Mike Nichols Movies
A deft humorist and social critic, director Mike Nichols has managed to skewer mainstream sensibilities in crowd-pleasing work throughout most of his career. Collaborating with such renowned writers as Buck Henry and original stage partner Elaine May, the theatrically trained Nichols excelled at adapting plays and novels for the screen, and eliciting superb performances from his actors.Born Michael Peschkowsky in Berlin, Nichols and his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, to escape the Nazis. Though his father's death several years later left his family poor, Nichols worked his way through college at the University of Chicago, where he decided to become an actor. After studying with Lee Strasberg in New York, Nichols headed back to Chicago, where he formed an improv group with several actors, including May and Alan Arkin. Their comic and critical sensibilities well matched, Nichols and May performed as a pair in the latter half of the 1950s, earning raves for their sharp, satirical routines. After their 1960 hit Broadway show, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, closed in 1961, however, they parted ways.
Nichols began to direct plays in 1963, earning a sterling reputation for his work on a string of hits, including the Neil Simon comedies Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. Not surprisingly, Nichols moved to films with an adaptation of a play, Edward Albee's scathing study of marital discord, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Making the most of a screenplay by Ernest Lehman that left Albee's taboo-breaking profanity intact, crisp cinematography by Haskell Wexler, and the casting of glamorous marrieds Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as the warring couple, Nichols scored a critical and box-office success. The film earned 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and acting nominations for the lead quartet, and won five. Nichols further staked his claim as one of the premiere avatars of Hollywood's new generation the following year with The Graduate (1967). Wittily adapted by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, starring an unknown Dustin Hoffman, and directed with New Wave flair by Nichols, The Graduate's mordant portrait of youthful anomie and suburban sexual frustration spoke to late '60s disaffection with the Establishment, and the film became a landmark hit. Though The Graduate lost the Best Picture Oscar to In the Heat of the Night (1967), Nichols won for Best Director. Turning his attention from sex to war, Nichols seemed to be on target for another timely success when he and Henry decided to tackle Joseph Heller's sardonic anti-war bestseller Catch-22 (1970). Though Nichols and Henry managed to translate the book's surreal tone to the screen, and Alan Arkin proved an adept Yossarian, Catch-22 suffered in comparison to Robert Altman's pacifist farce M*A*S*H (1970) and became an expensive failure. Nichols quickly recovered with Jules Feiffer's acrid examination of male sexual gamesmanship, Carnal Knowledge (1971). Remarkable for its frankness (at least for Hollywood) and featuring career performances from Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, and Candice Bergen, Carnal Knowledge became Nichols' third groundbreaking hit.
Nichols' film career, however, was comatose by the late '70s. The bizarre yet touching dolphin conspiracy drama The Day of the Dolphin (1973) flopped; not even 1970s supernovas Nicholson and Warren Beatty attracted audiences to the maligned period comedy The Fortune (1975). Except for lensing comedienne Gilda Radner's Broadway show Gilda Live (1980), Nichols stayed away from movies for almost eight years. He made an auspicious return to film, however, with the social drama Silkwood (1983). A biopic about the life and mysterious death of nuclear whistle-blower Karen Silkwood, Silkwood garnered raves for stars Meryl Streep and a de-glamorized Cher, and earned five Oscar nods, including Best Director. Though he didn't win the Oscar, Nichols did earn his sixth Tony Award in 1984, for directing Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Back to his comic ways after Silkwood's seriousness, Nichols bolstered his Hollywood comeback with appealing adaptations of Nora Ephron's autobiographical novel Heartburn in 1986, and Neil Simon's Broadway success Biloxi Blues (1988). Spinning 1980s corporate ambitions into a cynically charming fairy tale, made all the more winning by Melanie Griffith's star-making performance as the eponymous striver, Nichols notched another Oscar nominated hit with Working Girl (1988).
