october 4, 2019
I might just be totally making this up...but I believe there’s a quote somewhere written by someone that describes filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola as “a man who could have been great...but was not.” The line on FFC goes something like this: after closing out the 1970’s with four consecutive no shit “greatest films of all time” type films that won him a butt ton of Oscars and two Palm d’Or’s Coppola entered the 1980’s in a prime position to exert full creative control over more personal, “auteur”-type projects. Instead, he completely bankrupted himself on the incomprehensible One From the Heart and had to spend the next two decades working as a hired gun to get himself solvent. He eventually struck gold as a huckster of mid-to-low-level vino and spent most of the early 00’s holed up at his vineyard slugging cab franc. When he finally returned to the director’s chair, flush with enough wine money to fund those personal passion projects he’d been threatening since the early 1980’s, the result was 2008’s Youth Without Youth...which...well..the less said about that film the better. Now, I’m not suggesting all of the films FFC made during his wilderness years were bereft of artistic merit. I’d put 1982’s Rumble Fish on the Top 5 list just below The Godfather and the rest of the gang. There are other films, though, where the idea that you are watching something directed by the same person who made Apocalypse Now is almost impossible to believe. I mean, a lot of these 1970‘s auteurs fell from grace and had to take whatever work they could find to pay the bills. Was Robert Altman was forced to direct a Mighty Ducks sequel? Not exactly. But Francis Ford Coppola DID direct the 1996 Robin Williams “comedy” Jack....and it is balls terrible. I’m sure the pitch went something like “a 10 year-old is stuck in the body of Robin Williams” and the execs at Disney said “you had me at hello”, popped a bottle of Veuve, and just waited for the big bux to come raining down from the heavens. I actually hadn’t seen Jack until just this week...because it is Jack...but I found a copy at my local thrift store...and the VHS jacket blurbs describe it as both “very funny” and “extremely funny.” So which is it? Answer: neither. What happens is this: Academy Award nominee and woman born with a “stay attractive 4-life” card Diane Lane is mid-Halloween conga line when she starts having contractions. This is all well and good as she is pregnant...but also less good as she is only TWO MONTHS pregnant! Her husband rushes her to the hospital, where the doctor gets her legs in stirrups, looks down and says “oh CHRIST!” Dude, that cannot be good! Keep the patient calm, bro. Too late...the baby is coming! She gives birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy! Smiles and high fives all around and IS NO ONE CONCERNED THE KID IS 7 MONTHS PREMATURE??” The opening credits roll over a “baby being subjected to endless testing montage.” It is also set to a Bryan Adams tune called “Star”...which sounds like the poorest man’s “(Everything I Do) I Do it for You.” Sample lyric: “There’ll be times in your life when ya dancin’ and shit...but you ain’t gettin’ it...but don’t get disillusioned, no, don’t expect too much...‘Cause if what you have is all you can get just keep on tryin’ it.” Whatever you say you crazy Canuck. The doctors call mom and pop Jack (their characters are inexplicably not given actual names) into their office and introduce them to an Infant Disorder Doctor. He explains that Jack was born with an internal clock that beats mad quick. They say that he’s gonna age rapidly and will look 40 years old by the time he is 10. I totally failed my way through high school math but according to my calculations this means he will 160 years old by the time he is 40....which is way too old for a human person to be! He’s kind of like that one dude Benjamin Button...except not at all. The doctors say they have no idea what’s causing this rapid aging...but agree to send him to a lab in Switzerland where he can be studied by the most brilliant minds in the medical world. Just kidding! They totally just send him home and tell his folks “good luck with your janky, death-spiraling, dog-year living son!” The action jumps ahead 10 years into the future...where we find Jack and his family living in a baller ass 3-story Victorian in Presidio Heights...even though no one appears to be employed. Jack, who is now played by 45 year-old Robin Williams, is a recluse who spends most of his days inside playing laser tag with his mom. He’s the subject of much gossip between the neighborhood kids...who believe Jack to be some sort of freak...even though he just looks like regular old Robin Williams. I personally feel kinda gypped that we didn’t get to see him age through the cokey Mork & Mindy years...or the beardy Moscow on the Hudson years. How does he learn about life if he isn’t allowed outside, you ask? His folks somehow have enough coin to set dude up with a tutor who drops by every day...which is awesome. Unfortunately that tutor is played by current SCI Phoenix Inmate #NN7687 William Cosby Jr....which NOOOOO!!!! Cosby teaches Jack about geography. Then they fall to the ground and rassle and Jack tears Cosby’s drawers off. How’s it feel, asshole? I mean...can’t they digitally replace him with Christopher Plummer or something? Mom and Pop decide that it’s high time to send Jack to actual school...even though he’s not gonna live long enough to do anything with any of the information he learns there. They take him down to the 5th grade...where the teacher is totally friggin’ Jennifer Lopez. As in Jenny from the block. J. Lo. Her. She’s in this movie. The kids all recoil in horror when the see Jack...even though...as I have previously noted...he just looks like plain old Robin Williams. It’s not like he’s motherfucking Rocky Dennis from Mask! Did they not explain