you get out of here or whatever. But then Elton's getting arrested by cops and he like Bobby just runs and starts beating up the cops without digesting what's happening at all.

01:35:06

dustinzick

And Elton even tells him, like, don't waste your time. They've got the right to do what they're doing.

01:35:12

Alex

Yeah.

01:35:12

dustinzick

It speaks to like how he's incapable of making a logical choice or an educated choice. But that moment's probably like the most altruistic in that moment because he's like trying to defend his friend, but he doesn't even know why. like It just kind of speaks to his character's like inability to think a single step ahead and in his life decision-making process.

01:35:41

dustinzick

Uh, I, the last thing I'll say is that I think it is also like a brilliant kind of narrative choice to like, you, you see how miserable he is as a person, how shitty he treats Ray at, how much he looks down upon the friends he associates with in that, that whole beginning, uh, first act kind of thing.

01:36:01

Alex

Mm-hmm

01:36:03

dustinzick

And then he goes home and you expect to his home life to be miserable or like there to be this unveiling of like and and not that there wasn't I mean maybe there maybe he was abused as dad maybe I missed some sort of subtext there or whatever but like his sister's nice his brother is affable enough like his dad is mute and whatnot but like his home life doesn't seem like it was arguably that traumatizing And it just like kind of underscores of like how miserable of a person he is.

01:36:39

dustinzick

The fact that it's not like he came from squalor or that he came from like this miserable place at home.

01:36:44

Alex

Right.

01:36:47

dustinzick

It's just that like, no, he just like it's a shit human. And like every decision he makes serves to underscore and impress upon you as the viewer of like, do not like this person.

01:36:52

Alex

Yeah

01:36:59

dustinzick

You will not root for this person. But for me, I'm like compelled to watch this person be a shit human because it's Jack Nicholson turning in an amazing performance.

01:37:11

Alex

Yeah, i I totally agree with that. And i think I think you do get enough elements of, you know, there's no like unlocking of some trauma that caused him to be a shit heel. But I think you get enough clues for like, what he's afraid of and what he's running from, where There's the scene where he's playing Chopin for Catherine on the piano, and the camera's like panning over these photographs of all of his like family members and relatives, and they're all like musical prodigies. and It's like multiple generations you know of of photos. and

01:37:55

Alex

That comes back later when he's having that conversation with with his dad, the the monologue he has with his dad, and where he's like, you know, I'm afraid of auspicious beginnings. You know, I think he's so terrified of being like stagnant, of being stuck in one place or of being like, you know, fitted into a box that was preordained for him. Like, you know, when you're that talented, that young, like,

01:38:23

Alex

you know there's kind of an arc and a trajectory to your life where it's totally mapped out. like you know He could have stayed in you know the Puget Sound in Washington with his siblings and like continued to live a ritzy life and be you know a piano master. But I think for him, he's so scared of like having that future predetermined that he just sabotages anything and everything.

01:38:52

Alex

and always has to always has to keep moving at at no expense. And I saw this movie probably probably three to four weeks ago at this point, and just on the subject of Nicholson's performance, I can't fucking stop thinking about that single tear that he squeezes out during that monologue, and how like precise of an acting moment it is, and how like well calibrated it is, because I often One of my preconceptions about Nicholson coming into this is that he's someone who you know always plays some version of himself and kind of has this natural energy and charisma that you know kim can overshadow the individual character he's playing, whereas

01:39:40

Alex

Bobby Depey is just such a finely tuned performance. You know, he is playing this role like an instrument. And yeah, it's it's a it's a small thing. And like, you know, I know crying on command isn't it like a Herculean feat for an actor, but there's something that's just so precise about that tear that he squeezes out that I yeah, I can't stop thinking about that moment.

01:40:07

dustinzick

we're all thinking about that moment right now

01:40:09

Alex

Yeah.

01:40:13

Alex

Well, maybe this is the good.

01:40:13

dustinzick

so so

01:40:15

Alex

do Do you guys have any other thoughts you want to share before we do our our rankings and wrap up?

01:40:15

dustinzick

really i

01:40:20

dustinzick

I just want to ask, so Kyle, I'll say that like I think in our text conversations, I was totally caught off guard tonight in hearing how much you hated Chinatown because when I texted and said like Chinatown was like fucking awesome, you responded and said, we should start a list of movies where Dustin and I agree on them.

01:40:33

Killer Kyle

Mm-hmm.

01:40:35

Alex

Same.

01:40:44

dustinzick

And I thought that was you affirming that you agreed on Chinatown.

01:40:46

Killer Kyle

ha I know, I know it was.

01:40:47

Alex

Same, same.

01:40:50

Killer Kyle

I know it was. I know it was. I know it was.

01:40:52

dustinzick

It's

01:40:53

Alex

That was a good red herring, sir.

01:40:53

Killer Kyle

as soon as As soon as you said that, as soon as you said that, I knew it. I was like, oh, they're they're both going to think. They're both going to think, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:41:02

Alex

very Very fitting misdirect.