Nichols continued to deal with knotty questions of sex, ambition, and relationships throughout the 1990s. Directing Carrie Fisher's sharply funny adaptation of her novel Postcards From the Edge (1990), Nichols and stars Streep and Shirley MacLaine made comic hay out of Hollywood craziness. Male weepie Regarding Henry (1991), featuring Harrison Ford as a chastened Master of the Universe, became a moderate success, but the Jack Nicholson horror-comic sexual fable Wolf (1994) missed the mark. Reuniting with Elaine May after several decades, the pair crafted a slick remake of La Cage Aux Folles (1978), renamed The Birdcage (1996). Starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple with an engaged son, The Birdcage poked fun at the conservative notion of family values and found blockbuster favor with the audience. After Nichols returned to acting on stage and screen in The Designated Mourner (1997), he joined with May to adapt Joe Klein's novel about Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign Primary Colors (1998). Though Primary Colors featured Nichols and May's customary intelligent wit, and star John Travolta virtually channeled the President, the real-life 1998 sexual drama involving Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky proved to be a greater draw than the fictionalized Presidential shenanigans. Nichols' next film, Garry Shandling's send-up of masculine sexual cluelessness What Planet Are You From? (2000), was an outright flop. Turning to the more hospitable venue of cable TV's HBO, Nichols and Primary Colors star Emma Thompson masterfully adapted Wit (2001), the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an imperious professor's eye-opening battle with cancer.
Nichols married his fourth wife, TV news star Diane Sawyer, in 1988. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- 1966
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"You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games." Thus read the ad copy for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which in 1966 went farther than any previous big-studio film in its use of profanity and sexual implication. George (Richard Burton) is an alcoholic college professor; Martha (Oscar-winner Elizabeth Taylor) is his virago of a wife. George and Martha know just how to push each other's buttons, with George having a special advantage: he need only mention the couple's son to send Martha into orbit. This evening, the couple's guests are Nick (George Segal), a junior professor, and Honey (Sandy Dennis), Nick's child-like wife. After an evening of sadistic (and sometimes perversely hilarious) "fun and games," the truth about George and Martha's son comes to light. First staged on Broadway in 1962 with Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill, Edward Albee's play was adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman, who managed to retain virtually all of Albee's scatological epithets (this was the first American film to feature the expletive "goddamn"). Lehman opened up the play by staging one of George's speeches in the backyard, and by relocating the film's second act to a roadside inn (he also added four lines--"all bad," according to Albee). Thanks to the box-office clout of stars Taylor and Burton, not to mention the titilation factor of hearing all those naughty words on the big screen, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was a hit, and it won 5 Oscars, including awards for Taylor and Dennis, though it lost Best Picture to A Man for All Seasons. First-time director Mike Nichols lost the Oscar, but this movie gave him a perfect transition from his stage work and established him as a hot young Hollywood director, leading to his acclaimed (and Oscar-winning) work on his next movie, The Graduate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, (more)
"Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, (more)
Director Mike Nichols and writer-actor Buck Henry followed their enormous hit The Graduate (1967) with this timely adaptation of Joseph Heller's satiric antiwar novel. Haunted by the death of a young gunner, all-too-sane Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out of the rest of his WW II bombing missions, but publicity-obsessed commander Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam) and his yes man, Colonel Korn (Henry), keep raising the number of missions that Yossarian and his comrades are required to fly. After Doc Daneeka (Jack Gilford) tells Yossarian that he cannot declare him insane if Yossarian knows that it's insane to keep flying, Yossarian tries to play crazy by, among other things, showing up nude in front of despotic General Dreedle (Orson Welles). As all of Yossarian's initially even-keeled friends, such as Nately (Art Garfunkel) and Dobbs (Martin Sheen), genuinely lose their heads, and the troop's supplies are bartered away for profit by the ultra-entrepreneurial Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight), Yossarian realizes that the whole system has lost it, and he can either play along or jump ship. Though not about Vietnam, Catch-22's ludicrous military machinations directly evoked its contemporary context in the Vietnam era. Cathcart and Dreedle care more about the appearance of power than about victory, and Milo cares for money above all, as the complex narrative structure of Yossarian's flashbacks renders the escalating events appropriately surreal. Confident that the combination of a hot director and a popular, culturally relevant novel would spell blockbuster, Paramount spent a great deal of money on Catch-22, but it wound up getting trumped by another 1970 antiwar farce: Robert Altman's MASH. With audiences opting for Altman's casual Korean War iconoclasm over Nichols' more polished symbolism, the highly anticipated Catch-22 flopped, although the New York Film Critics Circle did acknowledge Arkin and Nichols. Despite this reception, Catch-22's ensemble cast and pungent sensibility effectively underline the insanity of war, Vietnam and otherwise. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, (more)
