All great men are dying and I don't feel so well myself. 

That's what I thought when I heard Paul Newman had died.  Actually I feel fine.  That last part was just East Tennessee humor.  But I digress.

Paul Newman was one of a handful of celebrities that I truly admired.  He wasn't just a fine actor. 

He's well known for so many great roles, like in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, etc but I think my favorite role that he played was the alcoholic lawyer in The Verdict.  He didn't win an Oscar for that role but I thought it was his best performance of many.  I identified so much with the different struggles he faced as the lawyer in that movie, not the least of which was the one against himself.  He really nailed that role and I found myself empathizing with him at every step.  I don't think another actor could have played it so well. 

I also liked him in the lesser known Nobody's Fool in which he played a rascal nearing retirement age who suddenly has to face unfamiliar family responsibilities.  And I thought he was great in an even lesser known film Absence of Malice, although he was nominated for an Oscar in that one.  That movie also had what I thought was Sally Field's best performance.  The chemistry between the two of them was great.

Newman lost a son to drugs and while he was deeply affected by that he bounced back with a foundation in the son's name.  Then he began the Newman's Own franchise of foods as a lark and ended up taking it nationwide and making it a charitable concern.  I've liked those salad dressings from day one and still use them to this day. 

And of course Newman had the looks.  I heard this story about Newman this morning on NPR.  Frank Deford, the sportswriter is a resident of Westport, Connecticut as Newman was.  He and his wife once found themselves in a cooking store there where Newman and Newman's daughter happened to be shopping.  When Newman checked out he turned to his daughter who was in another part of the store and said loudly "are you ready to go, honey?"  According to Deford every woman in the shop turned their head immediately toward him, including Deford's wife.  Wishful thinking, indeed.

I saw Paul Newman as a man's man, a humanitarian and despite the cliche, a great American.  I'll miss him.  RIP Mr. Newman.

Happy Birthday America!

How appropriate--since last night was classic Americana for me.  There was a rare theatrical doubleheader on AMC.  I speak not of Olivier or Brando.  Nope I'm talking Patrick Swayze.  First up was Road House and that was followed by Black Dog.  Wow, does it get any better than that?  OK disregard that question.

I wasn't looking for but accidentally stumbled upon Road House.  Mrs. Medlock said she had never seen the flick so I left it on the channel and soon found myself looking up from my serious reading to see monster trucks (and breasts), mullets, barroom brawls, guns and knives, bodies glistening with sweat and hilarious dialogue delivered with straight faces ("pain doesn't hurt").  At one point I noticed Mrs. Medlock had a slight grin on her face.  Even she was enjoying it.  Granted one has to suspend belief to be able to enjoy it but what the hay.  It's the truest cinematic definition of being so bad that it's good.  Alas, I couldn't make it through even ten minutes of Black Dog. 

Sometime last night I realized that I hadn't watched the movie completely from start to finish until then.  That even added to the fun.  But now I have this desire to tie on an ascot, kick some redneck ass with mixed martial arts and drive a convertible from side-to-side on the highway while singing "sh-boom, sh-boom".  Unfortunately Mrs. Medlock absolutely refuses to go blond with big hair.  Another fantasy down the drain.

Have a great holiday, sports fans!  Sh-boom, sh-boom.

For some reason today I thought of Randle Patrick McMurphy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

That movie is definitely on my top ten list of best all time movies.  Maybe even my top five.  And R.P. McMurphy is probably my favorite movie character of all time.  I even rank him higher than Lester Burnham who I mentioned in a recent post.

I think I've liked Nicholson's McMurphy the best all these years because he was anti establishment personified.   I've been establishment since at least 1973.  Maybe I just like seeing the other side. 

Anyway I was thinking of Murph today because I was thinking how much the atmosphere is different where I work today than my former employer.  It's much more relaxed and laid back in the academic world.  And not near as crazy. 

If Murph were to have worked at my former place he would have been the natural antagonist to the management.  Oh how he could shaken and stirred them up.  Of course he would eventually end up getting a figurative lobotomy just as got the real thing in the movie.  And that was of course the same thing that happened to all of us who ever tried to rock the boat.

As you can tell I like the R.P. McMurphy character a lot.  I think every business at some point needs one of those guys who can just turn things upside down and cause change.  Too bad that it rarely happens.  I still remember a lot of lines Murph spoke but my all time favorite is "I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this."  I know exactly what he meant.  Amen, brother.

I knew when I saw the title of Cormac McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men that I had to read it.  And so I did.  McCarthy usually isn't an easy read for me.  I'm not sure why but he isn't.  And I've purposely not read his newest The Road because the premise is just too bleak for me.  But when I found out the Coen brothers were doing NCFOM I knew I would have to see it.

So last Friday night the Mrs. and I caught the flick.  My conclusion after seeing the movie is that the Coens were the perfect guys to bring McCarthy to the screen.  Some of you may remember All The Pretty Horses from the big screen a few years back.   That was a terrible movie.  I felt like I not only wasted my money on that one but two hours of my life as well.

