Word: nicholsons
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Ledger was very serious about his work, trying to forge a path like that of Sean Penn or Jack Nicholson, trying to walk the line between what the studios wanted him to be (a romantic hero such as those he played in 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight's Tale, his first two big hits) and the more renegade figures he was drawn to (Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, the iconic Australia outlaw in Ned Kelly or the junkie in Candy). "I wanted to scrub it all away," he said of his early forays into stardom...
...personal distress. He had separated from Williams and had moved out of their sunny yellow Brooklyn home. At the same time he was receiving accolades for his performance in the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There and had completed filming his role as the Joker (a character Nicholson immortalized) in the new Batman movie The Dark Knight, a potential blockbuster. At the news of Ledger's death, Mel Gibson said, "I had such great hope for him. He was just taking off, and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss." Ledger leaves behind...
Edward Cole (Nicholson) is a mean old plutocrat, four times divorced, estranged from his daughter, laying down ruthless rules for the hospitals he owns. Far down the money scale, but superior in all others ways, is Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), a polymath mechanic, faithful to his wife of 45 years, settled into a lifelong routine of diminished expectations. The only blemish on Carter's record: He smokes. In any movie directed by antitobacco activist Rob Reiner, a cigarette has to be a leading indicator of death...
Carter has hope because Edward - however deep the Scrooge impulses that have earned him his fortune - is quickly revealed as the sort of super-rich subspecies Hollywood loves: the curmudgeon with a heart of gold. Nicholson played this character in As Good As It Gets; Andy Griffith had a shot at it this year in Waitress. Both are Old Testament deity types who want to spend their largesse on one lavish good deed, instead of, say, giving all the people in their employ a $2-an-hour pay raise. But, no, that would merely promote the general welfare; movies...
...stars are the main reason for sticking around. Freeman, perhaps the movies' only current embodiment of gentle strength and emotional maturity, may be sick of playing Nature's Nobleman, but it doesn't show here. As Carter gives life lessons to Edward, Freeman gives tips in underacting to Nicholson. But the course doesn't take. Jack - editorializing with every inflection, his eyebrows now permanently arched, his face bloated so that he now resembles the eternal supporting player Elisha Cook Jr. - doesn't bother to occupy a role anymore. Instead, he plays Jack Nicholson, the breezy celebrity who sits up front...