One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

1975

I have tragic news. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am dying. It’s sad, but true. I mean, my legs hurt, my tummy hurts, my head hurts, my eyes hurt, my face hurts. I bet I have bird flu. Can I even get bird flu? Do you have to be part bird to get it? I bet I am part bird! That would explain some things. I have been called a loon before. Everything is clear now.

You know who else is a loon? Every character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I mean what else would you expect when a movie is set in a mental institution?

McMurphy, the main man, (yay alliteration) has gotten himself into a loony bin, even though he is likely not insane. He just wanted to get out of the farm where he was serving his sentence for statutory rape. Being a lazy butt, he wanted to get away from all the hard work he had to do on this farm. Now he gets to hang out with a bunch of crazies. I don’t know how this is better than a prison farm but whatever.

In this institution, we have your typical patients, the delusional, the paranoid, the suicidal, the really big guy who never speaks, you know, the usual. The ward is run by the seemingly-nice-but-really-she’s-evil Nurse Ratched. She’s very controlling, degrading, and ugly. Every morning she makes a group of the patients sit through this mind numbing routine of a sort of therapy session. I wouldn’t really call it that though because no one ends up better through it, no one really talks in it, and its purpose to exist seems only to prove everyone needs to be at the insane asylum longer.

Mc Murphy and Ratched become fast enemies. He’ll try to have the patients out vote her in something, and she’ll ration their cigarettes. One day, McMurphy decides to steal a bus full of all of the crazy people from the institution, and take them fishing. Along the way they pick up one of his old girlfriends Candy. As they spend a day fishing, everyone is beginning to feel better about themselves and Billy, a stuttering adorable young man, has taken a liking to Candy. This will be important later.

Of course, when they get back, they get into a lot of trouble. Ratched tightens her grip on the group tremendously, even using shock therapy if needed. McMurphy, fed up of being there, plans his escape.

After bribing the night watchman and inviting Candy and one of her friends over, McMurphy throws a party for the ward. They all get totally wasted on the alcohol Candy and her friend brought. At the end, as McMurphy, Candy, her friend, and Chief (the tall, deaf, mute who turns out to not be deaf or mute) all are about to leave through the window. McMurphy notices how much Billy likes Candy, and asks him to come with them. Stuttering, Billy says he can’t, that he’s not ready for the real world. He would however like to see Candy again. So instead of leaving, McMurphy suggests that Candy and Billy sleep together right then and there.

Seriously? He must have been insanely intoxicated. That was a ridiculously stupid thing to do. Why would you delay your escape from a mental institution, just so your buddy can have sex with your ex girlfriend?! Maybe McMurphy really was crazy after all…

Anyway, Billy and Candy agree to his idea. They run off to a cell to do the deed. While that’s going on, the affects of the excessive alcohol are starting to take its toll on everyone’s system, including McMurphy’s, and they all pass out.

The next morning, Nurse Ratched walks in to quite the surprise. All of her patients are sprawled across the floor, along with some girls she’s never seen before. She demands a head count, and finds Billy missing. After discovering him and Candy, she attempts to embarrass him in front of the group. However, it doesn’t work. For the first time in the whole film, Billy speaks confidentially, with no stutter whatsoever. His buddies are thrilled.

But, remember, Ratched is pure evil, and purposefully asks him what his mother would think of him. Billy then starts punching himself repeatedly, causing the staff to take him into another room to be dealt with. Foolishly, they leave him alone, and he slits his throat with a piece of glass, and dies. I really hate Ratched. She is a [not a nice word].

Enraged, McMurphy starts to strangle Ratched for what happened to Billy. Everyone is too shocked to stop him. Yay! Maybe he’ll actually kill her! Wouldn’t that be just wonderful?

Sadly, a staffer stops him, and they take him “upstairs,” and lobotomize him. Yeah. It sucks. Like a lot. The next day, we see Ratched has been taken down a notch, speaking in a very timid voice. At least something happy has happened in the end. None of the crazies know what has happened to McMurphy, so they assume he made a glorious escape and is out in the world now, happy. Only Chief knows what happened to him. Because that evening, when McMurphy is brought back to his bed, Chief realizes he’s a vegetable, then smothers him with a pillow, killing him. Chief then picks up this GIANT marble sink fixture, throws it through a window, and leaves the asylum. The end.

Well. Talk about a sad ending. I mean, killing off McMurphy wasn’t that big of a deal. He was played by Jack Nicholson, and he can get annoying at times, so seeing him go didn’t upset me too much. But they killed Billy! Well, Billy killed Billy. But still! Not. Cool. Though, when a movie has you so attached to a character that when they die it upsets you greatly, that must mean they are doing something right, right? I think so.

This movie is one of the three movies in the history of the Oscars to win what they call the Grand Slam, or Big Five. That is it wins the awards Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. In order to win all of these, you must be an incredibly good movie. And that’s what this is. An incredibly good movie. It has the elements a good movie should have. Interesting characters, humor, tragedy, some thought provoking questions, and solid acting. I am glad to have seen this movie before my sadly approaching demise.

The Apartment

The Apartment

1960

Sometimes, people just suck. At many times in your life, they will do a number of cruel things to you. They will lie to you, hurt you, use you, and any other horrible things you can think of. There really isn’t much you can do about it.

