SCREENING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 7:30PM – FREE.

Josh says:
The film will break your heart, but in a good way. The story concerns two brothers, one a shy intellectual who tells stories on the radio (he sounds a bit like a modern NPR personality), the other an irrepressible hustler who scrapes by on easy charm and big dreams (built mostly on scams). Jack Nicholson, cast against type, plays the former; Bruce Dern, at his grinning best, plays the latter. They’re brought together by a convoluted scheme involving a private island, but their relationship suffers from the tension created by Dern’s floozy girlfriend (Ellen Burstyn) and his underworld associate (Scatman Crothers).

Shot on location in the winter of an eerily depopulated Atlantic City, Bob Rafelson’s finest film captures the grand hotels and resorts of the city’s heyday (recently reconstructed on Boardwalk Empire) in their surreal, fascinating decrepitude. The King of Marvin Gardens reminds us that while the 1970s might have been a “lost decade” for American public life, they were the true golden age of American film.

If you haven’t seen this movie, what are you even doing with your life?