Presenting The Paul Newman Retrospective: A Failure to Communicate: Cool Hand Luke, 1967

Well, the Oscars ended and I decided that I liked having a theme. I just finished reading Shaun Levy's Paul Newman: A Life and I thought, "Hey, the Paul Newman Retrospective!"

Here's the deal: I am going to cover every Paul Newman movie I can, even the crap ones, which sometimes in the 1970s he just did a movie because it wouldn't interfere with race season, so he made some crap. Okay? Even Paul has his faults. There is one exception to this though and that is Quintet. All I know about Quintet is that it takes place in some post apocalyptic future where people kill each other because they're bored and it was directed by Robert Altman. I do not do doomsday/post-apocalyptic scenarios because I will not sleep for a week. Also, movies where the aliens invade or say they're here to be our friends. If I had met the Vulcans in First Contact, let's just say it probably would have gone differently. So, I intend to alternate posts between good Paul Newman and crappy Paul Newman. So, I'll take you from his debut in The Silver Chalice to Cars. Yes, I watched Cars.



I thought no place would be better to start than Cool Hand Luke. Two disclaimers. One, the first time I saw it, I did not have a clue what was going on. Two, it is one of my favorite movies.

The story is about Lucas Jackson, who we see in a very bizarre scene at the beginning of the film drunkenly cutting the heads off of parking meters. He can't really answer why he's doing this. He gets sentenced to two years in a prison chain gang. We quickly realize that Luke is unable to deal with any authority from the prison boss to the prisoner structure.



It's not that Luke is stupid, he just seems unable to bend to any rules, even in the interest of self preservation. We get the feeling that he wishes he could just obey rules like other people. Take this scene where he fights the prison leader Dragline and impresses the other prisoners even though he loses, but he never can give up.



Luke becomes a hero to the prisoners through this and a series of other escapades including the famous 50 eggs scene.



Or when he encourages the other prisoners to finish their work early simply to confound the guards.



In these small ways, Luke achieves victories against the system and the man, but these are short-lived. Problems arise when Luke's mother dies. Yeah, like being in a chain gang wasn't bad enough. The prison boss decides to put him in the box instead of running the risk that he will try to escape. Unfortunately, this makes Luke want to escape. And escape he does. This makes him even more of a hero, he sends back a picture of himself with two attractive women. Luke is finally returned to the prison, where the guards endeavour to break his spirit through hopeless tasks and merciless beatings. When he finally collapses and begs them for mercy, the effect is devastating. You feel like Luke has died and you're not quite certain what sort of creature you're looking at. The film carries on with the new, broken Luke and just when it seems like all hope is lost, Luke makes another escape, this time with Dragline. They split up and Luke takes refuge in a church for what is my favorite scene in a movie full of great scenes.



It strikes me as a favorite because it is so universal. Who hasn't asked God or the Universe if you would rather see it that way, what the hell is the deal here? Paul Newman manages to pull this scene off in a way that draws us in, doesn't seem so theatrical and doesn't come off as hokey as the scene could easily do if in the hands of a lesser actor.

Things don't end up well for Luke, like so many literary Christ figures before him. The film concludes with the other prisoners remembering Luke and his exploits, which is what my grandmother claims is the important part of the story. I'm not entirely sure, but it may well center around the theme of defiance in the face of an uncaring world, the uselessness of rebellion. As the prison boss asserts, most of us get used to our chains. Luke doesn't. He can't, so the world destroys him.

shockingly, this movie didn't have a Best Picture nomination. George Kennedy did win a Best Supporting Actor nomination and once again, Paul Newman got nominated for an Oscar but didn't get one. It does have one of the most famous lines in all of cinema, though.



Strother Martin the actor who plays the warden saw the line as something his character would have absorbed with the intellectualizing of the penal system. To me, it feels like such a real line, that could come straight out of the mouth of any southern sheriff.

This is not an easy film, maybe one better watched with some Cliffs Notes. In my mind, that's probably why the film didn't get the recognition it deserved when it came out. On the inane note, two years on a chain gang for vandalism? Are you kidding me? What crappy lawyer did Luke have? Were there no women on that jury? What the hell? Also, if you watch the Special Features on the DVD, you can listen to the other actors tell how they asked Paul Newman how he had a six pack and say things like, "Of course, we didn't call it a six pack back then..." I'm not even kidding.