to the children that he has a rare, fictional disease?? Did they explain to them that he’s probably gonna look like Robin Williams circa-One Hour Photo by Christmas?? Nope...they just throw him into class and expect him to fit his 45 year-old, 5, 7” frame in a desk designed for a 10 year-old. The desk collapses. Everyone cracks the fuck up. I grab the remote control and throw it at the TV. At first he is shunned...because why wouldn’t he be...but then his dad teaches him how to play basketball and soon enough Jack is straight fire on court and the kids start to warm up to him. The missed opportunities fly by at warp speed. Seriously, there are so many places one could go with this premise. Instead, they park this shit in idle and hope that Robin Williams flopping around and falling over desks will suffice. Also--Like I just mentioned...dude was only 5, 7”. They couldn’t have found someone taller...like Alan Alda or Shaquille O’Neal? And I’m certainly not here to disrespect the dearly departed...but it’s just a true fact that Robin Williams could be unbearable...and often. His performance here is both weirdly restrained and completely over the top at the same time. It’s like he was trying to do something different and FFC kept saying “could you try that again...but this time more Robin Williams-y??” ANYWAY...eventually Jack befriends a fleet of child actors who never did much acting beyond childhood. Louis, the leader of the gang, is in hot water with the school principal...so he convinces Jack to impersonate the principal at a parent/teacher meet-up with his Marlboro chuffing mom, played by freaking Fran Drescher (ladies and gentlemen we’ve lost cabin pressure). Drescher immediately starts hitting on Jack. This should probably not gross me out as Elizabeth Perkins bedded a 12 year-old in the body of Tom Hanks in Big...but I still vomit in my mouth a little bit. The kids quickly figure out that Jack has access to things they do not...so they send him to the liquor store for a case of Zima and they all get alcohol poisoning and die. Not really, though. They DO send him to buy a stack of Penthouse mags (I’m not sure what’s worse....but probably the former). Jack brings his stroke mags to Louie’s treehouse and all of the kids sit around and talk about boners and take turns farting into a coffee can. If you are watching this scene and thinking “I bet this film was directed by the same man who directed The Godfather Part II” then you are the only person thinking that. Jack asks if he can bring a friend to the treehouse and Louis says “sure, literally anyone but convicted rapist Bill Cosby”...but Jack shows up with Bill Cosby anyway. They ask Cosby if he will fart in a can and he says “you kids don’t want that; some of my parts are rotten.” Don’t we fuckin’ know it, pal! The added weight of a convicted sex offender overwhelms the treehouse and it collapses to the ground. All of the children fall at least 5 stories. No one is hurt...except me...when I punch myself in the face after this stupid ass scene. Back at school J. Lo gives the kids a new assignment: write an essay about what you want to be when you grow up. Seems like piss poor theacher-ing for a teacher with a student who WILL NOT GROW UP! Jack decides to ask the teach to the dance...cuz...I mean...she’s J. Lo. She’s like, “sorry, I don’t mess around with no 5th graders.” He tries to kiss her. It is wicked sad. Does this kid not see a psychiatrist or anything?? My word! Jack is so upset about this teacher rejection that he has a friggin’ heart attack! The doctors explain that...well...yeah...he’s 40 and his arteries are clogged and it’s not that unusual. Plus he did all that blow with Belushi back at the Chateau Marmont. Dude’s just gotta take his Crestor and chill out. Instead he sneaks out to a local nightclub where he gets shitfaced with man who played Mr Green in Clue Michael McKean. Fran Drescher shows up and she makes out with Jack and says she’s gonna take him home to ball...but luckily Jack gets into a fistfight and arrested and GOD THIS MOVIE SUCKS!!! This night on the town only deepens Jack’s depression. He flips his shit and decides to drop out of school. He holes up in his room and grows the beard that will win him an Oscar in Good Will Hunting the following year. His dad tells his mom that he thinks they should have another baby. She asks him is he’s lost his goddamn motherfucking mind. The topic is not brought up again. His fellow classmates show up outside his window and howl for Jack to come out and play but dude just slips on an oxygen mask and passes out. It’s dark as shit. Two months go by or whatever and now Jack is at least Death to Smoochy-era Robin Williams. He suddenly decides that he wants to return to school for reasons that are completely unclear (they need to end the movie somehow?). When he walks into class the students are delivering their “what I want to be when I grow up” speeches (two months later?? That’s a lax-ass homework assignment). One kid says he wants to be the rapper Heavy D when he grows up. Louis says he wants to be Jack. Both of these kids have serious death wishes. Jack receives a hero’s welcome. He tries to sit in his tiny desk again...and it collapses...again...and I do not laugh...AGAIN!! Instead of putting this movie out of its misery we now flash forward 7 years to graduation day...where Jack is being lauded as valedictorian. He’s also, according to my rudimentary math, now 68 years old. This makes me super bummed because A). Robin Williams never lived to see 68...and B). I just watched all 113 minutes of the movie Jack. He gives a speech where he tells everyone to think of him every time they see a shooting star. Everyone claps/cries/vomits. The movie ends. I watch immediately watch The Godfather and think about how I would rather wake up with a severed horse’s head in my bed every day for the rest of my life than have to watch Jack again. The end.