"Maybe you're not supposed to like it with someone you love." With a script by satirist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge (1971) ruthlessly exposed the damage wrought by pre-1960s sexual mores. From their post-World War II college years at Amherst through the Vietnam era, buddies Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) are a catalogue of male sexual dysfunction. Sensitive Sandy falls in love with and marries college sweetheart Susan (Candice Bergen) only to wonder years later if he missed out on finding the perfect sex/love partner. Jonathan lives for aggressive sexual conquest (starting with Sandy's Susan in college), even as he rails against female "ballbusters," finally guilt-marrying his tiredly voluptuous mistress Bobbie (Ann-Margret, in an Oscar-nominated performance) after she tries to kill herself. By the late '60s, Sandy has moved on to a hippie chick girlfriend (Carol Kane) who can raise his consciousness about the sexual revolution, and Jonathan is single again, but Sandy is a little too old for the peace-and-love generation, and Jonathan bitterly faces emasculating impotence. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, (more)
Director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry team up again (after collaborating on The Graduate and Catch-22) for this adaptation of Robert Merle's best-selling adventure novel concerning dolphins who become pawns in a plot to kill the president. George C. Scott plays Dr. Jake Terrell, a researcher who, along with his wife Maggie (Trish Van Devere), is investigating dolphin intelligence, believing they have the capability of speech. Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver), in charge of a major corporation, sponsors their work. But undercover work by government agent Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino) reveals that DeMilo is working with a right-wing group planning to kidnap the dolphins and use them to blow up the presidential yacht. Jake and Maggie have to race against time to save both their dolphins and the president. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Trish VanDevere, (more)
- 1975
- PG
Three's a crowd in Mike Nichols's period caper comedy -- or is it? To dodge the 1920s Mann Act barring the transport of women across state lines for "immoral purposes," not-yet-divorced Nicky (Warren Beatty) has felonious buddy Oscar (Jack Nicholson) marry Nicky's runaway heiress sweetheart Freddy (Stockard Channing) so they can all escape New York for Los Angeles. The three set up house together, but trouble starts brewing when odd man out Oscar decides to get Nicky's attention by exercising his rights as a husband to Freddy. Exasperated with being stuck in the middle of the bickering pair, Freddy threatens to donate her impending inheritance to charity, inciting Oscar and Nicky to hatch a plan to bump her off and keep the money. But Freddy just will not die, prompting the three to reconsider the whole arrangement. With a period setting and pair of stellar lead actors similar to the 1973 blockbuster The Sting, a screenplay by Five Easy Pieces author Carol Eastman (under the name Adrien Joyce), and deft comedy director Nichols, The Fortune seemed like a can't-miss proposition. But it resoundingly flopped, as audiences preferred to see Beatty in his earlier 1975 starring role as a racy L.A. hairdresser in Shampoo, and to wait for Nicholson's later 1975 incarnation as an archetypal iconoclast in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. As with other late '60s-early '70s period films like Beatty's own Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Fortune lends an updated sensibility to its old-fashioned milieu, complete with a very modern happy ending. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, (more)
- 1980
- R
Director Mike Nichols makes no effort to inject camera trickery or "mise en scene" in Gilda Live. This is a live comedy concert by the peerless Gilda Radner, and that is enough; Nichols merely records this wonderful lady in action. All of Gilda's standard characterizations -- Emily Latella, Roseanna Roseannadanna et. al. -- are here in full force, a lot raunchier than when seen on TV. Everyone's favorite bit in this comedy catalogue is Gilda's specialty number "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals." On hand to allow Gilda to take a breather once in a while is Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gilda Radner
Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Karen's ribald private life with her lover (Kurt Russell) and her loose-living friends (Cher and Diana Scarwid). This is in contrast to her humdrum job at Kerr-McGee--or it least it was humdrum until Karen and several other employees become contaminated by radiation. The higher-ups want to sweep this incident under the rug, but Karen thinks that something's fishy, and informs the union of that fact. X-rays of the faulty fuel rods and written proof of the inadequate safety measures that caused Karen's illness are tampered with, forcing Karen to conduct her own private investigation. As she gathers evidence, Karen becomes a pariah to her boyfriend because of her obsession. She finally organizes the evidence into a briefcase, and heads off to her meeting with the Times reporter. She never makes it; the "official" report on her fatal auto accident is that Ms. Silkwood had been drinking and was under the influence of tranquilizers. Kerr-McGee was eventually forced to pay the Silkwood family an enormous settlement because of her contamination, but the full facts behind her convenient accident have never been revealed (though the filmmakers clearly indictate whom they hold responsible). Director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen surround this true story with a lively, improvisational atmosphere that gets the best out of Streep, Russell, and Cher, while providing perhaps the fullest on-screen realization of Nichols' theater-based techniques of realistic, character-centered, dialogue-driven filmmaking, as well as one of the first movie screenplays from future director Ephron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, (more)
