A Cop Flick With A Lot of 'Pride'

by Brett Parker

The interesting thing about Pride and Glory is the way it pretends that countless other police dramas about corruption have never existed before. The film may occupy familiar cinematic territory, yet it strangely doesn’t feel that way. Here is a situation where talented stars and filmmakers bring A-Game efforts in trying to make a routine story seem as realistic and relevant as humanly possible, effectively cloaking the age-old clichés staring us dead in the face.

The film opens in a brisk and cold Christmas time in New York City. Four cops are found brutally murdered in a drug bust gone horribly wrong. The four officers were under the command of Francis Tierney, JR. (Noah Emmerich) who is oblivious to how such a situation could turn so deadly. Seeking desperate answers to such an alarming situation, Francis Tierney, SR. (Jon Voight) recruits his other son, Ray Tierney (Edward Norton) to investigate. Ray is a skilled detective with a very troubling past that caused him to bow out of the force early in his career. After a wounded plea from his father, Ray agrees to take on the case. As Ray carries out the investigation, he soon uncovers a disturbing ring of police corruption, one of drug dealing and contract killings, with his brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell), as the ring leader. Tensions and violence flair as family loyalties clash with police ethics and confused moralities.

There’s really nothing that goes down in Pride and Glory that you haven’t seen done in a million other cop films. What’s surprising is the way we don’t really seem to notice. The film is a subtle and focused affair that relies on emotions more so than action and regards police corruption as social tragedy instead of just exploited entertainment. Director Gavin O’Connor’s last film, Miracle, also demonstrated a knack for telling an involving and compelling story in spite of the timeless formula it embodies. He certainly knows how to assemble the right talent for the job. Cinematographer Declan Quinn (Leaving Las Vegas, Rachel Getting Married) brings a real artistic grace to the film’s visual scheme; he makes us sense the bleak chill of the winter landscape and places us as a frantic bystander in the urban action as the camera creeps up staircases and down alleyways. The actor’s endless talents ease perfectly into their roles; Norton has that one-two punch of street smarts and everyman we’ve come to expect from him and Voight of course nails the wisdom and conflicts of an aging police patriarch.

The best reason to see the film is the vicious supporting turn from Colin Farrell as the corrupt cop. In his celebrity life, Farrell’s womanizing, partying, and foreign demeanor would make him seem like an Errol Flynn for our times, yet he attacks roles with the compelling charisma and intensity of Al Pacino (his co-star in The Recruit). This comparison probably comes from the fact that both actors have created a staple in playing cops in numerous films. After playing super-cool good cops in S.W.A.T. and Miami Vice, Farrell astonishes us with his horrifying villainy this time out. A scene where he tough-talks a street hood who confronts him at his home makes us feel as if we’re staring down a scary pit-bull and our blood is truly chilled in a scene where Farrell punches a criminal’s wife and threatens to burn his infant child’s face if he doesn’t receive information. Farrell is always a convincing actor and it’s so impressive this time considering the vile nature of his character.

Compared with other cop movies, Pride and Glory isn’t exactly a masterwork. It never achieves the pot boiling tension of Serpico nor does it possess the cool fascination of Miami Vice. One thing it did do, however, was to restore more faith in me towards the Police as an institution. The last cop film I saw, Street Kings, had literally all but one of its characters favor corrupt values all the way up until the very end. This time around, it was nice to see cops discuss the moral values of what they’re doing and make certain decisions in trying to make things right. Not every cop is corrupt to the core, and the film’s realism only strengthens my faith in that ideal.

McFly vs. Bueller: Who's the Coolest?

by Brett Parker

When I was in college, our student newspaper once conducted a reader poll as to who was cooler: Marty McFly from Back to the Future or Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. What an awesome debate, I thought, for these two were undoubtedly the coolest teenage characters to ever grace the silver screen, but who would come out on top in a showdown? They certainly make for worthy adversaries: both are confident and charming young men who seek adventure and have a gift for twisting situations towards their favor. They obtain admiration and popularity from the environments they occupy and they know how to outsmart the negative forces out to destroy them. They both have an exceptionally wise and thoughtful outlook on life and, probably most admirable of all, they possess a fierce loyalty towards their girlfriends and best buds. Both are embodiments of a definitive teenage cool that has transcended the 80s and appears to be timelessly celebrated by moviegoers of all generations.