So, what do you think? Is Paul Newman supposed to be Jesus in this film? Did he really have a great six pack? What do we know about "the man"? Let me know in the comments section!

Future Classic: Toy Story 3 - 2010

In 1995, Toy Story came out and frankly, I thought I was too old to like it. I did anyway because it did what all Pixar films do and that is strike at a truth that we all know to be true. In this particular case, that when we were little we totally thought our toys were alive and did stuff when we left the room. Toy Story 2 was actually an incredible sequel especially for an animated film because we all know those usually turn out to be a bunch of crap. (Shrek 4, anyone?) Toy Story 3 was the first movie of 2010 that I knew I HAD to see.

Story. We find the toys languishing as Andy is nearly grown up and hasn't played with them in years. Andy is going to college and the toys are struggling with what this means for them. They decide to try life at Sunnyside Day Care, against Woody's wishes as he feel ardently that they are Andy's toys and should go wherever Andy wants them to. Here is a clip from some of their tour:



I have to say that the whole Barbie/ken storyline is one of the greatest parts of the film and maybe the most obvious/clever thing ever. Woody decides to go back to Andy and gets sidetracked when he's picked up by a little girl named Bonnie. Life at Sunnyside is not what it's cracked up to be.



I called this when Lotso Huggin' Bear came onscreen. I turned to my brother and said, "This whole thing is going to turn out like Cool Hand Luke." I give you night in the box.



That was Cool Hand Luke obviously and not Toy Story 3, but this is what YouTube makes available to me. I do promise someone does spend a night in the box. Woody gets to know Bonnie and her toys, where we discover all dinosaur toys are tech savvy and Woody gets to experience what it's like to be played with again, which breathes love in him and puts a crack in his stoicism about being Andy's toy. Also, Timothy Dalton gives probably the best performance of his career as a Shakespeare-inclined porcupine toy. Inspired. Yeah, I'm still bitter about his two Bond movies.



Woody makes his way back to Sunnyside where the toys have gone all Lord of the Flies and Buzz has been reset to think yeah, he's a spaceman. The toys try to fix him.



Anyway, the toys have to escape. They make their way home in ways that I don't want to ruin and nearly gave me a heart attack. But they get home, resigned to their fates. Woody overhears Andy and his mom talking. Andy's mom is upset and Andy reassures her that she'll always be with him, even when they're not together. Woody realizes that Andy no longer needs him, that's he is already a part of him that he will carry for the rest of their life and Woody is finally able to let go. We see him scribble something on the box the toys are in and then he joins them.

The note leads Andy to Bonnie's house, where he gives Bonnie the toys. As he does so, he describes each one of them and in doing so, we realize that he is describing parts of himself. No more so is this evident that when he is surprised to discover Woody at the bottom of the box and for a second, we see just a kid who doesn't want to give up his favorite toy. But he does and he and Bonnie play with the toys before he drives off to college.

We see some of the toys' life with Bonnie and get to see the toys at Sunnyside. And finally I stop crying along with everyone else in the theater.

The reason that this movie hits you so hard is that it draws on the nostalgia of childhood, places you don't usually delve into so when you do it's powerful. I would say that most movies depend on flash and new technology and while Toy Story 3 has those it doesn't RELY on them other than to technically get the story across. I was at the Austin Film Festival this past year and one of the decided highlights of the festival was a panel with the screenwriter of this film, Michael Arndt, who also wrote Little Miss Sunshine. He spoke about something which I never heard discussed in film school, which is the philosophical stakes of a story, that in order for your story to succeed it has to be about something other than a flashy, glittering surface. For instance, in this movie it's about what is the role of a toy? Is Lotso right or is Woody? Or does Woody have it wrong?

Anyway, of course we know this movie does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning Best Picture, but it was still one of my favorites of the year. I still marvel at the emotional effect that it has on people. I know people are starting to sneer at Pixar but that's only because everything they do is so good and when you're good, you're a target. This is the rare case when the last part of a series has left me satisfied, content to leave it where it is, to never want to go back. Hear me, Pixar? Don't revisit this! You'll kill it! Shrek 4, anyone?