by Bob (Jack Nicholson fan)
After my wife promised Something's Gotta Give was NOT a chick flick, I reluctantly agreed to go because I am Jack Nicholson's biggest fan. And I'm still in shock. Is THIS what my hero has descended to? Jack's solo scenes are good, but the rest is what happens when a nice little girl from Philadelphia, a former film story editor with modest successes (Private Benjamin, Indecent Proposal) persuades a studio to salt her screenplay with stars who deserved more. Please, please don't waste your time.
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| Re: Re: Nancy Meyers (Sun Jun 20, 2004 4:59am ET) | report post |
| by JP David
Yes, she is a veritable Mozart of the Qwerty keyboard, Nancy Meyers, when it comes to the art of screenwriting.
I wasn't too sure but that my ears were deceiving me, after the movie was over and the end titles were running--while for the score, that great song by Edith Piaf was being sung: I kept thinking, "I recognize that voice, but no--it can't be!" And yet it was--it really was Jack Nicholson singing "La Vie en Rose."
Granted, there is sure to be many a poor pitiable sad-sack sitting there right now even as we speak who was not able to catch the groove of *Something's Gotta Give*, but the question is--why? What's their problem? Is it that the obligatory suspension of disbelief cannot happen only because they have never found themselves in love and due to that inability to relate, they simply refuse to accept that falling in love really can get that manic, that mad, that comically wonderful for real people?
Maybe. Thirty to forty years ago such an explanation might well have been enough, relative to the people and culture of those times when a veritable slush-ball of purely dripping schmaltz like *The Sound of Music* stayed up in lights on the cinema marquee for nearly two years running. But those were also the times when *Guys and Dolls*, *Auntie Mame*, *Breakfast at Tiffany's*, *My Fair Lady*, *The Apartment*, *Gigi*, *Westside Story* and *Tom Jones* were breaking box office records right close behind. People were in love with love in those times, and in a much bigger way than we are seeing nowadays--can there be any question about it?
So, why in this day more than any other are we finding this upsurge in a culture of snide cynical jadedness that will not permit people to fall for the literary devices of Romantic idealism? What sad, dark, ugly thing creeping through the culture these days is it, that puts an experience of romantic ecstasy further and further out of touch for so many? Why are people, especially of the younger set finding it increasingly impossible to take this so easy, so exhilarating, so necessary romantic plunge in surrender of the intellect to the heart?
One of the finest musical elements of the score is a song by Paul Simon, one line of which goes something like, "You must first learn to fall, before you can find out how to fly."
So what's that tell you? The answer to the whole question is right there.
--
John http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/520b8/
"A Yuppie is someone who believes it's courageous to eat in a restaurant that hasn't been reviewed yet."
--Mort Sahl
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