I smiled over the debate as I read about it in the paper, yet I never officially cast a vote for anyone (I was busy tending to my studies, parties, and women). As time went on, I found myself mentioning this debate whenever the subject of movies was brought up and found that’s its one of those debates that really knows how to stir people’s opinions. People not only enthusiastically smile at the idea of such a clever debate but they passionately defend their choices with the intellectual zest of a film scholar. One could say it has become the Obama-McCain debate of the cinephile world. It’s also one of the most polarizing of movie debates: these are two of the most beloved movie characters from two of the most beloved movies from the 80s, how can you possibly choose one over the other?

I recently stumbled upon my definitive choice after a peculiar moment on a Sunday afternoon. I was having a picnic in a local park with a friend and we began having a random conversation about random movies. Out of nowhere, my friend sprung a wallop of a question, “who do you think is the coolest movie character ever?” What a question to spring on a cinephile! There’s no way one could come to a thoughtful, educated answer without doing a ton of research beforehand! Think of all the Steve McQueen or Frank Sinatra movies they’d have to review! Plus, you’d really have to define what type of cool is being discussed. Are we talking the dapper and debonair cool of Cary Grant or the youthful and rebellious cool of James Dean? How about the knowing slickness of George Clooney or the rugged roguishness of Johnny Depp? An entire book can be devoted to such a question! As a true lover of film, I despise leaving such questions unanswered. You have to give them something other than “I don’t know.” So in the moment I found that my generic, off-the-top-of-my-head answer was, simply, “Marty McFly.”

It’s really not hard to see how I could arrive at such a choice. Who wouldn’t want to be a skateboarding, guitar-playing, gun-slinging time traveler? To a kid, McFly’s appeal lies in his adventurous lifestyle, for he could pop up in any time period and still figure out how to come out on top. As a grown-up, one realizes that McFly exudes ideas of confidence and optimism that can be useful to abide by. He has a breezy charm and ironic wit he displays as he marches forward in hectic situations. One could argue that Ferris Bueller possesses the same qualities, and he does (save for the whole time traveling thing). But I would have to give Marty McFly the edge in this battle for the coolest: McFly simply has more adventures, more talents, a bigger heart, and even though this might sound harsh and irrelevant, Michael J. Fox is way cooler than Matthew Broderick in general.

Both McFly and Bueller appear to be masters of their grand environments. Bueller was able to charm and scheme his way around the great city of Chicago and do things that most tourists can only dream about. It’s not every teenager who can skip school to steal a Ferrari (technically), worm into a high-class restaurant, catch a homerun at Wrigley Field, and crash a giant parade float while lip-synching to The Beatles, without getting caught! While Chicago is definitely a grand environment for a teen icon to prove himself, McFly undoubtedly had grander environments to work with. Throughout the entire Back to the Future trilogy, McFly found himself in Hill Valley, California throughout several time periods. Whether it was the sock-hoppin’ 1950s, his home era of the 80s, the ironically weird 2015, or even the Wild West, Marty McFly was easily the man of his domain, charming the locals and defeating the haters. Despite strange culture shocks, McFly always gained his footing and carried on with confidence. Granted, McFly had sequels to further establish his coolness, yet his mastery of both the 80s and the 50s in the first film is enough to outshine Bueller in this aspect.

Bueller undoubtedly is a teen filled with peculiar talents. In attempting to achieve the perfect day off, he shows off skills in computer hacking, role playing, disguises, performing for crowds, and long-distance running. Impressive, yet not as impressive as Marty McFly’s skills Before the age of 18, McFly appears to be an expert at skateboarding, playing the guitar, shooting a gun, riding a horse, spying, escaping gangs and terrorists, and matchmaking. Plus, any teen who could time travel really has it over all other teens really. But what if the roles were reversed? McFly could most definitely work his way around downtown Chicago, but could Ferris Bueller have handled himself in the Wild West and 2015? I have my doubts.

