Jack Nicholson is 75!

I have been awed by his sheer stage presence and power. Later I mistook him for the famous golfer Jack Nicklaus – my bad – and attributed a lot of mistaken greatness to him. But even devoid of this mistaken greatness, his kitty of greatness still is very large indeed. I ran into his ten best known lines from a Time tweet. I am compelled to quote them here.

Easy Rider, as George Hanson, 1969

THE LINE: “This used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.
”

Five Easy Pieces, as Robert Dupea, 1970

THE LINE: “I move around a lot, not because I’m looking for anything really, but ’cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.”

This line is my favorite as it explains a lot about me!

Chinatown, as Jake Gittes, 1974

THE LINE: “What can I tell you, kid? You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right, and you’re right.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as R.P. Mc Murphy, 1975

THE LINE: “I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.”

The Shining, as Jack Torrance, 1980

THE LINE: “Heeere’s Johnny!

Terms of Endearment, as Garrett Breedlove, 1983

THE LINE: “I don’t know what it is about you, but you do bring out the devil in me.”

Prizzi’s Honor, as Charley Partanna, 1985

THE LINE: “Do I ice her? Do I marry her?”

The Witches of Eastwick, as Daryl Van Horne, 1987

THE LINE: “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, then that’s how you feel about it. Is that how you feel about it?”

Batman, as the Joker, 1989

THE LINE: “Nice outfit.”

A Few Good Men,as Col. Nathan R. Jessup, 1992

THE LINE: “You can’t handle the truth!”

As Good as It Gets, as Melvin Udall, 1997

THE LINE: “You make me want to be a better man.”

About Schmidt, as Warren Schmidt, 2002

THE LINE: “I know we’re all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?”

The Departed, as Frank Costello, 2006

THE LINE: “When I was growing up, they would say you could become cops or criminals. But what I’m saying is this. When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?

 

Why I liked the Hunger Games movie?

This is the iconic picture of lead actress Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in the motion picture Hunger Games.

Time magazine article dated April 2, has a title question ‘Should you take your kid to the Hunger Games?’ And their answer is ‘qualified eh,’ meaning, yes, with conditions.

When I saw the movie, the first reaction was one of skepticism. The theme is one of reality show where a ‘game’ is officially organized for 24 young boys and girls, with the goal of killing off everyone except a lone survivor. The game is organized in the form of a reality TV show.

The points that jarred in my thinking were these.

Caesar Flickerman

Caesar Flickerman’s smarmy, and extremely effusive smile as he chats with potential killers on the TV show was a sticky point for me. Why is he smiling so much?

Imagine this BBC news:

Effervescent news anchor Karin Giannonne reads: “And I report here the killing of yet another 16 year old.” And if she were to pose as above, I would imagine she would lose her job immediately for impropriety.

Why is Caesar portrayed as smiling or LOL and still being perceived as a good TV anchor?

And why are the kids and their parents not even protesting?

Why is there no legal redress? Are there no courts? Where is the human rights commission?

Where are all the rules and justice system of the world? All our so-called civil behavior and human rights and justice system are but skin-deep and wafer-thin facades that break down so easily.

Isn’t it celebrating the Roman amphitheater and the live fight-to-death enactments of gladiators and the delirious capacity  crowds?

I thought hard and eventually Caesar’s smile game me the clue to put the picture in an allegorical perspective.

I haven’t seen this argument in any movie reviews and I am not sure if this is the idea the author Susan Collins had in mind. What if the games organizers represent providence or God or mother nature? Then there is some kind of meaning to the whole story. Aren’t we all subject to the vagaries of nature? Aren’t we all killing each other in one way or the other – sometimes physically in wars and fights, but more commonly in the form of mud-slinging and gossips and bullying? Yes, we are.

And aren’t we at least trying to smile while we are perfectly aware of the macabre dance of death around us? Caesar is right. Let him smile!

Despite the different pains life has given me, I am trying to smile like Caesar too.

We are not masters of the nature. On this fateful night of the 100th anniversary of Titanic, the lesson that I would like to converge to is exactly this, and therein lies the allegorical value of Hunger Games.

The organizers announce the beginning of the grueling killing session by saying : “Happy Hunger Games.” What is ‘happy’ about killing and being killed? In that sense, this phrase is a classical oxymoron – the words just do not gel well! But translate these words into something like ‘smile in the midst of inevitable tragedy,’ and then we have got something there.

Well, I have got to tell you- take your kids to the Hunger Games. The scenes are not too gory. Tell them the allegoric significance, if you can.

Life usually deals an unfair hand of cards. Dwight Eisenhower, 34th US president, famously once told reporters (in the link) that his mother had advised him to play his hand of cards without murmuring. Please read this story in the link. It is a great post. Her rationale was that life could deal really unfair cards. The success depends on how well we play our unfair cards.

So Jennifer Lawrence, or Kate Everdeen in the story, does play her unfair cards ably and becomes the winner and one of the two survivors in the game. Happy ending! She wins both the game and her secret lover Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). And they live happily ever after!

I just added the following from Trend Watch of Merriam Webster Online Dictionary on 4/15,2012.

When the much anticipated film “The Hunger Games” opened, many reviews useddystopia to describe its frightening futuristic setting.

Dystopia means “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.”

So the postscript to my post is this: much as I like the allegoric interpretative possibilities of the movie Hunger Games, the dystopian fantasy is not agreeable to our developed sense of civility. So see the movie by all means, but agree to disagree with the theme.