Early '70s pretentious slop for the most part
Added 9/15/2009
Nicholson is a depressive, retrospective bore with a slick brother living in Atlantic City.
The movie starts off with a little promise, but ambles along like a bad rash, never really
going anywhere. It's a movie about losers finding themselves (or re-discovering themselves
with Dern and Nicholson) and going nowhere. I find most of the characters annoying, especially
Burstyn's. Waste of time.
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1 Star If You Like A Feel Good Movie, 5 Stars If You Like Tragedy
Added 3/15/2009
I must say about this movie that the acting, directing and production are five stars all the way with Jack Nicholson & Bruce Dern turning in unforgettable performances. The film moves along at a slow pace developing the characters intricately and providing a rather somber atmosphere, similar to 5 Easy Pieces. If you gravitate to tragic, disturbing stories then I think you'll find this movie to be outstanding. However, if you're looking for comedy or a feel good movie I think you'll be very dissappointed here. This movie is similar to 5 Easy pieces in its rather moody gloominess on the whole, but at least in the aforementioned there is some comedy and the ending is much easier on the viewer. The King Of Marvin Gardens however came across to me as tragedy for the sake of it...yes, many bad things happen in this world but when I watch a movie I want to forget about such things and enjoy a vacation from the crime on the news! At least in Easy Rider the journey is excellent and the tragic ending there makes a strong statement against prejudice and hatred. With this movie there really is nothing to learn other than people just go crazy sometimes, do terrible things and the rest of us shake our heads and move on...I was very shocked by the way this film ended, and not in a good way...furthermore I found the closing statement by Jack Nicholson's character to raise many very disturbing questions about what human beings may be capable of. So again, 5 stars for those who want to view a tragedy, 1 star for those who want a happy story...thus 3 stars overall.
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King of Marvin Gardens
Added 5/22/2008
This movie is a cult classic. Ellen Burstyn, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern and Julia Robinson star in this 1970's movie about two very different brothers and their relationship as well as their broken dreams and schemes. Ellen Burstyn said this is one of her favorite movies. Julia Robinson is stunningly beautiful.
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most under rateds film of all time.
Added 3/1/2008
Superb performances from Nicholson, Burstyn and Dern in particular (all oscar worthy in my opinion). Haunting DP work by the Late, great Lazlo Kovakz, a thoughtful, subtle script and Bob Rafelsons steady,silent directorial touches combine to make this perhaps the the best film of the 1970's (Godfather II and Armacord are possible contenders asewell). Think I'm over exaggerating? well I'm fully aware of the size of that statement and i stand by it. Thier is no film from that era that just gets that much better with each viewing, the newances of each performance and the depth of the brothers relationship (nicholson and Dern) growing more and more complex. i wrote a paper on this film for school thats how much i loved it. I reccomend it highly.
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King Jack
Added 1/23/2007
A over looked classic, all the cast act their socks off. Nicholson particularly is understated and so more effective. Failed dreams portrayed in a most moving fashion.
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Last Detail is a great little Nicholson flick from 1974. I said little, first, because it is a small on location film made when you could get a big studio to pay for a small, individuallized project. These were really "independant" films, before it was cool to be called an indie filmaker. Second, too few people know about Last Detail.
Jack Nicholson and Otis Young play two sailors assigned to take a third, younger seaman to Portsmith Millatary Prison. The crime: steeling forty dollars from a charity drive sponsered by a well connected officer. He got eight years.
Randy Quiad plays the prisoner, and he is a nice, quiet, troubled kid with no confidence and deep psychological problems that manifest as kelptomania. Nicholson befriends the kid, teaches him how to assert himself, gets him loaded and takes him to have sex with a hooker; his first time.
Painfully evident is this young man does not belong in jail for eight days, forget eight years. Yet Nicholson and Young are lifers, who will be ruined if the kid escapes by "accident."
The realism and naturalism are striking. The hooker here--Carol Kaye who later played Simka on Taxi-is cold as any New York hooker, not a comforting angel. She is damaged too and just wants to get payed. Nicholson and Young anguish over the inevitable--they know the kid is going to get eaten alive in jail--but they are not willing to throw their lives away. Warm guys who are parts of a cold machine; they too are stuck.
Set in winter, the locations are small, cold and claustrphobic. You feel the sad end coming throughout.
People act in Last Detail as they probably would in real life. No heros or villians. Made by the late Hal Ashby, this film has the greatness of Hollywood story and the immediacy of televison. Ashby had been an editor before he directed, worked on Norman Jewison's In The Heat Of The Night.
