You won't be disappointed!

Too much of everything

The Age of Commercialism

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

(...) shall we &/ why not, buy a goddam big car/ drive he sd, for/ Christ's sake, look/ out where yr going. (I Know A Man by Robert Creeley). This poem is recited at the beginning of the film; I guess Nicholson was trying for some cultural reference that escaped me. The times were rough on those who sought meaning in the arts; there were too many filmmakers, painters, writers who were more interested in reshaping their consciousness than communicating with the world.I give this 4/10 because of Karen Black, because of the basketball sequences that are quite well shot, because Black and Tepper have an entertaining argument in the supermarket. The rest of the movie doesn't interest me in any way. It will go into the bargain bin of film history along with Head, Alice's Restaurant, The Strawberry Statement, Zabriskie Point and many more once lauded, now forgotten efforts.

I attended college in the late Sixties, and I wanted to chime in with Titov and others who says that this is one of only a handful of movies that captures the time as lived experience rather than journalistic cliché. I can think of only three or four others: "Baby, It's You"; "Dog Fight"; and to some extent Milos Forman's first American film, "Taking Off." Not one of these films is available on Netflix. I saw each when it came out. "Taking Off" was revived pretty often for three or four years, so there must have been others who liked it as much as I did. The others I haven't seen since they were first in theaters, so I can'be sure of my present reaction. But for 40 years I've remembered the last line of "Drive, He Said," which says something.

Before he became a journalist, Eugene McCarthy's speechwriter, and then an Oscar-winning screenwriter (The Candidate), Jeremy Larner was a successful novelist. His first effort, Drive, He Said (Delacorte Press, 1964) won the $10,000 Delta Prize for best first novel, beating out over a thousand other manuscripts. The protagonist of Drive, He Said is Hector Bloom, "a half-hick, half-Jew, left-handed neurotic basketball player from the green hills of California" who attends a small, upstate New York university on the Hudson River. The book's other protagonist is Bloom's roommate, Gabriel Reuben, a New York City Jew from an affluent family who nonetheless harbors revolutionary political sentiments. Bloom plays great basketball, sleeps with a professor's wife, and confusedly ponders his future with pro recruiters while Reuben plots seditious mayhem—and eventually acts out by burning down the campus! Written before America's full engagement in Vietnam, Drive, He Said is more centrally concerned with early 1960s cultural vertigo, the vagaries of American Dream ideology, and arms race anxieties. Scripted just after the Sixties by first-time director Jack Nicholson in collaboration with author Jeremy Larner (and un-credited help from Robert Towne and Terrence Malick), Drive, He Said zeroes in on the radicalization of an All-American college jock during the era of Vietnam War protests—which were at their height when the movie was being filmed on the campus of the University of Oregon (Eugene, OR). The somewhat chaotic structure of Drive He Said, while off-putting to some critics, nicely enacts the turmoil of the time. Performances are, however, a mixed bag. The redoubtable Bruce Dern is excellent as Hector's mean-spirited coach. Karen Black is equally convincing as Olive, Hector's troubled mistress. Michael Margotta, who plays Hector's roommate, the increasingly psychotic campus radical is also good. Unfortunately William Tepper, an unknown cast as Hector lacks the charisma to carry off the lead role. Filmmaker Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne both play professors and David Ogden Stiers and Cindy Williams appear in minor roles. Screened at the 6th Annual CineVegas Film Festival (2004) where Jack Nicholson was honored with the Festival's Marquee Award, Drive, He Said has not been released on VHS or DVD.

Basketball can be a funny game. Or business, perhaps? There are baskets and hookers just like in the real sixties. This modern-day reinactment confronts society head-on, warts-n-all, and we (the collective EYE) are the better for it. Bruce Dern, as the salty sea crumudgeon, takes us on a whirlwind tour of buzz and flash, dumping us at the doorstep of insanity. His crusty ol' captain routine reminds one of Burgess Meridith, or Uncle Charlie had HE been ye ol' coach roaming los sidelines. Their are many animals (tigers, spiders, etc..) and they serve as romantic counterparts to the understated elegance of Miss Karen Black in her finest turn since Burnt Offerings. Add it all up and the score is Jack Nicholson 100, Audience 101. EVERYONE WINS!!! 5 OUT OF 5 CUPS OF BLEACH!!!