01:41:02

Killer Kyle

Yeah, yeah. But then I was like, I'm going to lay in the cut. I'm going to lay in the cut.

01:41:07

dustinzick

That threw me off, but I'm curious with this one. like I get the impression from you very clearly that like this is what that you're like me and that like you have no desire to rewatch five easy pieces.

01:41:22

Killer Kyle

correct

01:41:24

dustinzick

But you were saying earlier that like that you you thought the ending was phenomenal and that you thought Nicholson's performance throughout the whole movie was was phenomenal. So like if you had to rate this on a scale of one to five, like what would you rate it as?

01:41:42

Killer Kyle

Correct No, I mean probably probably a three

01:41:42

dustinzick

Or if that's too hard to answer, what was that?

01:41:47

dustinzick

OK, like would are you? Are you?

01:41:50

dustinzick

Are you glad you watched it?

01:41:53

Killer Kyle

No.

01:41:54

dustinzick

OK, OK, fair.

01:41:56

Alex

I respect that.

01:41:57

dustinzick

Yeah, fair.

01:41:58

Killer Kyle

Yeah, there's there are some movies that I don't like or that I don't respond to that have similar Not similar, they're not really similar at all to this movie, but movies that I... There's there's a there's many there are there's there's many ways i come i come out of I come out of watching movies, but maybe that there's like there's like five buckets that a lot of them fall into. And that's like, absolutely loved it. Can't stop talking about it. like Loved it, but I'm not talking about it kind of in the middle, just like, yeah, that was good, fine, liked it.

01:42:32

Killer Kyle

hated it and then hated it in a way where I want to keep talking about it.

01:42:39

dustinzick

Uh huh.

01:42:39

Killer Kyle

And hated it in a way where I want to keep talking about it can sometimes completely change into actually loving it and and not being able to stop talking about it.

01:42:48

dustinzick

Uh huh.

01:42:51

Killer Kyle

And two movies like this for me were The Tree of like our tree of Life. Uh, with, with Pitt and Penn and all that tree of life.

01:42:58

Alex

Nice.

01:43:00

Killer Kyle

I came out of that movie, hated it so much. And then was, I had like a two and a half hour conversation in the parking lot with my friend about it. And then kind of, kind of, you know, kind of changed my, my whole feeling on it.

01:43:14

Killer Kyle

And another one of recent, it would be cloud Alice. where I were, yeah.

01:43:18

dustinzick

Okay, interesting. I haven't seen either of those.

01:43:21

Killer Kyle

Oh, interesting. Um, well, we'll get, we'll get to it. but, uh, but yeah, no, I, this is not a movie that I felt, yeah, nope, but the a simple answer to your question is like, no, I'm not like happy. I watched it. I don't think, uh, you know, and, and why, you know, something I acting is amazing and it can, it can draw me in and they can give me enough to go on and to really ah ah enjoy. but.

01:43:52

Killer Kyle

shots interesting shots do more for me when it comes to the I'm happy I watched it and that last shot

01:43:57

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

01:44:06

Killer Kyle

with how it's so far out. And for the most part in this movie, we've been right on people's faces. We have been right real close.

01:44:13

Alex

Yeah, real close.

01:44:13

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:44:16

Killer Kyle

And so that that shot where they're way out there and she's walking around and she's she's yet to figure it out and the sound of that truck going away, which is a sound we all know extremely well of ah of of a big diesel truck, like going away from you on on a highway. And that, yeah, that that to me was like what I want in movie making. And I can love acting, but it usually is not enough for me

01:44:54

Killer Kyle

to be like that full picture in.

01:44:59

Killer Kyle

And so yeah, I just, and that that's something I felt with Chinatown as well. Like I didn't, there wasn't enough camera work that I thought was interesting. None of it was bad, but there wasn't enough camera work that I thought was interesting to really draw me in.

01:45:08

dustinzick

Mm hmm.

01:45:10

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:45:16

Killer Kyle

um um And yeah, yeah.

01:45:20

Alex

Now, well said.

01:45:21

dustinzick

OK. Well, let's do our let's do our proper rankings here.

01:45:26

Alex

Yeah, absolutely. and

01:45:26

dustinzick

Alex, why don't you kick us off?

01:45:28

Alex

Yeah, so i I think it could be fun to do our rankings, you know, least favorite to favorite three, two, one, but also my favorite Nicholson performances are different than my favorite of these three movies. So I'm going to do both of those. So, for example,

01:45:47

Alex

my My least favorite of these was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I still still really, really enjoyed. Five Easy Pieces is number two, and Chinatown is number one.

01:46:00

Alex

In terms of Nicholson performances, I would say Chinatown was my least favorite performance, followed by Cuckoo's Nest, and then Five Easy Pieces was was my favorite.

01:46:12

Alex

What about you guys, Dustin?

01:46:13

dustinzick

Thank you. I think I'd probably agree with that, that that exact same order, like because you put Chinatown for the movie at one, right?

01:46:24

Alex

I did.