A character’s likeability oftentimes depends on the likeability of the actor playing them. Perhaps McFly has the edge in my mind because I find Michael J. Fox to be a cooler actor than Matthew Broderick. Broderick was pitch perfect as Ferris Bueller and to this day it’s his best performance. Yet since that role, Broderick appears to have fashioned himself on playing geeky cornballs. He’s never really had a role as smooth or as stylish as Bueller since then. Fox, meanwhile, continued on the path of witty charmer throughout his career and could still probably play a character as cool as McFly. Judging by their careers and acting choices, Bueller was probably a carefully-constructed performance from Broderick while McFly seems to have sprung from Fox’s already appealing charisma.

Don’t think for one second that I have some kind of disdain for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I find the film one of the best teen movies ever made and John Hughes’ best film, hands down. The film is a cheerful, feel-good experience that exudes wonderful lessons about enjoying life. Critic Richard Roeper has casually referred to the film as the anti-suicide movie, an honor I find very appropriate. Ferris Bueller himself is a character of enormous style and appeal whose wisdom and humor is of infinite value to moviegoers like me. His ideals on living life to the fullest and treating yourself right were a grand inspiration to me as a child and I have always carried them around with me in the back of my mind. “Life moves pretty fast, “he tells the audience, “if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!” That’s practically my motto.

Bueller is aces all around, but unfortunately, he’s #2 to Marty McFly, the undisputed king of teenage movie cool (sorry James Dean, you didn’t have a hover board or a life preserver). McFly has taught countless moviegoers how to stand up to haters, fight for your friends and family, and always consider the future of your actions. It’s such a close debate for me, but I know in my heart that McFly is my ambassador of cool. Now, is he the coolest movie character ever? That’s a question for another article I’d seriously have to research. I’d have to give serious consideration to cats like Danny Ocean, Roger Thornhill, James Bond, and Captain Jack Sparrow before I gave McFly the prize. If nothing else though, I’ll tell you this: if you live to be even half the cool cats McFly and Bueller were, then you my friend were on a really dope path!

New to DVD: 'Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'

by Brett Parker

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens with the legendary archeologist being pulled from the trunk of a car, fedora and all, and thrown to the ground by evil Russians, forcing him into yet another dangerous adventure. It’s a fitting opening when you think about it, for it also represents a screen hero being plucked from an earlier era and being forced to do his thing in a new cinematic age. Whether he likes it or not, or whether we like it or not, the man in the hat is back in action. And I am incredibly happy to report that he’s as good as he ever was. It’s been 19 years since there’s been an Indiana Jones film (1989’s The Last Crusade); Harrison Ford has grown older and Steven Spielberg more sophisticated. What is so special about this sequel is that after all these years, both of them still has what it takes to pull of a fun Indy flick.

The year is 1957 and an aging Indiana Jones (Ford) finds there is just as much excitement and danger in his world as there’s been in past years. There’s an army of evil Russians, led by the villainous Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), who need Indy’s expertise in unearthing the secret to mind control. There’s a spunky young greaser named Mutt (Shia LeBeouf) who needs Indy’s help to free a kidnapped professor (John Hurt) by finding an ancient artifact known as the Crystal Skull. These two plot threads not only tie together but lead Indy and his companions to Nevada, Peru, and the Amazon where they face such dangerous hazards as quicksand, man-eating ants, nuclear explosions, tribal warriors, booby traps, other-worldly beings, and even relationship drama as its revealed that old girlfriend Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is Mutt’s mother.

Did the world exactly need another Indiana Jones film? I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that it’s great seeing the character again in a film that can honestly stand with the sequels. After years of imitators and wannabes, it’s almost a miracle that the filmmakers manage to keep things feeling fresh and exciting. It tries new things, yet it doesn’t betray the Indy formula we’ve come to love. It keeps things familiar, yet it steers clear of being redundant. One of the things I love is the updating to the 1950s. Since an older Indiana Jones would have to exist in a 1950s setting, the filmmakers have decided to keep things fun by making throwbacks to B-Movies of the 50s (like how the earlier Indy’s were throwbacks to the 30s and 40s). Many things you would expect to find in a 50s flick (aliens, anti-communist ideals, mind controlling, nuclear anxieties, sock-hop teenagers) show up in the plot and its great fun watching Indy wrestle with the Baby Boomer age.