Not so with the Coen brothers version of NCFOM.  It's a fine flick and right up my alley.  The Professor and I were discussing it by phone last week.  I told him the movie reminded me in some ways of The Sopranos in that viewers tended to be of two types--you either watched Tony and family for the violence or you watched it for the subtle visual and spoken clues, symbols, etc.  I happen to be of the latter. 

NCFOM is of the same mold.  There's violence aplenty but the stuff that really attracts me was there too.  Unfortunately there was nothing much that attracted Mrs. Medlock but at least she didn't have to pay her way in the theater.  The Coen brothers know how to structure a movie around both the story and the characters and they do it superbly in this movie from the crunching of tires on gravel to the dreams that Tommy Lee Jones tells his wife as the movie ends.  They have their trade down in this one.

The acting was superb with a strong and typically understated and at times humerous performance by one of my favorite actors Tommy Lee Jones.  His opening voice over is critical to the movie and done with exactly the right amount of inflection in his voice.  Surprising for me was Woody Harrelson's low key performance.  I've never been a fan but I liked him very much in this movie.  I wasn't familiar with Josh Brolin but he was superb as the tough cowboy who tries to make a big score.  His west Texas screen wife was played by Kelly MacDonald and she nailed it.  She was so good that I had her pegged as an actual Southern or Southwestern girl and it turns out she's actually a Scot.  That simply amazes me and tells me she is one fine actress.  I think she's headed for bigger things. 

Of course the role everyone is raving about is the bad guy Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem.  I'm not usually one thats get rattled by a movie bad guy but Mr. Bardem had me uneasy in my seat on more than one occasion.  I think he's the cinema's "best" bad guy since Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter.  His role is in fact defines the movie.

I'll be my usual chauvinist self and say this is a man's movie because I think men can better relate to the underlying themes in it.  That doesn't mean women shouldn't see it though.  A warning for both sexes however.  If you see this movie you'll never look at a coin toss in same way.

I give No Country for Old Men four out of four stars.  It's a winner.

Finally there's some good news:  Westerns shoot their way back to the big screen.

It's about time my favorite movie genre made a comeback.  The last decent big screen Western I remember was Costner's Open Range and that was four or five years ago.  What about Brokeback Mountain you say?  Get outta here.  That movie was no more Western than I'm a U.S. Senator tapping my foot in an airport men's room.

Now according to this article there are three Westerns coming out this fall.  I've seen the previews of 3:10 to Yuma and it looks good.  I think I may have actually seen the original way back in 1957 at the Horse Krickers club.  I can still remember those Saturday morning Westerns.  Lots of Gene Autry movies back then and I loved the sounds of the creaking leather saddles and horse hooves pounding the ground as the good guys chased the bad guys.

Westerns were a staple of television back then too.  Here's just a partial list of TV Westerns that I remember:  Roy Rogers, Lash Larue, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Lone Ranger, Have Gun Will Travel, Hopalong Cassidy, The Rifleman, Wanted Dead or Alive, Maverick, The Virginian, Tombstone Territory, and Rawhide.  My favorites were Gunsmoke with James Arness as Matt Dillon and Wanted Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen as Josh Randall.  The modern television Westerns that I consider as outstanding were Lonesome Dove, probably the best ever television Western and of course Deadwood.

There have been some modern day big screen Westerns that were outstanding.  But my list of those is short:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tombstone, The Magnificent Seven, Bad Day at Black Rock, Jeremiah Johnson, The Good, Bad, and the Ugly and The Wild Bunch.  My personal favorites are Clint Eastwood movies--The Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven.  I rank the latter as the Western masterpiece and still watch it several times a year.  If any of the new ones coming out this fall are only ten per cent of that one it's going to be a very good year.

This is really great news for us James Lee Burke fans.  That book isn't my favorite in the Robicheaux series but it will do.  My preference would have been Black Cherry Blues or maybe Dixie City Jam.

The last movie made from a JLB book, Heaven's Prisoners, was a flop both at the box office and  with the critics.  I liked it myself--giving it a 7 on a 10. 

I didn't feel like the movie picked up the seamy Louisiana culture and atmosphere as it should have but that's in comparison to the book and thus pretty close to impossible.  There were some good action scenes too.  I liked the shootout with the bad guy in the apartment ceiling.  I thought the corn-rowed Eric Roberts played a pretty good villain and of course we got a naked Teri Hatcher femme fatale to liven things up (a bit skinny for my taste though).

I thought Alec Baldwin did a decent representation of Dave Robicheaux in the earlier movie but I can definitely see Tommy Lee Jones as good casting for the new Dave.  I could also see Russell Crowe in that role if he could pick up the Louisiana dialect or possibly Billy Bob Thornton.  Or maybe even George Clooney.  I hope one of my favorite JLB characters, Clete Purcell, gets into the new movie.  I like Nick Nolte or Gary Busey for that role (and in Clete's trademark Hawaiian shirt).  And the role of Batist as Dave's helper in the bait shop? That one is easy.  Morgan Freeman.

It doesn't look like the new movie will make it out this year but I can live with that since a new Robicheaux book is due in July.  That's perfect timing for my vacation reading.  A new JLB book and a JLB based movie--great news.  Life is good.

