FIVE EASY PIECES [1970] review
October 6, 2008 · Print This Article
I just referenced my despisement of watching TV shows or movies featuring characters with miserable lives or who are miserable people in my review of the new HBO drama TRUE BLOOD, and here just a few days later did I find myself watching just such a miserable movie in the form of FIVE EASY PIECES staring a young Jack Nicholson in 1970. Nicholson’s character is completely unlikable, the movie is a very short 98-minutes, is generally about nothing, and just shows misery in every scene. There is not one scene that doesn’t contain some illness.
I watched this movie because it has some notoriety among film snobs, so I put it on my list to watch. I had heard one dialogue sample in a podcast that was really funny, something about being told to hold chicken salad in a crude place. And in context, the scene was just as funny. And there were some great long shots in the movie, which I learned from IMDB were thanks to the great, late cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs.
One nice thing about this movie was the character of Partita Dupea played by Lois Smith. Even though she was 38 years younger in PIECES, I immediately recognized her from her current role in the aforementioned TRUE BLOOD. I thought she would be pretty as a young woman, and she was, with a very kind voice and her posture and mannerisms are still exactly the same even in her senior years.
Other than that, this movie was just watching misery and at least for me personally, I get nothing out of any entertainment such as this. What’s the point? To make something with no message or point that begins miserably and ends miserably. The ending itself was a bit ludicrous as well. Fail.
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[...] movie is not as miserable as some other past offenders (BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, FIVE EASY PIECES) and is not completely bereft of non-miserable qualities. However, only watch this if you like to [...]
Sorry to hear how you feel about my movie.
Lary Crews
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What role did you play in FIVE EASY PIECES Lary? I checked IMDB and so no listing and on the website larycrews.wordpress.com I do not see it listed as a movie you’ve appeared in.
Movies like FIVE EASY PIECES just do not appeal to me. However, the movie obviously has its many admirers as repeatedly hearing about it prompted me to check it out.
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