Worth it just for the screaming match that Jack Nicholson and Ann Margaret get into about two-thirds through the movie. I heard that both actors lost their voice during the filming of multiple takes of this scene and watching this scene you can see it.

This is one of Jack's early roles and you can see his persona slowly being formed. He is positively deranged, arrogant, cynical and off-putting here. Much of his dialogue is ferocious and makes you weep for humanity. Co-star Arthur Gatfunkel comes off as pathetic, desperate and clueless, as well as sharing some of harsher Jack's traits. This film certainly does not help the man's side in the Battle of the sexes. The men here are…

Worth it just for the screaming match that Jack Nicholson and Ann Margaret get into about two-thirds through the movie. I heard that both actors lost their voice during the filming of multiple takes of this scene and watching this scene you can see it.

This is one of Jack's early roles and you can see his persona slowly being formed. He is positively deranged, arrogant, cynical and off-putting here. Much of his dialogue is ferocious and makes you weep for humanity. Co-star Arthur Gatfunkel comes off as pathetic, desperate and clueless, as well as sharing some of harsher Jack's traits. This film certainly does not help the man's side in the Battle of the sexes. The men here are…

So many mixed feelings here. Carnal Knowledge boasts a strong cast, an interesting narrative and direction, and many great technical works. But it also has some poor pacing and leaves too many unanswered questions at the audience's disposal.

The film starts out with a conversation with us not knowing who is talking, where it takes place, why it started, or its relevance. Through this conversation, the thesis is introduced, "Would you rather be loved or love someone?". Garfunkel says he'd like both, but if he had to choose one, it'd be to love someone. Nicholson agrees that he'd rather love than be loved, but that he wouldn't want to be hurt by the one he loves. Within in the first…

Carnal Knowledge (1971)
Mike Nichols
B-

A tough film to qualify (truth be told, I’ve been laboring over exactly how I feel about it for days now). Trying to separate my repulsion towards the characters, which is by design, from the glibness issues that I find tends to creep up in many of Nichols’ films. Certainly a seminal moment in the white male rage movement; hard to imagine Neil LaBute existing without this film, to say nothing of Nichols’ own CLOSER which I realize, 10-years after the fact, is essentially a de-facto remake. Still a bitter pill to swallow, not at all softened by time or the prevalence of films like GREENBERG and IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. To wit:…

The poster for this that letterboxd is the most hilariously inaccurate thing I have seen.

This was excellent. Starting with a brutally biting and brilliant script by the great cartoonist Jules Feiffer (of the illustrations for The Phantom Tollbooth fame). Nicholson and Garfunkel are each great in their roles, playing a certain type which interesting depths. Garfunkel, for example, is a nice and sweet guy seemingly. Inexperienced and idolizing of Nicholson's cad. But really he is obviously a "nice guy". He pressures his girlfriend into sex through guilt and celebrates it. Nicholson, the seemingly more obviously assholish of the two (frequently reducing women to only their physical looks, caring nothing about personality) is also the one who seems to really…