Paul Newman's Best Movie
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There's no way I can choose!!!
Cool Hand Luke
The Sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Absence of Malice
The Hustler
Hud
Could go on and on...
Cool Hand Luke
The Sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Absence of Malice
The Hustler
Hud
Could go on and on...
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Classicqueen13
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I don't feel I have much to add to this thread; obviously, all the Newman classics have been mentioned multiple times, and with good reason.
But I have to submit that his best film I've seen has to be The Hustler. When I first saw it, I was probably about 16 and didn't have any concept of what film was about; I loved it but I essentially just thought it was "cool". Eventually, with some (admittedly limited) maturation and some (admittedly limited) understanding of film in general, I've come to consider it a brilliant character study, in which Newman gives a brave, intelligent performance as a man built to compete but who has to learn how to lose - and the high stakes are not on the felt, but in the emotional realm.
But I have to submit that his best film I've seen has to be The Hustler. When I first saw it, I was probably about 16 and didn't have any concept of what film was about; I loved it but I essentially just thought it was "cool". Eventually, with some (admittedly limited) maturation and some (admittedly limited) understanding of film in general, I've come to consider it a brilliant character study, in which Newman gives a brave, intelligent performance as a man built to compete but who has to learn how to lose - and the high stakes are not on the felt, but in the emotional realm.
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the angel stayed until something died, one more murder suicide
the angel stayed until something died, one more murder suicide
I thought that I posted this earlier, but it didn't show up now. I love Paul Newman movies though!
Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Absence of Malice, The Hustler
Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Absence of Malice, The Hustler
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I thought that I posted this earlier, but it didn't show up now. I love Paul Newman movies though!
There's no way I can choose!!!
Cool Hand Luke
The Sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Absence of Malice
The Hustler
Hud
Could go on and on...
Cool Hand Luke
The Sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Absence of Malice
The Hustler
Hud
Could go on and on...
__________________
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg
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My top 5 fave Paul Newman flix:
5. The Sting
I always felt that scripting a movie that focuses on a successful elaborate con-job really requires an exercizing of creativity from the writer. Bringing in all the elements of the characters & acts to pull off a scheme that is both credible in it's enactment & at the same time fascinating in it's grand unfolding is a balancing act on a extremely narrow margin.
This was one of the 1st. ones I watched as a kid. The chemistry between Newman & Robert Redford was evident even to me, as young as I was. They acted cool, they looked cool & particpated in a scheme that, in my mind, was cool. This was the movie that began my affection for quality heist/confidence movies.
4. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
the first example of the lightning captured in a bottle that is the Newman & Redford combo. I like Newman's character more though in this movie than in the Sting. We get to see more him as Butch Cassidy & the relationship with his fellow bank robber, Harry Longabaugh. A really unique western that is both lotsa of fun & tragic at the same time.
3. Cool Hand Luke
How cool is Cool Hand Luke?
He's so cool that he's willing to eat 50 hardboiled eggs within an hour just to win a bet. This, in a prison where he has to share his immediate space with a
bunch of hardcore criminal chain-gang types, who are well within his ratio of flatulenciated influence. And if you can't understand that,
well then,
what we've got here
is a failure to communicate.
2. Nobody's Fool
A movie that I have cayegorized as a "holiday movie" just so I can say "Definitely, one of my top favorite holiday movies". Paul matches up his solidly honed acting abilities with those of Ms. Jessica Tandy, to lead off a truly solid troupe of actors. Along with Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffin & Phillip Seymour Hoffman, they all combine to form a great cast of characters, each role comfortably fitting as a piece of a puzzle that, despite their sharp edges, still all fit in perfectly.
1. The Verdict
Probably my favorite court drama of all time. With a seasoned ease, Paul portrays a disheveled, aging, never-has-been, malpractice lawyer who finds within himself the humanity which never really had a chance to surface due to the layered weight of his chronic alcoholism. The movie & Newman's performance sets up very well the desolation & loneliness that the main character moves his life thru as he goes up against the legal system that giganticly favors the "big guys" over the "little guys". One can really get the sense that Newman knows that he stands no chance of winning the case, but continues moving on forward because he is, for the 1st. time in his barely neglible career, fueled by the honesty & goodness of what is right. A feeling that is so new to this character, that, combined with the realizaton that a human life is totally dependent him for justice, it becomes emotion exhilirating enough to keep an almost broken old man to keep fighting on, no matter how high the price.
One of those rare times when the performance comes thru real enough to make us ( oh, what am I'm talkin' about this "us" bullsh#t? What I really mean is "me" ) almost believe that even under the most insurmountable odds, there is always some kind of hope.
5. The Sting
I always felt that scripting a movie that focuses on a successful elaborate con-job really requires an exercizing of creativity from the writer. Bringing in all the elements of the characters & acts to pull off a scheme that is both credible in it's enactment & at the same time fascinating in it's grand unfolding is a balancing act on a extremely narrow margin.
This was one of the 1st. ones I watched as a kid. The chemistry between Newman & Robert Redford was evident even to me, as young as I was. They acted cool, they looked cool & particpated in a scheme that, in my mind, was cool. This was the movie that began my affection for quality heist/confidence movies.
4. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
the first example of the lightning captured in a bottle that is the Newman & Redford combo. I like Newman's character more though in this movie than in the Sting. We get to see more him as Butch Cassidy & the relationship with his fellow bank robber, Harry Longabaugh. A really unique western that is both lotsa of fun & tragic at the same time.
3. Cool Hand Luke
How cool is Cool Hand Luke?
He's so cool that he's willing to eat 50 hardboiled eggs within an hour just to win a bet. This, in a prison where he has to share his immediate space with a
bunch of hardcore criminal chain-gang types, who are well within his ratio of flatulenciated influence. And if you can't understand that,
well then,
what we've got here
is a failure to communicate.
2. Nobody's Fool
A movie that I have cayegorized as a "holiday movie" just so I can say "Definitely, one of my top favorite holiday movies". Paul matches up his solidly honed acting abilities with those of Ms. Jessica Tandy, to lead off a truly solid troupe of actors. Along with Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffin & Phillip Seymour Hoffman, they all combine to form a great cast of characters, each role comfortably fitting as a piece of a puzzle that, despite their sharp edges, still all fit in perfectly.
1. The Verdict
Probably my favorite court drama of all time. With a seasoned ease, Paul portrays a disheveled, aging, never-has-been, malpractice lawyer who finds within himself the humanity which never really had a chance to surface due to the layered weight of his chronic alcoholism. The movie & Newman's performance sets up very well the desolation & loneliness that the main character moves his life thru as he goes up against the legal system that giganticly favors the "big guys" over the "little guys". One can really get the sense that Newman knows that he stands no chance of winning the case, but continues moving on forward because he is, for the 1st. time in his barely neglible career, fueled by the honesty & goodness of what is right. A feeling that is so new to this character, that, combined with the realizaton that a human life is totally dependent him for justice, it becomes emotion exhilirating enough to keep an almost broken old man to keep fighting on, no matter how high the price.
One of those rare times when the performance comes thru real enough to make us ( oh, what am I'm talkin' about this "us" bullsh#t? What I really mean is "me" ) almost believe that even under the most insurmountable odds, there is always some kind of hope.
__________________
Right now, all I'm wearing is a mustard-stained wife-beater T-shirt, no pants & a massive sombrero.
Right now, all I'm wearing is a mustard-stained wife-beater T-shirt, no pants & a massive sombrero.
Last edited by TheMightyCelestial; 05-27-11 at 02:24 PM.
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