01:46:25

dustinzick

Yeah, I'm sorry, you said that like 20 seconds ago. It's like, yeah, I think that I found like the story wise, like and in some ways, like Chinatown is the the movie that I'm like most interested in revisiting and that for me feels like

01:46:43

dustinzick

the most that that maybe almost gets better with age in a way. like And Kookoo's Nest, to me, feels the one that age is the worst for for fairly obvious reasons. And then you know Five Easy Pieces, story-wise, I think fits in the middle for me there. But performance-wise, yeah, Nicholson's performance in Five Easy Pieces like trumps all the other ones.

01:47:13

dustinzick

There's so much more going on in those other two movies That rose to the same level of of interest as his performance Whereas like if you take him and his performance out of five easy pieces like that movie has nothing going for it whatsoever Like that that makes the movie makes or breaks the movie for me.

01:47:17

Alex

Right.

01:47:32

dustinzick

So yeah, I would at the risk of being Unoriginal copy your exact same ranking

01:47:40

Alex

Kyle, what about you?

01:47:42

Killer Kyle

yeah I got Cuckoo's Nest number one, that's my favorite performance of all of these. I have Chinatown number two, then I have Five Easy Pieces number three, but the Five Easy Pieces you know acting job is better than the Chinatown job.

01:47:57

Killer Kyle

I was actually thinking, and it's something that I obviously meant to say, but didn't earlier, when you were like, oh, you can't remake One Full of the Cougar's Nest anymore, which I totally agree with. I think it'd be very difficult. If you did, it would pretty much, I was thinking like, how would you actually do that if you were trying to get this tone in some way? and it would almost you'd almost have to be You'd have to be like in a cult.

01:48:19

Killer Kyle

You have to be like, Jack Nicholson would have to be like a new, his character would have to be like a new member in a cult that like stirs shit up. And you know what I mean? But you couldn't have it in this like, in this, anyway, that was the thought that I wanted to share because I was like, how would you do this? And that's kind of how I feel because you need this level of control and this level of closed offness and this level of like, people are there voluntarily, but anyway. So yeah, that's my ranking.

01:48:47

Killer Kyle

Yeah, i'm I'm happy I and can can say things about Chinatown now more effectively. i you know it's It's the point of the podcast to to push our boundaries, so yeah.

01:48:58

dustinzick

Yeah. Well, and like you said, like it's yeah it's easy. I'd much rather be able to like watch something all the way through and be able to like rationalize my dislike for something versus having like false started it multiple times.

01:49:12

dustinzick

I think we've all been there.

01:49:14

Alex

Right.

01:49:14

dustinzick

And and and as we talked about, like sometimes That restarting it and getting your way through can can alter your perception of it and things like that And maybe years down the line You might come around to these movies in some way like maybe you're just not old enough to be like you've got to be like a middle-aged man Uh to like really get into the the cinema nor And so you're gonna like hit 50 and all of a sudden you're gonna be like oh, I really like these old movies The old days kind of thing Yeah

01:49:42

Alex

I need more Humphrey Bogart in my life. Let's get into some shit.

01:49:44

dustinzick

yeah

01:49:45

Killer Kyle

Oh, man. Oh, man. I recently tried to watch Casablanca 2.

01:49:53

Killer Kyle

No. Yeah, well, we're going to switch it up next week. Next week, next episode, next recording.

01:50:01

Alex

Yeah, we got a little dark.

01:50:02

Killer Kyle

I'm going to try it. It's my pick, so I wanted to do... I mean, frankly, I needed a little pallet cleanser after this one, because I...

01:50:08

dustinzick

Oh for sure.

01:50:10

Killer Kyle

Yeah, I needed a little pallet cleanser.

01:50:10

Alex

for yeah it got a little dark

01:50:12

Killer Kyle

Yeah, well, that's why I wanted to go with Booksmart because Booksmart is a movie. it's So it's all female directors and, you know, not necessarily because of but like they do all happen to have a lot of strong female characters and female leads. So Booksmart by Wild, which I think can very easily be seen as just like the female super bad, but I would ah caution you against that viewing of it. And ah Little Women by Greta Gerwig because it's one I haven't seen in Greta Gerwig and I've really appreciated all that all that she's done. And so I'm curious about that one. That's a blind spot for me on her catalog. And then what is my third one?

01:50:52

Killer Kyle

No, little woman.

01:50:53

dustinzick

Promising young women.

01:50:53

Killer Kyle

It is. Promising Young Woman, yes.

01:50:55

Alex

Yes, promising young women.

01:50:57

dustinzick

Yeah.

01:50:57

Killer Kyle

With Jerry Mulligan. And yeah, movie I saw a while ago. Appreciated, good for a rewatch and good for like an interesting tone for for a film and all that.

01:51:08

Killer Kyle

but That's all I'll say. well We'll get to that next week.

01:51:11

dustinzick

All right.

01:51:11

Alex

Very much looking forward. This was great. Thanks for listening, y'all.

01:51:14

dustinzick

We'll see you guys next time.