He is able to create quick, small scenes that make their point fast while retaining rich mileu and subtext. Young's charactor encounters offhand comments of idoits--he is black--but these exist in the real world Ashby creates, and are shown without grandiosidy. Watch the way he films a 1970s party, where liberals press the sailers about Vietnam and Nixon. These guys are not William Calley--just guys who had limited opportunity and are trying to survive, the Navy being one of the few viable options
I am only forty, but I remember seeing things like this as a kid and they felt just the way Ashby conveys them.
Brilliant film
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The Last Detail
Added 9/20/2009
One of Jack Nicholson's best performances, with incredibly good support from Otis Young and Randy Quaid. I was just a boy when I first saw this movie on a black and white television in my father's apartment, and it struck me then as something quite "real" in a way that other movies did not. As I grew up, my initial memory of "Bad [...]" and "Mule" transporting Seaman Meadows cross country to the brig did not fade, and in fact, after my own military service I came to feel that it was a very accurate portrayal of how "peacetime" military personnel are faced with atypical situations, and how they react to and overcome these incidents. Filming in winter along the East coast of the US gives the film a very bleak look, which reinforces the feelings of despair associated with watching a young man face an exteme punishment for a minor crime. Young's matter-of-fact "Mule" provides a perfect counterpoint to the explosive qualities of Nicholson's "Bad [...]," as the two men deal with trying to make the best of a "[...] detail." It's a good story, excellently written with believable dialogue and realistic portrayals by all involved. Nicholson was near his peak of excellence in this film; if you haven't seen it and you like Nicholson at all, it's a must see.
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Beautiful dialogue, Oscar worthy performances
Added 9/11/2009
In "The Last Detail" (1973) I keep thinking back to this wonderful scene, deep into the movie, when Mule (played by the wonderful Otis Young)takes Jack "[..]" Buddusky Nicholson to task for trying to show their young prisoner (Randy Quaid) a good time as they make their way up from Norfolk to Boston.
Both Mule and Buddusky are on the train and Mule is speaking sternly to Buddusky, at times yelling. As the lecture continues, there are shots of a forlorn Nicholson, then fade-outs and then more shots of Nicholson and more fadeouts. This was beautifully done. And while this was going on, there is mournful "Naval" brass music.
It hit me that throughout the movie there is this beautiful soundtrack of "navy" music (mainly brass and percussion) that sets the tone. Happy when the three get into a rollicking fight with marines, sad when they are taking Quaid to lockup. Exhilerating music when the three are walking to a new adventure.
(Can someone tell me how to get that soundtrack? It is golden. It is a stroke of genius to use that music in this movie.)
But back to the movie. "The Last Detail" begins in a grainy, gritty landscape. A faceless and sterile navy base. Sometime later, the movie changes into one in which production values are impressive. Softer focus, closer tighter shots. (Much like the beautiful movie "Local Hero" suddenly changes in tone and in visuals)
Essentially, Mule and Buddusky are taking Meadows (Quaid) to serve an eight-year prison sentence where, Buddusky makes note, Marine guards will beat up Meadows and break his spirit. "Maggot this, maggot that," Buddusky broods.
Meadows, it turns out, is from a dysfunctional family; has no friends. He has a compulsion to shoplift things he does not need, unlike the food he hungrily gobbles on the bus. He is clueless and naive and dog meat among strangers.
As they go north, Buddusky (with Mule's grudging acceptance) decides to show Meadows what he has missed so far: drinking, fighting, women, gambling and, especially, being part of a family.
When Meadows' handcuffs come off, it is symbolic of how the trio's dynamics have changed. The movie moves into a brighter landscape from then on.
Meadows and his two endearing guards accidentally walk into a cult meeting where they are chanting. (See cameos of the lovely Nancy Allen and Gilda Radner.) They are invited to a party because a woman in a bar notices Meadows chanting. He is later taken to a cat house where he pays a girl for her services. Twice. He drinks with his guards and has a good time. He is fed a cheesesteak and later floors a Marine with one punch.
Then realization sets in: Mule muses that instead of showing Meadows a good time, he and Buddusky will only make Meadows miserable for eight years for missing what he just was treated to.
Two lifers, Buddusky and Mule, show their hearts. They become temporary friends, then brothers, then fathers to Meadows.
If you have any kind of heart, the ending might bring you to your knees. Imagine surrendering your naive and frightened son to strangers who may or may not mistreat him for eight years.
"The Last Detail" is a gem. It's a salute to Nicholson's genius as a jerk who shows his heart like never before. Quaid was robbed of a best supporting actor Oscar. Nicholson of a best-actor Oscar. The movie was robbed of an Oscar.
And I was robbed of my tears and my breath at the ending.
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