Rock's Cheapo Theatre of the Damned

If you want more Newman, have you seen Hud? Because Hud is everything.

Paul Newman and Charlotte Rampling have two of the most beautiful pairs of eyes in the movies, and in The Verdict, they spend much of the runtime pointing them at objects of significance, at the camera, and at each other. In one of the emotional high points of the movie, we're treated to a shot-reverse shot sequence where the characters make eye contact and approach each other, their expressions subtly shifting as emotions come to a boil, one character processing the their betrayal by the other as they converge. It's a deceptively simple yet undeniably powerful piece of direction, and I'm not sure it would have resonated as much had the actors less striking pairs of eyes. In an alternate reality both Newman and Rampling would have had their stars fade and flown over to Italy and ended up in a Lucio Fulci movie, where the famously ommetaphobic director would have hit us with a barrage of extreme eye close-ups and then...Splow! In case the power of onamotopoeia fails me, the sound I'm making is the one that's meant to evoke the results of the spiked-bat-on-testicle torture from the intro to "M.E.T.H.O.D. Man".

I watched this to chase The Color of Money, which I'd put on to pre-game for Top Gun: Maverick (the original was not on any of my streaming services) but only made me hungry for more Newman. And I think the two movies pair well together (this and The Color of Money, although that one pairs better than you'd expect with Top Gun: Maverick) as there are similarities in Newman's performances and character arcs. Both characters are old and faded and not as sharp as they used to be, but where Scorsese conceded Newman's underlying coolness and complemented the hints of classic Newman magic with an appropriately flashy style, Lumet opens with him in a completely dismal state, having him scan the obituary section and sneak into funerals as the movie opens. (Rampling later sizes him up succinctly: "You want to be a failure? Then, do it some place else! I can't invest in failure, Frank, anymore. I can't.") Both movies show the characters navigating bars with some frequency, and evokes the settings with the , but here there's no real joy, just desperation.

The movie is a masterclass in small moments and gestures, and you can see Newman get a glimmer of a certain hope when a potential expert witness concludes an exchange in the simplest words.

I'm not sure this moment would work nearly as well if Lumet didn't trust his actors completely and if anyone without the carefully calibrated magnetism of Newman were providing the reaction. Similar to Scorsese's movie, there's a deep appreciation of Newman as a movie star, and the movie generates a certain tension between Newman's immense charisma and the state of his character. We want him to succeed because he's Paul Newman, dammit.

I'd actually watched most of this years ago, but had missed the ending, which as you can guess is pretty important for a courtroom drama. Now for years I'd processed my failure to catch those last few minutes by rationalizing that it doesn't matter what the outcome is to the case, but you know, it kind of does here, at least in terms of the emotional fallout for the main characters. (As a result I'm considering it a first time; also I'd forgotten large chunks of the movie.) I am no legal eagle (and have yet to even be called for jury duty) so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the courtroom scenes, but Lumet's direction is so good as to be invisible, knowing just where to point the camera and when to cut, so that the proceedings themselves provide the tension. There's a key moment when Newman concludes his case, and as he's speaking, Lumet slowly moves in his camera. The move is pretty straightfoward, but the effect is tremendously moving, granting this character a certain dignity he'd been fighting to reclaim for the entire movie. Sometimes simpler is better.

If you want more Newman, have you seen Hud? Because Hud is everything.

I have not, and it looks like it isn't on any of my services at the moment, but I'll keep an eye out for it


As far as Martin Ritt goes, it looks like Murphy's Romance is on the Criterion Channel. Sally Field in a Hawaiian shirt? How can I lose?

Cool Hand Luke and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof might have something to say about that.

They might want something to say, but Hud is still better.

Hud is at Pluto tv if you have access.

https://pluto.tv/en/on-demand/movies..._source=google

Cool Hand Luke and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof might have something to say about that.

I have not but I've enjoyed the few from Larraz I've seen. And it looks to be well regarded by my Letterboxd circle, which is doubly encouraging.


That being said, there's a horse on the cover and... I hope this doesn't go full Emmanuelle in America, does it?

Now, having gotten to Black Candles, things get more murky. As the animal stuff is more simulated than implied.

I looked this up on Letterboxd, and almost all the reviews from my network mention said content, so...probably gonna put this off for some time.


That being said, the premise sounds intriguing. Along those lines, have you seen Black Mass AKA Messe Noir? It's a French pornographic short film from the '20s about a satanic orgy. None of it is terribly shocking, but there's a nice Haxan vibe to the whole thing.

I have not. And I wasn't sure if I'd be interested in it, but trying to imagine, "a whole Haxan vibe," that now sounds kind of awesome.


There's an MST3K-level quality softcore from the 60s called The Satanist, that's comically enjoyable (if you find really flat narrators funny after enough of the rake effect. Like I said, if it weren't for the fact it's softcore, it wouldn't be out of place amongst the movies that were on MST3K when I was a teenager).

I went to add that to the watchlist...and it was already on there.


I see it stars Pat Barrington, who was the subject of a Rialto Report piece. That might be why I added the movie to the watchlist earlier.

Now, having gotten to Black Candles, things get more murky. As the animal stuff is more simulated than implied.

Black Candles added to the watchlist. Hell, even Sean Baker has a positive review on Letterboxd (frankly, though, he never says bad things in his reviews so they're not very informative).