- 1984
D.L. Coburn's1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Gin Game was originally directed by Mike Nichols. This taped TV version was staged by Terry Hughes and performed before a live London audience in October 1979. The scene is the sun porch of a nursing home. Longtime resident Hume Cronyn has avoided close contact with the other patients thanks to his crotchety nature. Newcomer Jessica Tandy (Cronyn's wife, who won a Tony award for her performance), hospitalized for diabetes, timidly walks onto the sun porch, and before long she and Cronyn are playing a quiet game of gin rummy. During their next several games, Cronyn and Tandy's relationship dwindles down to one long argument, culminating with the two players dredging up their most painful memories. The Gin Game was telecast on March 7, 1984 as an entry of PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Though she always played coy about the fact in interviews, Nora Ephron's novel Heartburn is a thinly disguised "a clef" rehash of her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Meryl Streep plays Rachel, an influential food critic who marries charismatic columnist Mark (Jack Nicholson) after a whirlwind courtship. Warned that Mark is constitutionally incapable of settling down with any one woman, Rachel gives up her own job to make certain that her marriage works. When Rachel announces that she's pregnant, Mark virtually jumps out of his skin with delight. But as the news sinks in, Mark chafes at the impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and the philandering begins-- as if it had ever really stopped! Our favorite scene: Rachel and her friends being robbed at her therapy group. That's Meryl Streep's real-life daughter playing Rachel's offspring. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, (more)
- 1986
In this feature, comedienne Whoopi Goldberg appears in a stand-up comedy special performed on Broadway. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- PG13
With a cast starring such comic veterans as Harvey Korman, Anne Meara, Jack Weston and Tim Conway (who also wrote the script), and executive produced by Mike Nichols, it is normally a safe bet that hiliarity will ensue. Unfortunately, this sure thing does not pay off and is disappointingly dumb as it tells the tale of four luckless gamblers who in desperation borrow a large sum for a local loanshark so they can bet on a particular horse. Unfortunately, they bet on the wrong nag and suddenly the foursome must scramble around for quick cash before the loanshark's thugs show up for some bruising payback. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Conway, Jack Weston, (more)
Biloxi Blues was the second of playwright Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical trilogy (number one was Brighton Beach Memoirs; number three, Broadway Bound). Matthew Broderick stars as Simon's alter ego Eugene Morris Jerome, who is drafted and shipped off to boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi in the waning days of World War II. Eugene is at the mercy of near-psychotic drill sergeant Toomey (Christopher Walken), who seems to have a personal vendetta against the poor schlemiel (Toomey also has all the film's best lines). While sweating out basic training, Eugene is indoctrinated into manhood by local prostitute Rowena (Park Overall). The film version of Biloxi Blues retains the wit and poignancy of the theatrical original--except towards the end, which pointlessly emphasizes a showdown between Eugene and Toomey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, (more)
Unhappy with her job and her loser boyfriend, Melanie Griffith takes a secretarial post at a major Wall Street firm. Her boss is Sigourney Weaver, an outwardly affable yuppie whose grinning visage hides a wicked and larcenous propensity for exploiting the ideas of her employees. While Weaver is incapacitated, Griffith is compelled by circumstances to pose as her boss. Her inborn business acumen and common sense enable Griffith to rise to the top of New York's financial circles, and along the way she wins the love of executive (Harrison Ford). Things threaten to take a sorry turn when Weaver returns, but it is she who suffers from the consequences of her own past duplicity. Working Girl was Melanie Griffith's breakthrough film, proving than she was more than just the off-and-on "significant other" of Don Johnson. The film was later adapted into a brief TV series, starring a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, (more)
Mike Nichols lends some comic structure to Carrie Fisher's best-selling confessional novel concerning a woman's struggles with drug addiction and mother-daughter rivalry (subjects Fisher admits to understanding all too well). Meryl Streep, in her most full-blown comic performance up to that point, plays Suzanne Vale, a popular movie actress well on her way to a Hollywood crack-up. Suzanne suffers from blackouts and memory lapses, and awakens in the beds of men she doesn't remember; she is a barely-functioning wreck on the set of her latest movie. When a coke dealer who delivers stops by her dressing room between takes, she swiftly finds herself being rushed to the hospital, suffering the effects of a narcotics bender. While in detox, Suzanne attempts to piece her life and career back together, but her confidence is shattered when her mother arrives at the rehab clinic -- Doris Mann, a famed film icon from the 1950s and 1960s (Shirley MacLaine). Doris is soon soaking up the adulation and applause of Suzanne's fellow recovering drug addicts. Upon Suzanne's release, she must compete with her mother for attention and fame as she tries to walk a thin line as a recovering drug abuser. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