Harrison Ford may be 65, but he can still crack that whip and jump those cars as if he were a thirty-year-old. He still has the smarts, the wit, and the presence to resurrect the Indy we all remember and love. If anything, Ford’s age makes the character appear more human than he has before (especially in a scene where a Russian soldier pounds on him). I was also impressed by how well Steven Spielberg has slipped back into the action-adventure mold that put him on the map in the first place. He may have shown growth and maturity with Schindler’s List and Munich, yet the child within the legendary filmmaker is back in full swing as he creates some of the most inventive and exciting adventure scenes in recent memory. Indy’s escape from both a government warehouse and a nuclear explosion are wonderfully reckless, a café brawl and a car chase through a jungle prove to be clever fun, an ocean of man-eating ants prove to be the ultimate creepy crawlers of the whole series, and I have to admit that the film’s climax contains the Indiana Jones visual to end all Indiana Jones visuals. Shia LeBeouf also adds to the fun by making Mutt Williams a cooler-than-cool life force who’s surprisingly just as appealing as Jones himself. My fedora is also off to George Lucas as well. I questioned his imagination after watching his interviews on the Indiana Jones DVDs and I even questioned his sanity after he made the Star Wars prequels, yet it must be said that he has appropriately used his clout to find the right ideas for a new Indy movie.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn’t exactly come out flawless; it shows a few scratches in its humor and pacing. The one-liners and sight gags aren’t as sharp as they used to be and the film slows down to explain its plot way more than it should, yet these are only minor complaints. It’s the B-Movie escapist fun you’ve been waiting for and it doesn’t disappoint. Critics have been knocking the film for being nothing more than a silly effects romp. People forget that before Raiders of the Lost Ark was regarded as a film classic, Spielberg and Lucas had set out to make exactly that! Growing up, I’ve heard moviegoers of the 80s tell me how exciting it was to see an Indiana Jones film on the big screen, and I’ve finally gotten to experience that for myself. The original posters for Raiders of the Lost Ark proclaimed the film as the return of the great adventure! I can’t think of a better way to describe this film!

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be released on DVD October 14th.

Dane Cook is My New 'Best Friend'

by Brett Parker

This past summer movie season rolled out an avalanche of promising comedy vehicles from hot and popular comedians whose talents have been praised to the high heavens. Talents ranging from Steve Carrell to the Judd Apatow Gang served up promising comedies that looked hilarious in their trailers and hype. In the weeks leading up to the release of these individual comedies, I read countless articles praising the comic genius of the rising talents behind these films (even Mike Myers received honorable write-ups leading up to the release of The Love Guru, the entirety of that fiasco not being fully eclipsed yet). Apparently, America loves these comedians and believes were in the midst of some sort of comedy renaissance for the YouTube era.

As I went about my religious summer movie going this year, I made sure I took in all of these potential laugh fests. These titles include Get Smart, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder. I enjoyed these films; they were likeable in their cheerful goofiness. My award for the best comedy of the summer goes to Tropic Thunder, mainly for its intelligent and observant satire of Hollywood business and Robert Downey, JR’s brilliant performance as an Australian actor playing a black Vietnam soldier. Yet I noticed a certain disappointment in these comedies I saw, even in Tropic Thunder. I didn’t laugh that hard. Sure, I smiled and chuckled consistently, yet big bellowing laughs were absent from my viewings. Cinematically speaking, these films were competently made with exceptional production values and had a knowing comic intelligence about them. But unlike comedy classics like Animal House and Slap Shot, there weren’t consistently big laughs throughout the films. I realized it had been a very long time since I lost my mind with laughter while seeing a movie. When I go to see a comedy, I want to laugh so hard that it hurts. Nowadays, that seems like a grandiose demand. America is in love with our current slew of comedians, throwing around the word “genius” like candy, but how come I’m not laughing?

If there’s one comedian who isn’t being branded a genius, it’s Dane Cook. Cook is a zany comedian who is beloved by the current generation of college kids (especially the female ones) yet on countless occasions, I’ve heard extensive arguments about how Cook is “not funny.” Indeed, it seems to be a popular debate within the comic community as to whether or not Cook has true comic talent or not. His film career thus far has done little to elevate Cook’s status. Despite a worthy dramatic turn in Mr. Brooks, Employee of the Month and Good Luck Chuck proved to be lackluster efforts that are even elusive of beloved cult status. I’ve always found Cook to be a talented stand-up comedian, but the question always remained about whether or not Cook had a future in feature films.

