This morning I awoke to sad news - Paul Newman has checked out at age 83, reportedly from lung cancer.
In an odd coincidence, I was on a bit of a Paul Newman kick lately, having watched both Absence Of Malice and Slap Shot in the past few weeks. The two roles could not be more different - adult drama and profane comedy - yet he succeeded admirably at both.
Indeed, he seemed to succeed admirably at just about everything. Slim, blue-eyed and impossibly handsome, he wisely exploited his good looks to achieve fame, but also used them as leverage to choose good roles - Hud, The Hustler, and Cool Hand Luke being prime examples. A Method actor who began his acting career in the theatre, Newman successfully walked the tightrope that Marlon Brando couldn’t - he balanced being a star with being an artist.
And Newman was also one of Hollywood’s finest examples of aging gracefully. When his hair turned grey and his star began to fade, he didn’t try in vain to remain young, like so many others.
Instead, he embraced his age and tackled roles like The Verdict, Color Of Money, Nobody’s Fool and Twilight - roles equally if not more complex than the troubled young men he had played in the past, but now dealing with the troubles of middle-aged men - and eventually, those of old men.
His acting career aside, Newman was, by all accounts and appearances, simply an admirable human being. In interviews he came across as intelligent and humble, he maintained a long and happy marriage to Joanne Woodward, and he launched the nonprofit brand Newman’s Own, which has given an astonishing 250 million dollars and counting to charity. When Hollywood liberals tout their credentials as philanthropists, they had best look at what Mr. Newman accomplished and bow their heads in shame.
And the greatest compliment I can pay to him is this - I can think of no actor like Paul Newman who existed before him, and I feel absolutely certain that there will never be another actor like him in the future. Smart, handsome, charismatic, humble, dedicated… he was the whole package.
So long, Mr. Newman - you truly were one of a kind.
Wow… this one really sucked. 
Indeed - across the board, the editing is awful. Every scene is pushed to move faster than the pace of the acting and directing, leading me to believe that this was initially a longer, slower film that tested badly, and was given the Michael Bay treatment to jazz it up. 
And the secondary actors are equally lost. My future ex-wife, Carla Gugino, tries to bring some energy to the proceedings, as does the venerable Brian Dennehy and company - but they all have that same confused look in their eyes. It’s as if someone thrust them in front of a camera, said “Act!” then refused to let them do another take. 
This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a midnight screening of Fright Night at The Nuart movie theater in Los Angeles.
Fright Night has a very simple yet entertaining concept - what if a vampire moved in next door? Teenager Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) begins to suspect that his new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) is a creature of the night. 
Then the second half becomes an exciting, effects-driven vampire hunt. And again, like Scream, by stripping away the conventions of the genre, the filmmakers breathed new life into it - they made it exciting again. Fright Night may not be as well-known as, say, Ghostbusters - but in terms of craft and entertainment value, I think it’s definitely on the same level. In fact, the same visual effects team that did Ghostbusters supplied the f/x for Fright Night. 
Finally, there’s Chris Sarandon as our fanged villain. What can I say? He brings charm, intelligence, and a not-so subtle pansexual quality to the role. He even manages to make the character sympathetic at times without diminishing the threat he represents to our heroes. 
With all due respect to Bela, Frank, Chris Lee, etc… Jerry Dandridge is the best vampire ever put on film. 
Slap Shot is an oddity in Paul Newman’s filmography. It’s a broad, obscene comedy, his character is a gloriously rotten human being, and the moral of the story is that you should have no morals. I honestly don’t think he’s done anything like it before or since.
Newman clearly had a field day with this role. Reggie is a completely amoral, self-centered jerk who really doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he’s getting what he needs. That may sound unpleasant to watch, but in fact it’s hilarious. Seeing Reggie press people’s buttons is what drives most of the comedy in the film. Out of all the characters in Paul Newman’s gallery of rogues, I actually think Reggie Dunlop is the worst. Yes, even worse than Hud. 
Earlier today, as I was walking down the street in Santa Monica, I stopped at a crosswalk. A family of five - father, mother, three golden-haired little daughters - was standing in front of me. Each child held a balloon by the string. 
I remember catching bits and pieces of this one on cable in the mid-eighties. It was deadly serious, the characters were constantly talking about things my fifteen year-old mind could not comprehend, and Sally Field simply wasn’t sexy enough to hold my attention. So I dismissed the film and undoubtedly moved on to something like Rocky IV.
As promised 
Where to begin… first of all, it’s astonishing that in the 90+ years since this character’s inception, no one has ever managed to put him on film properly. Much like Conan The Barbarian, Hollywood often reduces the character to a dumb, hulking brute when in fact he’s highly intelligent, speaks several languages, and has a straightforward yet three-dimensional personality. 
The first half of the book is a genuine classic. It’s smart, focused, and despite the nutty concept at its core, Burroughs writes so convincingly you believe it. As Tarzan learns and grows, eventually becoming the ideal male, Burroughs drives home his central theme - that our ability to think, reason, and plan ahead makes us superior to beasts.
As expected, Tarzan kills a lot of apes, lions, tigers, etc., especially when he encounters white men for the first time. They prove to be completely inept in the jungle, and Tarzan is repeatedly rescuing them - and Jane, with whom he inevitably falls in love. 
Junior Bonner is an odd little entry in Steve McQueen’s filmography, and director Sam Peckinpah’s filmography as well.
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never read any Kipling before - but one of my favorite authors, Robert E. Howard, was quite enamored of his writing, so when I saw this intriguing title in a used bookstore, I picked it up for three bucks. 
According to the foreword, the character of Maisie is based on a real person, and many of the events (with the obvious exception of going blind and getting shot in the head) are based on Kipling’s own experiences - so naturally, the story is embedded with his own bitter feelings and prejudices. 
The good people at 
Not only does this 3 CD set provide us with the entire score as heard in the film, it also provides us with 23 minutes that were cut, alternate versions of certain tracks, and a suite of music from another Rozsa score - Double Indemnity. The set also contains video of the recording sessions, interviews with the people behind the scenes, and to top it all off, the packaging and liner notes are both top notch. It’s actually quite overwhelming!
As for the music itself, it’s one of Rozsa’s finest efforts. You’ve got a bit of everything here - a noble, heroic theme for our protagonist, a sumptuous love theme, thrilling battle music - and at the end, Rozsa goes liturgical on us with the inclusion of an organ! It’s a type of music we simply don’t get nowadays - thematic, fully orchestral music that isn’t just a sound effect - it’s an active participant in telling the story, just as much as the script or cinematography.