Combining elements of A Christmas Carol and Rain Man (1988), this modern-day parable of greed and redemption was crafted with generous helpings of sentimentality by director Mike Nicholas. Harrison Ford stars as Henry Turner, a slick, ruthless corporate attorney willing to spin any falsehood to win a case. A bully to his teenage daughter Rachel (Mikki Allen), Henry also cheats on his wife Sarah (Annette Bening) and treats everyone from the maid to his assistant with cruel selfishness. Stepping out to a local mini-market for a pack of cigarettes late one night, Henry accidentally interrupts a burglary and is shot in the head by a stick-up artist. After a long coma, Henry survives only to find that he has no memory and must re-learn everything from reading to tying his shoes. Reborn as a friendly, childlike innocent, Henry charms his therapist (Bill Nunn) and reconnects with his wife and daughter, only to uncover some secrets about how truly appalling he once was. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Ford, Annette Bening, (more)
Filmed with the usual meticulous attention to period and detail of films from Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, The Remains of the Day is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Anthony Hopkins plays Stevens, the "perfect" butler to a prosperous British household of the 1930s. He is so unswervingly devoted to serving his master, a well-meaning but callow British lord (James Fox), that he shuts himself off from all emotions and familial relationships. New housekeeper Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) tries to warm him up and awaken his humanity. But when duty calls, Stevens won't even attend his own dying father's last moments on earth. The butler also refuses to acknowledge the fact that his master is showing signs of pro-Nazi sentiments. Disillusioned by Hitler's duplicity, the master dies an embittered man, and only then does Stevens come to realize how his own silence has helped bring about this sad situation. Years later, regretting his lost opportunities in life, he tries once more to make contact with Miss Kenton, the only person who'd ever cared enough to seek out the human being inside the butler's cold veneer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, (more)
Jack Nicholson becomes a werewolf in this bizarre comedy-horror film directed by Mike Nichols. Nicholson plays Will Randall, a book editor with a testosterone deficit who has just been sacked at his publishing firm by a new boss, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer). A colleague, Stewart Swinton (James Spader), whom Randall thought was his friend, betrays him. Randall's personality changes after he hits a wolf with his car and gets bitten by the creature. He immediately feels more powerful, has heightened hearing and vision, and sets about to right the wrongs in his life. He visits Alden at the publisher's mansion to protest his dismissal, and he is asked to leave -- but Alden's daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer) asks him to stay for lunch. Laura loves to defy her father. Will tells her about the wolf bite, and she becomes attracted to him. But because werewolves usually kill the ones they love, Laura is in danger. Will reasserts his place in the publishing world, supported by his loyal secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins), and his relationship with Laura deepens. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, (more)
- 1995
He is one of the most influential and innovative photographers in the fashion industry and one of the first to elevate his craft into a true art, dominated more by the artist's vision than the subject itself. This documentary tells his story. With an eclectic blend of biographical information, his work, and his commentary upon it, the film tells his story in a non-linear way. Highlights include his description of how he got a teen-age Natassja Kinski to pose naked with a large python crawling across her body and his memory of the night Marilyn Monroe came to his place and danced for hours while he photographed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Director Mike Nichols teams up with his former partner/screenwriter Elaine May for the first time in many years and for the first time together in films to create this sophisticated, remake of the phenomenally popular French musical farce La Cage aux Folles that stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Diane Wiest as two dramatically disparate couples who manage to reconcile their vast differences for the sake of their children who are getting married. Williams plays Armand Goldman, the owner of a popular South Beach drag club known for putting on elaborate showcases starring his long-time lover/wife Albert (Lane) who appears as "Starina." Lately poor flamboyant, flighty Albert has been in crisis over the inexorable onset of middle age. He has been moody, paranoid and unbearably. When he gets too inconsolably distraught, handsome but clumsy houseboy Agador quietly slips Albert "Pirin" tablets (which he explains to Armand are simply Aspirin tablets with the "as" scraped off). Still though Albert can be a royal pain, Armand dearly loves him and the two live happily in their splendiferous apartment above the club. One day Armand's son Val (the result of Armand's single foray into straight sex) comes visiting with joyous news: he has found his