That question was put to rest recently after a trip to the movies with my Uncle. As a cinephile who would sit through anything, I left the choice of film up to my Uncle. He decided upon My Best Friend’s Girl, a romantic comedy that Cook stars in with Jason Biggs and Kate Hudson. I figured, sure, let’s see what the kid can do this time. What proceeded turned out to be the best laughing fit I’ve had in the past year. The movie was hilarious. My Uncle and I were laughing so hard we were dropping things. The audience chuckled, but we were roaring. People kept staring at us as if two escaped hyenas had roamed into the theatre. Here it was, a comedy that finally made me laugh till it hurt, and it’s one of the worst-reviewed comedies of the year staring a comedian whose been a whipping boy in most entertainment circles.

Of course I can understand why the film isn’t getting any love. If someone told me a romantic comedy with Jason Biggs and Kate Hudson was side-splittingly hilarious, I’d think they were a dimwit whose only seen five movie their whole life. On the surface, My Best Friend’s Girl has the bone structure of a cutesy romantic comedy: A nerdy office worker named Dustin (Biggs) recruits his best friend Tank (Cook) to help him win back a beautiful girl he blew it with (Hudson). The film’s devilish twist comes in Tank’s method for helping Dustin: Tank has a side business in which men pay him to take their ex-girlfriends on the worst date of their life. So obnoxious is Tank’s efforts and so horrifying is the date’s awfulness that his dates always run back into the safe, familiar arms of their former boyfriends. Tank’s repulsive methods include vulgarity, strippers, making the woman pay for everything, and performing oral sex on a burrito. This guy is Hitch from hell.

Most critics have condemned the film for its relentless raunchiness and Cook’s manic efforts to obtain a laugh, two things I think rescue the film from mushy irrelevance. The current dating world can be an awkward and cynical place, so I don’t feel the film’s raunchiness is entirely indifferent to the material. It spits in the face of the polished, routine humor of most romantic comedies and makes no apologies or deceptions about its intentions. I’m all for mixing up the rom-com formula. Plus at a time when most of these flicks have zero brains, this one at least has half a brain. The film takes on a sort of thoughtful discussion about what women are attracted to. Dustin thinks being nice and supportive will get you girls while Tank thinks being a Grade-A Jerk is the most efficient way. That Tank’s philosophy appears to be the winner of that debate isn’t entirely far-fetched and does reveal some sad truths about contemporary dating.

As a comedian and movie star, Dane Cook appears to be that polarizing performer you either love or hate. He’s like a hipster Jim Carrey on speed who shows no mercy in getting laughs. While a comedian relentlessly combing for laughs can be a scary thing, I think Cook is hilarious in his efforts. His audacity and randomness is not wasted and his very goofiness is too outsized not to be affected by it. I think one of the reasons Cook works better here than in most of his films is because of the seasoned eye of Director Howard Deutch. Deutch is best known for directing the teenage classic Pretty in Pink yet I most admired his work on the hilarious fare of The Great Outdoors and The Replacements (yes, I found The Replacements hilarious! Any movie where a grown football team does the electric slide to “I Will Survive” is funny in my book!). Deutch has the experience to know how to manage a comic life force such as Cook as opposed to some first-time former commercial director. There’s a certain cinematic grace to the material and Cook feels like part of the film as opposed to the film being built around his manic humor.

Of course this film is far from perfect. There are too many musical montages and a few clunky developments. I didn’t fully believe Tank’s sudden decision to ruin a specific character’s wedding, yet I forgave it for being such a hilarious scene that even throws in a great Johnny Cash musical moment. And the film’s ending is hard to buy, relying on the cliché of the woman forgiving the romantic hero for all his wrongdoings and living happily ever after with him. There’s no way Tank can be forgiven for the stunts he pulls in this film (if there’s an actual woman out there who would forgive a guy for doing what Tank does, she should write me!) Plus, Kate Hudson and Jason Biggs seriously lack the likeable quality Cook exudes here (which is curious, considering his character’s repulsive nature). Hudson never really mastered the charming quirkiness her mother, Goldie Hawn, displayed so well. Biggs’ usual shtick of the loser who’s clueless about women is wearing seriously thin. I don’t blame Biggs, I’m sure he’d love to do something else with his career besides being a lovelorn geek, but the beast of typecasting is beating his image down into redundancy. Yet Cook isn’t alone in grabbing serious laughs. Alec Baldwin shows up in the howlingly funny role of Tank’s Dad. In a scene where Baldwin talks about sleeping with a female assistant, he unleashes the single funniest thing he’s ever said on the big screen. It made me want to start watching 30 Rock.

