With the recent death of Paul Newman, I thought it would be appropriate for us to see some of his major films. Marina has only seen one where he is 75 or so (don't recall the name). We started with Cool Hand Luke, perhaps the worst of his good films. This is also the first time we watch a DVD on our new TV (63cm diagonal for free - a neighbour must have bought a plasma screen and was throwing this out) with our 6 Euro DVD player bought at Goodwill. If we had bought this stuff new we would have spent 500 instead of 6.
Too bad the last time I have seen Cool Hand Luke was when I was 18. I thought it was a much better film. It may be the worst of Newman's mediocre films. The acting is really not very good, comparing with say Papillon. Let's just not compare. This is just naive. George Kennedy could never look really mean. It's painful to see him trying too hard. Newman's lines are also too cool to be cool.
On the other hand, it's great to see Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper looking so young, although of course HDS always looked like shit. And Dennis Hopper will always look ultra-mean to me, regardless of what role he is playing, since I have seen him in Blue Velvet. He looks very out of place in goofy characters and I am always thinking he is suddenly going to get out the inhaler and after a deep breath sweetly declare "Baby wants to fuck!"
We have only seen half of the film. Unfortunately Marina cannot see whole films on most nights, which is more than a bit annoying, but she has to get up early so there is not much to be done. Hopefully I will change my mind about the film when it gets a bit more intense towards the end. After this one, I hope I can convince her to see The Hustler or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Too bad the last time I have seen Cool Hand Luke was when I was 18. I thought it was a much better film. It may be the worst of Newman's mediocre films. The acting is really not very good, comparing with say Papillon. Let's just not compare. This is just naive. George Kennedy could never look really mean. It's painful to see him trying too hard. Newman's lines are also too cool to be cool.
On the other hand, it's great to see Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper looking so young, although of course HDS always looked like shit. And Dennis Hopper will always look ultra-mean to me, regardless of what role he is playing, since I have seen him in Blue Velvet. He looks very out of place in goofy characters and I am always thinking he is suddenly going to get out the inhaler and after a deep breath sweetly declare "Baby wants to fuck!"
We have only seen half of the film. Unfortunately Marina cannot see whole films on most nights, which is more than a bit annoying, but she has to get up early so there is not much to be done. Hopefully I will change my mind about the film when it gets a bit more intense towards the end. After this one, I hope I can convince her to see The Hustler or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
1 comment:
Bem, grande texto, estavas inspirado. Valeu a pena estar 4 dias a ver nevar, para depois vir isto.
O filme com ele entradote chama-se "Nobody's fool". Além do "Gata em telhado...", vale também a pena ver "Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid" (acho que é assim que se escreve), "A cor do dinheiro" e "O veredicto". No mínimo. Haja tempo...
Se calhar começam também já a ver Manuel de Oliveira, que faz para o mês 100 anos e deve estar a bater a bota. Tem para aí 537 filmes, cada um com 25 horas. Get ready!
Post a Comment