dreamgirl and is getting married. The only trouble is, Barbara Keeley's father is the blustery ultra-religious right-wing Senator Keeley (Hackman), the founder of the Coalition for Moral Order. Senator Keeley and his colleagues are not as upright as they seem and when his closest associate is found dead beside a black, underage prostitute, Keeley finds his house surrounded by ravenous newshounds, hungry for dirt. Knowing that they are poised to ruin him, Keeley and his proper but slightly addled-wife (Wiest) decide that a big, elaborate, church wedding will be just the ticket to save his reputation. Barbara has neglected to tell them that Val's parents are gay, preferring to claim that they are members of the South Beach social elite. In a panic, she panics and calls Val who breaks the bad news to Armand and begs him to make the apartment less flamboyant and worst of all to hide Albert (who functioned as Val's mother while the youth grew up) during the visit. Armand is angry, but loving his son, finally, reluctantly agrees, knowing that he will deeply wound his companion. Unfortunately, Albert finds out and as a compromise tries to learn how to be macho so he can pretend to be Val's uncle, he is too much the Great Dame to ever pass as one of the guys and so is banned from the party. Armand then locates Catherine and asks her to masquerade as his wife. She agrees to show up later that evening. Meanwhile their friends busily redecorate the apartment until it looks as if it were done in "Early Inquisition." During the fateful dinner party, Catherine is late and Albert gets uproarious revenge. Achingly comic chaos ensues as Armand tries to hold the increasingly tenuous evening together while outside the newshounds bay and threaten to make even more trouble for Senator Keely. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, (more)
- 1997
The American Film Institute honors actor and director Jack Nicholson for his years in film by granting him a Life Achievement Award. Nicholson has been a multiple Academy award nominee for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor on several occasions and is famous for many films including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, and Terms of Endearment. From his first role in Cry Baby Killer in 1958 to screen rebel in Easy Rider to social iconoclast, Nicholson's voice and style cast a long and entertaining shadow in the creation of fascinating character studies. This video includes clips of his most famous performances as an actor and clips of films he has directed. ~ Leslie Birdwell, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson
- 1997
- R
This film adaptation of the acclaimed play by Wallace Shawn takes place in an unnamed country, where a repressive regime has come to power and begun rounding up and executing intellectuals. Jack (Mike Nichols), a journalist who aspired to a career as a novelist, sits with his wife Judy (Miranda Richardson) and her father Howard (David DeKeyser). Jack has appointed himself "the designated mourner" for the death of the life of the mind, a life he freely admits that he has given up, while Howard, a stubborn intellectual, is appalled by Jack's willingness to turn his back on his principles. The Designated Mourner was filmed concurrently with the play's London run; it features the same cast and was directed by the same man, playwright David Hare. It is filmed with the actors simply sitting at tables, delivering serial monologues. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson, (more)
Mike Nichols directed this Elaine May screenplay adapted from the 1996 bestseller by "Anonymous" (Joe Klein), who fictionalized Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. In the New Hampshire primary, Governor Jack Stanton (John Travolta) convinces Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), grandson of a respected civil rights pioneer, to become his deputy campaign manager. Stanton's smart wife Susan (Emma Thompson) always comes through with public support for her philandering husband. The film's parallel for James Carville is Stanton's redneck advisor Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton), who knows every strategy and tactic but worries, "The woman thing, that's the killer." Sure enough, problems during the New Hampshire primary include charges of adultery. To get a handle on past peccadillos, Stanton's staff brings in an old family friend, lesbian Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), who knows how to clean up dirt. Stanton, a strong debater, moves on to Florida and New York. When one opposing candidate drops dead of a heart attack, he's replaced by Florida's Governor Fred Picker (Larry Hagman), but Holden holds the skeleton key to the skeleton in Picker's closet. Just how the Stantons put this information to use reveals whether they are ruthless politicians or inspirational leaders with ideals. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Emma Thompson, (more)
Garry Shandling makes his big-screen debut as a leading man in this sci-fi romantic comedy. Harold (Shandling) is an alien from another galaxy sent to Earth on a vital mission: in order to ensure that his civilization will prevail, Harold must impregnate an Earth woman. But he discovers that this is more easily said than done, as he quickly gets a crash course in the arcane rituals of the human courtship process. What's worse, just when Harold thinks he's making progress in Earthbound seduction, he discovers that the males of his planet don't physically interface properly with women on Earth, so he is issued a variety of bizarre gadgets to complete his assignment. Mike Nichols directed What Planet Are You From?, which also features a top-notch supporting cast, including Annette Bening, John Goodman, Ben Kingsley, and Camryn Manheim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, (more)
