Slap Shot

1977 hockey comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The aging player/manager of a hockey team learns that it will be the team's last season because the mill that provides most of the jobs for the town is closing down. He starts spreading the news that a town in Florida is planning on purchasing the team while encouraging some goons to play a more violent form of the sport in order to drum up interest in the Chiefs.

I'm not sure how I watched this as a kid, but it was a movie I liked. Paul Newman makes cussing seem so cool, probably influencing my potty mouth. Unfortunately, his clothing repertoire in this also influenced my wardrobe which probably explains a lot about my formative years. I don't find this movie terribly funny. In fact, it's a little loud, kind of a busy movie. I also don't have any interest in hockey, but I do really enjoy the hockey scenes in this. I love how the camera moves low, right over the ice. The use of real-life hockey players with a Paul Newman who apparently could move smoothly on the ice himself, along with the colorful dialogue ("Frog pussy"), give this an authentic feel. The Hanson brothers, played by a Hanson and a pair of Carlsons, are fun character even when they're just sitting around doing nothing. You almost want to laugh at their antics before they happen because they're the type of characters who you just have to see to be reminded of antics you've previously seen. A goofy smile on a teammate's face when the Hansons first play as he says "These guys are a fucking disgrace" sums it all up beautifully. This has an interesting clash of realistic violence and hockey mayhem--little bits of blood on Newman's uniform after a first fight, for example--mixed with some goofy comedy slapstick hijinks that for whatever reason just works. Unlike a lot of sports comedies, I think this one grows with time. Newman--who should have won an Academy Award for this performance based solely on the way he says "retarded" in the movie--said that this was one of his favorite roles and that he had more fun filming this than any other movie. I think it shows. I'll always have a sweet spot for this movie.

Cool Hand Luke

1967 movie about Christ eating eggs

Rating: 19/20 (Dylan: 13/20)

Plot: The titular ex-war hero is put in jail for what seems to be an absurd length of time for cutting the heads off parking meters. He doesn't like jail all that much and tries to escape over and over again.

Dylan and I are going to work our way through a big list of prison escape movies, and this is the first. So far, all this little prison break film festival has done is prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I have a gay son. I mean, how can you watch Joy Harmon as "Girl Only in the Movie to Wash a Car and Show How Horny Inmates Can Be" washing that car and give this only a 13/20. That extended scene sure extended me! That's just one of a whole bunch of memorable scenes in this. The boxing match, the egg scene ending in Newman striking a Christ pose, the chain-gang rushing to finish the road, the "Night in the Box" speech so fantastically parodied in Toy Story 3, the famous "failure to communicate" line that I borrow all the time to use in my classroom, a little Dennis Hopper, a little Harry Dean Stanton, a little of Kokomo Indiana's own Strother Martin (a man who taught Charlie Chaplin's children to swim), Newman singing "Plastic Jesus" in a scene that nearly jerked tears from me. You also get one of the coolest "bad guys" of all time with Sunglasses Man, a character the Coens would later lift for O Brother. One of those late-60's counterculture in-praise-of-nonconformity flicks that I like so much with the added Christ figure angle, another of my favorite motifs. Add a terrifically cool Newman performance and you've got something pretty special.

Special note: I will not have any problem at all if any of my children are homosexuals. I just wanted to get that out there.

The Mackintosh Man

1973 spy thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: English intelligence agent Joseph Rearden is recruited by the titular man to pose as a diamond thief in order to be arrested, infiltrate a spy ring, and uncover just who is behind it all.

Not a bad little Huston action thriller although I was pretty confused most of the time. Paul Newman's performance is weird. I'm not sure exactly what his nationality was supposed to be, but he definitely wasn't convincing as an Australian jewel thief as his accent drifts in and out. He's not convincing as an action star either, especially when he's awkwardly punching or kicking people during a big escape scene. Newman sort of goes through the spy motions, and there's no depth to his character. The plot's pretty typical for this sort of thing. A big twist barely seems like a twist at all. There's nothing new with the action scenes although a prison bust-out sequence is nifty and a car chase, mostly because of the locale and the vehicles involved, is fun. I liked Maurice Jarre's repetitive score, reminiscent of the zither madness in The Third Man. I had trouble identifying the instrument, but it was something atypical, and I liked how the music felt free to just stomp in whenever it wanted to.