One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

Rating:
Summary: ABSOLUTELY MESMERIZING!
Review: This film deservingly won the top 5 academy awards (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress)...and will stand the test of time as one of the greatest achievements in filmmaking. Jack Nicholson conveys every emotion possible in this comedy-tragedy-drama...He plays an imprisoned man with a free spirit who becomes a dangerous force in the rigid, restrictive mental hospital. Louise Fletcher is unforgettable as the icy Nurse Ratched, and the supporting cast is outstanding. An absolute triumph!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly Adapted From The Book
Review: Although my mental picture of McMurphy was slightly different than seen on the movie (mostly because of the red hair) everything else was matched so well, the atmosphere of it all and everything...just great. As the book and the movie, one of the greatest stories yet-

Rating:
Summary: Sights, Sounds and Images in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is adapted from a novel of the same name written by Ken Kesey. The movie carries with it symbolism through color, sounds, and images and the casting could not have been more proper. Jack Nicholson is cast in the lead role as Randle Patrick McMurphy, a ne'er-do-well who goes into a mental institution to finish off his jail sentence. He figures it will be more slack than the work farm. His nemesis is Nurse Ratched, cast and played extraordinarily by Louise Fletcher. The movie does well in incorporating feelings and colors that surround the viewer with the mental institution's atmosphere. And the sounds and images put forth by director Milos Forman add to that ambiance. One of the film's biggest successes lies in the cinematography (or lack thereof). Virtually all the scenes, even when the inmates go outside, are bleak and dreary. The lighting in the institution is the fluorescent, white-out type of lighting. Every slippery hospital surface is revealed and the viewer can almost smell the hospital cleaning fluids emanating from the screen. The hospital has no bright happy colors, either. It is filmed in the dim blues and greys of the ward that resemble the patients' despair. The patients are dressed in dim grey as well and the nurse, as always, wears stark white. The nurse's appearance also holds symbolism in it. Her uniform is always perfectly pressed. And her hat is always on straight. She represents order and authority, and her uniform is one symbolic affect of that order. It totally contrasts the patient's mien - always disheveled, wearing demeaning hospital robes. The director uses wonderfully disenchanting sounds to relate to the audience the pain and helplessness of the patients. One patient is constantly remarking how tired he is and other characters are constantly stuttering and "acting weird." Random yells echo throughout the halls. The echo allows for the hospital's feeling of emptiness and loneliness and gives it a cavernous feel. Its halls are never ending and escape from this institution is futile. The echoes bounce off every surface, trapping each patient in their own madness. The use of hospital noises and colors add to the realistic scenery of the film. It is masterfully done, and each audience member is forced to go through the pain and despair of the patients. The subject matter has always been one I like. The ragamuffin character comes in and saves all the horribly despondent people from pure emotional distress. As if those patients didn't have it bad enough, they are constantly being controlled by the Big Nurse. She represents order, authority - the Establishment. And these poor souls are putting their lives in her hands, only for her to take advantage of them. Milos Forman puts this story in perfect visual form, not using too many film techniques to take away from the story at hand. Colors, images, and sounds carried from the novel to the screen are constant and well-done. The feeling one gets from the movie is delicously horrible, as most asylums surely are. A phenomenal story by Kesey and direction by Forman, and an uncanny portrayal of McMurphy by Nicholson, allow the story to live on in visual form.

Rating:
Summary: Clearly one of the better films of all time
Review: This film has the very best acting performance of Jack Nicholson in his long, distinguished career. The film is a starkly realistic depiction of life (if you want to call it that) in a mental institution. I cheered while Nicholson led his fellow patients to believe in themselves; that they all had the potential to lead more meaningful and responsible lives.

Rating:
Summary: this is the best movie ever
Review: this movie is flamboyant,brilliant,and amazingly cool.Possibly one of the greatest films of all time.this is a film anybody can see over and over.

Rating:
Summary: A classic movie with disappointing DVD image quality
Review: Nicholson is brilliant as Randall P McMurphy. The supporting cast is great also. The cast includes many actors that were not well known at the time, went on to have very successful carreers (for example Danny Devito, "Scatman Crothers", and Christopher Lloyd). The movie is quite faithful to author Ken Kesey's novel.

There is a video problem with several scenes on the widescreen side - the picture is distorted (horizontally stretched). This is very annoying, and my letter to the manufacturer has not been answered.

Rating:
Summary: ASTOUNDINGLY BRILLIANT, WITH MUCH CULTURAL IMPACT.
Review: "Cuckoo's Nest" is the only film to realistically portray the interplay between mental patients and instituitional staff. As the audience sees how the passive-aggressive actions of Nurse Ratched affect the patients, we feel contempt. The reason, I think, is because we all are a bit "crazy"; which is what the film tries to tell us. A friend who worked as a psychiatric technician told me that the ECT procedures used in the film were very accurate and that the patients at the hospital he worked at were terrified of being put on the list. Great performances by Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, and Scatman Crothers. A must see.

Rating:
Summary: the coolest, funniest film of all time
Review: how could anybody hate this movie

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest films ever
Review: It is rare that a movie lives up to the quality of the book that it is based on. This classic surely does. Jack Nicholson puts on the performance of a lifetime. This is the type of movie that will have you thinking about it long after you have seen it.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant ("MMM juicy fruit")
Review: this has to be one the best films i've seen for quite some time. Jack Nicholson was brilliant as Macmurphy, quite possibly his best film. I've viewed both the dvd version of the film and the vhs version, though i was dissapointed with dvd version because of its poor transfer, the little black blotches which you see when watching a film at the cinema are clearly visable and there were no extra features at all. Well, the dvd is still miles better than the vhs version, but who cares, the movie is so briliant it makes up for all its technical weaknesses.