What can I say? I thought this movie was so damn funny. Funny enough to make me want to write a review about it two weeks after its release, probably before it’s on its way out of theatres. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I felt obligated as a critic to report that Cook’s lightweight romantic comedy runs laughing circles around the much-hyped comedies of summer’s past. In the debate of whether or not Cook is funny, I know where I stand. This film seriously got me thinking about how to properly judge a comedy. My Best Friend’s Girl isn’t as thoughtful, slick, or as well-acted as Tropic Thunder, yet it scores way bigger laughs in my book. If a comedy is supposed to make you laugh, is the film more exceptional for greatly achieving that? Is the film’s laugh factor enough to hold it in high regard? My Best Friend’s Girl may never be regarded as a comedy classic, yet for $10 and 90 minutes of my life, it achieved something so-called “comic geniuses” haven’t been able to achieve for me in a long while.

Paul Newman: Highlights From A Legendary Career

by Brett Parker

When I think of the word charisma, Paul Newman automatically comes to mind. I can think of no other actor, or human being for that matter, who possessed it more and exuded it better. You hear of specific actors being referred to as “naturals.” Newman was the ultimate one. He could slip his charm and grace into any cinematic situation and completely command the screen. It’s a testament to his talents that he could play anything from handsome heroes to cold outsiders to hopeless losers and still draw our attention and sympathy. Nowadays, performers seem to fall under one of two categories: movie star or character actor. Newman was that rare star who was both of those at the same time and pitch perfect on both accounts.

It’s always hard to believe it when one of your favorite actors passes away, so it’s extremely hard for me to believe that the Academy Award Winning Paul Newman passed away on September 26th, 2008 after a battle with cancer. Newman was an actor who possessed an easy self-confidence and charm that any young man like myself would kill to possess. Watching Newman on film was truly an inspiration, for no matter what role he undertook, he always seemed to be the guy who shakes up his surroundings and marches to the beat of his own tune. While his characters weren’t always admirable people, they always stood up for what they believed in and stayed true to themselves right to the very end. It’s quite amazing how seamlessly Newman’s personality could slip into such a varied gallery of characters. His death is truly the end of an era. There will never be another Paul Newman.

Newman’s film career began in 1954 with The Silver Chalice and appeared to finish up in 2006 in Pixar’s animated Cars. To fire off the names of all his films would be to name some of the most significant classics of the past century. Below is a list of essential Newman classics that wonderfully display his talents and helped to solidify him as a Hollywood legend. They’re the ones we remember him for, whether he was charming us or surprising us. If for some unfortunate reason you haven’t been lucky enough to see the following films, then you must shoot them to the top of your Netflix list immediately:

The Hustler (1960)
They called him Fast Eddie, and he went on to become the essential Hustler character in all of Hollywood history. As a talented pool hustler with a reckless ego, Newman wonderfully displayed traits in his Oscar-nominated performance that would become a staple with most of his later work. Eddie makes us smile with his schoolboy goofiness and cocky swagger, yet it’s his hidden vulnerabilities and gloves-off confrontation with his demons that truly wins our hearts. To this day, it is still the deepest and most thoughtful portrayal of the Hustler persona Hollywood would recycle time and time again. The main characters in films like White Men Can’t Jump, Rounders, and Lucky You all owe something to Fast Eddie.