So Paramount Pictures decided to do some Cruise control.  It's not really surprising given that Paramount is owned by Viacom whose chairman and majority owner is Sumner Redstone.  Redstone is all about one thing--making money.  You can bet the house that it all came down to that. 

I'm always amazed when Hollywood actors, professional athletes, television personalities and the like think they are above basic business fundamentals like their employer making money.  Many of them like to claim they're "artists" and therefore have some sort of entitlement that the rest of the world doesn't.  And that entitlement doesn't require them to generate profit for their employer.  I have a feeling that Paramount's dumping of Cruise is going to embolden others in that industry to do similar things.  It appears that an industry known for bloated budgets, cost overruns and allowing their stars to make big money while they lost money has had enough.  They're not the only ones.  With Cruise's antics of the last couple of years I've had enough of him too.

Finally somebody has the cojones to diss Brokeback Mountain and it's author.  Kudos to Andrew at The Amber of the Moment who did the dastardly deed. 

I also read Annie Proulx's sorry short story a couple of years ago and as Andrew opines "it was crap".  Only in Hollywood would someone think that story was worth a movie.  And Annie has the nerve to diss The Academy because they didn't award the movie Best Picture, calling the proceedings "an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance".  Really now, Annie.  Indeed. 

Well done, Andrew.  You da man.

The missus and I went to see Derailed while we were off on vacation last week.  Both of us had read the book and liked it.  The previews we had seen of the movie looked interesting too.  Unfortunately the movie didn't quite measure up to either the book or previews.

The movie stars Jennifer Anniston and Clive Owen, both of whom give average  performances.  Owen is a somewhat harried husband who has just lost his company's big account.  He's also feeling very stressed from his daughter's diabetes and the daily routine of living. So of course this being movie land he meets Anniston, a fellow commuter, by chance and ultimately they have an affair.  Or at least they attempt to have an affair.  The tryst itself gets interrupted by a vicious gun-toting mugger in their hotel room just as they are about to do the dirty deed.  (In the interest of full disclosure I'm quite sure something like that would be just my luck if I ever got Jennifer Anniston or any other woman besides my wife in a hotel room.  Monogamy has its own rewards).  The mugger is played rather well by a French accented Vincent Cassel.  He seems to have found the right balance between viciousness and Euro chic for this particular role and steals most scenes.  Owen seems to fit his character well although a bit stiff at times.  Anniston seems distant and uninvolved.  I liked her much better in The Good Girl. 

The movie tries very hard to develop tension and suspense from that point in the plot forward.  That's too bad because it tries too hard and ultimately fails overall.  I thought at times the plot seems to stretch believability and thus detracted rather than added suspense.  I won't reveal more of the plot to avoid spoiling but I think this movie had a chance to be really good like Fatal Attraction was really good (now there was a movie which every man left the theater thinking monogamy was underrated).  I don't know quite what happened with Derailed but it never approached that level.  Maybe it was a little bit of the acting or maybe a little of the plot failure.  Or maybe it was a little of everything.  I found that a bit odd because the premise was good.  In fact the story reminded me somewhat of the film noir that I love so much with Body Heat being the best modern example.  I loved that movie and gave it a 10.  Alas, Derailed gets off to a good start but goes off the track.  Too bad.  I give it a 5.

List mania hasn't struck me for awhile but Chai-rista at Truly Bad Films has a link to Premier magazine's list of 25 most shocking scenes in the movies and lists her own choices.  And just in time for Halloween Bravo lists their 100 Scariest Movie Moments.  Those two lists are pretty similar in effort.  I'm not easily scared or shocked in movies but there's been a few times I have.  Here's my list:

Marathon Man--Laurence Olivier tortures Dustin Hoffman with a dentist's drill.  I still get chills up my back when I think about that scene.  And I can't see clove oil in the supermarket without thinking of Szell.

Psycho--Two scenes got to me.  The first was the stabbing in the shower and the second was when Janet Leigh turned the mother around in the chair.  Hitchcock's genius really manifests itself with the shower scene where no actual violence is shown but sheer terror results.

Duel--a made for TV movie and it's not just one scene that gets to me.  The suspense builds steadily throughout the movie.  A homicidal truck driver stalks Dennis Weaver in his car in the California desert.  The truck becomes the monster.  I think this might have been Spielberg's directorial debut. 

Alien--one of Chai-rista's picks as well as mine.  The first time I saw the monster coming out of John Hurt shocked me so much that I nearly turned away and I'm not normally squeamish in the movies.  None of the sequel's monsters quite measured up to the first although they were good in their own ways.

The Exorcist--there are plenty of scenes to choose from but the bedroom scene in which the girl spews vomit and twists her head 360 degrees blew me away--if you will pardon the expression.  Some marvelous special effects just made it so realistic that it was believable.

Rosemary's Baby--no particular squeamish scene but another movie that builds suspense throughout.  At first glance the story seems improbable but good acting and direction draws you right in.  It's the culmination of the little things in this movie that gets to you.  Innocence lost.