In C.C Baxter’s life, people always suck. Especially his bosses. They like to take advantage of the fact he is a bachelor and has his own apartment. All of Baxter’s bosses are married, but have mistresses on the side. They take their mistresses to Baxter’s apartment, making him have to leave, sometimes on a moment’s notice. In return for his services, he get’s promotions and nice offices. It’s a nice deal. Until Miss Kubelik comes into the picture.

Miss Kubelik is one of the head bosses’ mistresses, one of the elevator operators, and the gal Baxtor happens to fancy. But she doesn’t like him. He barely exist to her. Because the only person in her world is Mr. Boss Guy. But of course, Mr. Boss Guy has a wife. This only complicates things slightly.

Actually this complicates things a lot. Since, Mr. Boss Guy refuses to leave his wife, Miss Kubelik attempts suicide, after she and Mr. Boss Guy have a fling at Baxter’s apartment. Baxter comes home to find her sprawled across his bed, unconscious, nearly dead. This is probably quite the shock. Fortunately, right next door lives a doctor, and he saves Miss Kubelik’s life. While she recovers, she stays with Baxter.

As she is recovering, Baxter realizes a few things. One, he loves Miss Kubelik. Like a lot. Like would love to marry her. Two, he actually has a spine, and would like to start saying no to his bosses when they want his apartment. The latter decision has him lose his job, but it’s okay, because in the end he gains Miss Kubelik. The end.

Oh my goodness. This movie was hilllllaaaaaaaaaaaioooooooussss. So hilarious, all those letters probably did not emphasis it enough. I know this movie dealt with some serious things, like affairs and suicide, but it was down in a way that was funny, and yet, not distasteful. Jack Lemmon, aka Mr. Baxter, was wonderful as a man originally afraid to say no, who then transformed into someone not scared to go for what he wanted. This is a delightful movie, one I would love to watch time and time again.

The Life of Emile Zola

The Life of Emile Zola

1937

Brush your teeth! Clean your room! Look both ways before you cross the road. Be nice to others. These are all common things that your mother would tell you to do as a child. Others include share your toys and be sure to always tell the truth. The latter I am sure was repeated to Emile Zola many a time by his own mother when he was young.

Emile Zola was a real life person, just for those of you who didn’t know that. He was a French writer in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Now that we have those boring yet necessary details out of the way, I can tell you about his life! Yay!

Zola started out as this person who was so poor he had to stuff the cracks in his windows with dirty rags, as he couldn’t afford new windows. He lived with a fellow poor dude, some artist whose name I don’t remember. I could look it up, but I’m lazy and he’s not all that important anyway. They love to complain to each other how messed up society is, how no one writes the truth about how messed up society is, how everyone would rather have perfumed lies than the smelly truth about society, and on and on, blah blah blah. As they are complaining, they decide to burn some of the books they have that they disagree with. Unimportant man suggests they sell them because as you should remember, these people are dirt poor. But nope! Zola says they should BUUUUUUURRRRRN! And so they do.

Of course, these people are stupid and don’t open a window, causing their whole apartment to fill with smoke. Zola then spazzes out, thinking he’s going to die from asphyxiation or something. Wimp. He becomes paranoid about this very thing many times throughout the movie.

Anyway, he goes on to get a job, write a gazillion novels, grows a beard and gets fat. He moves into this fancy house and life is all good for him now. This all happens in roughly ten minutes of the movie, so I am not condensing it that much, trust me.

Now that he’s all rich from writing scathing things, exposing truth in France, his friend doesn’t really like him anymore and goes away forever. Oh well. Unimportant guy was boring anyway!

For the next thirty so minutes of the movie, we hear nothing about Zola. Apparently he’s not all that significant. It’s not like the movie is named after him and his life or anything. We focus on a soldier in French army named Dreyfus (Not Richard Dreyfuss, just to clarify for everyone, myself included). He is accused of treason for writing this list that involves guns and probably something else but I wasn’t really paying attention to it so obviously it’s not something worth remembering! Of course, Dreyfus is innocent. This is a fact no one cares about. So they send him away to Devil’s Island for a time long enough to turn his hair grey.

One of the colonel’s later finds the real traitor, but it doesn’t matter. Someone already is doing time for it, and actually telling the truth that they got the wrong guy would make the army look bad. The honor of the army is totally more important than truth. The French are such sensible people! I am never sarcastic!

We finally meet up with Zola again when Madame Dreyfus calls on him to write about how her husband is innocent and France is handling the whole affair horridly. Always searching for the truth, he agrees.

Because the French are stupid and their justice system is super screwy, Zola winds up guilty of libel and is sentenced to jail for a year. However, his lawyer advises he run away to England, where he can do more good for Dreyfus by continuing to write, and Zola agrees.

After another few years, or months, the movie wasn’t very clear on this, new people come in to power, and set everything straight on the Dreyfus affair. All the people responsible commit suicide and Dreyfus is returned to his officerness. Yay him!

Finally, it is safe for him to return to France, and Zola begins to write his “greatest work yet!” Engrossed, he leaves the stove on while furiously writing it, and ends up dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. Teehee. So funny. The end!

As I reread this, I realize I made this movie sound slightly ridiculous. However, I promise, it really isn’t! This was an engaging story. The injustice of the Dreyfus affair will, hopefully, anger you, especially since it actually happened. This was a rare film that actually had my full attention for more than two thirds of the movie. The first part was a little boring, but nothing is perfect in life. Except for me, of course, but I figured everyone already knew that. Even though this movie came out seventy four years ago, it doesn’t feel dated, it just feels wonderful.