Harper (1966)
Not one of the more well-known Newman films, but it’s interesting in its light-hearted and quirky take on the hard-boiled private eye flick. As Lew Harper, a private detective on a kidnapping case in Los Angeles, Newman turned our every idea about private eyes upside down an successfully reinvented it. He was handsome, didn’t drink, and always had an amused smile on his face. The heart throb Newman is the last person you’d expect to play a cynical detective, and that’s why it worked so well.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)
If Paul Newman is an actor who bursts with charisma and color in his speech, than the surprising thing about his Cool Hand Luke performance is how subtle he is. Newman stars as a disillusioned chain-gang prisoner in the south who becomes a reluctant Christ figure to the dim-witted prisoners that surround him. Newman kept most of the performance internal, relying on minimal dialogue and his expressive face to convey Luke’s internal pain. The interesting thing is how Newman’s trademark smile and prescience helped to make Luke instantly compelling, making his enigmatic nature more fascinating to watch. It’s one of Newman’s very best performances.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
A unique tale of friendship, this is one of my ten favorite movies of all time, making it my favorite Paul Newman film. In telling the story of western outlaws on the run in the West then South America, George Roy Hill crafted a quirky and thoughtful meditation on western legends and both Paul Newman and Robert Redford set the standard for buddy movie chemistry. Newman gave one of his funniest performances as the cheerful Butch Cassidy and fit perfectly with Redford’s straight-arrowed Sundance. It was a legendary pairing that demonstrated what movie star chemistry can achieve when it hits on all cylinders.

The Sting (1973)
Newman and Redford teamed up with director George Roy Hill once again for some Hollywood fun in this con artist caper. It only made sense that Newman played the seasoned veteran who knows all the tricks that teaches his trade to a young hot shot on the rise. What’s interesting about this film is how easily the “con” game can resemble the “acting” game, allowing the dynamic duo of Newman and Redford to show audiences the zest and skill they put into crafting unforgettable performances.

Slap Shot (1977)
This vulgar and hostile sports comedy is one of the funniest movies ever made. Newman teamed up for a third time with director George Roy Hill to create a look at Hockey that was not only raw and accurate, but also crazy and hilarious. It’s great fun watching Newman revel in the role of Reggie Dunlop, an immature man-child who completely surrenders to his masculine impulses. Audiences had never seen such a raunchy and buffoonish side of Newman before and his conviction in the role is one of the movie’s greatest treats.

The Verdict (1982)
In Sidney Lumet’s superb courtroom drama, audiences got to see Newman at his most desperate and conflicted. As an alcoholic lawyer taking on a giant medical malpractice case, Newman made no apologies as he slipped into the role of a reckless lowlife trying to redeem himself. Gone was his usual self-confidence and endless charms as Newman went to the depths of his soul to express his characters needs and pains. Ben Kingsley may have taken the Best Actor Oscar that year for Gandhi, but there are still those who think Newman deserved the prize for his heartbreaking performance.

The Color of Money (1986)
After winning an honorary Oscar for his unforgettable career, Newman went on to win his first Best Actor Oscar by returning to the role that made him a legend in the first place, Fast Eddie Felson. In Martin Scorsese’s sequel to The Hustler, an elder Fast Eddie decides to show the hustling ropes to an upcoming pool whiz named Vincent (Tom Cruise, who at the time was favored to become the next Newman, although many now would differ with that). It was fascinating to see the cocky and conflicted Fast Eddie all grown up as a wise and smooth expert. Newman had an undeniable coolness in the role, seasoned with street-smarts the younger Eddie may not have possessed in the first film. You get chills watching Eddie stepping out from the role of “mentor” and slipping so seamlessly back into the role of the “cool hustler.” As he goes from being Vincent’s mentor to his toughest competition, Newman’s performance taught us a very important lesson: it’s never too late in life to stand up and take back what’s yours.

Like his film career, Newman devoted himself to perfection in all aspects of his life. He was a devoted race car driver who could drive with the best. He was an astonishing humanitarian who devoted himself to many charities, including the Hole-in-the-Wall Camp, a summer camp for sick children. And the fact that he stayed married to his actress wife Joanne Woodward for 50 years up until his death suggests that the guy figured out the key to marriage as well. Whether in life or in movies, you could learn a lot from observing Paul Newman. He was an American icon who stood for what he believed in and could always be called a class act. His characters used all their charms and confidence to get a hold on their inner character and stand by their ideas of right and wrong. Newman himself once said, “A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions and beliefs.” If that is the case, than Newman’s actions make him a remarkable and unforgettable man whose craft and generosity will be celebrated and discussed for generations to come.