Paul Newman: Search & Destroy (now also RIP)

Didn't know that Nobody's Fool is oop on dvd :>( Wonder how long it'll stay that way.

I saw Rachel, Rachel tonight for the first time. Much better than I expected. That may have something to do with just having seen The Swimmer (same year), where just about everybody is an ugly caricature, but other than the requisite overkill in the Elmer Gantry scene, I thought Newman's pacing was just right. Woodward's excellent--the doctor in Sybil is pretty much all I'd ever seen her in before this. The Estelle Parsons subplot is handled well, and the aging-parent stuff rings very true. Teacher films always interest me. I laughed at the one kid, maybe 10, who romps into the school with a couple of toy six-shooters on his belt. He'd be jailed coming off the bus today.

Excellent print, too. Too excellent--I suspect they were screening a DVD.

you can't tell?

Well...a perfect print matched to a DVD? Probably not--I'm a really poor audiophile, too. But if it's a normal print, with the normal imperfections, of course. Which is why I think it was a DVD tonight, unless Rachel, Rachel underwent a major restoration.

New print of his second directorial effort in Brooklyn for a week:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-02/film/deserved-second-act-for-paul-newman-s-sometimes-a-great-notion/

From Michael Ontkean's intro/reminiscence to Jonathon Jackson's The Making of Slap Shot: Behind The Scenes of The Greatest Hockey Movie:

One Saturday night I coaxed my teammate Reg Dunlop (51 years young) into Lower Manhattan and CBGB's to see and hear some brand new music. As the Ramones rattled the walls, Reggie grinned from ear to ear and shouted "This is what we're doing every day on the ice!"

Newman. Ultimate Punk with a heart of rowdy, unbounded generosity. Lead singer and gang leader with giving hands of perpetual cool, Paul never wavered in his delight with "Slap Shot", maintaining his experience was "The most fun I ever had making a movie - absolutely!"

"Rescreened" Nobody's Fool last night, first time since mid nineties. Its amiability is its drawback; it has a TV movie all's-well-that-ends-well attitude that results in facile resolutions (and the film composer should've been shot). But, boy, Newman's at the peak of let's-make-it-look easy, and, yeah, he should've won his overdue Oscar for this instead of TCOM.

This time 'round Melanie Griffith less impressive than Jessica Tandy.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the loser cop.

Bruce Willis asked to be uncredited because he felt his action film reputation would hurt the film.

Michael Koresky on queerness and sexual freedom in Newman's Rachel, Rachel

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-1968/

it'll take more than Koresky and jumper cables to turn RR's engine

Really enjoyed the Last Movie Stars documentary series. (Good job Ethan Hawke!)

Made me realize I don't think I've ever seen a Joanne Woodward movie. And there are a shit-ton of Paul Newman movies I haven't seen, although not that many that seem like I need to — he made a good number of clunkers and middlebrow fare. Fascinating in particular how much he seemed to lack confidence in his own acting. He knew that he knew how to look good on camera, but he had a hard time opening up as an actor.

There's also a shit-ton of Woodward movies, but maybe try one of her first big hits, The Three Faces of Eve, a rather hokey tale of "multiple personalities," but yep she acted her ass off, won won Oscar, Golden Globes, other---also let fly in The Fugitive Kind, which is Tennessee Williams as Hail, and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,one of the many she did produced and directed by Newman (their daughter Nell Potts is also real good in that). She can be more low-key and subtle, but those are the ones that come first to my unsubtle mind.

Sybil, where she plays Sally Fields' psychiatrist.

Yes, more multiples, aieee!

agree that Last Movie Stars series was excellent

also such a great, nuanced portrayal of a real relationship. impressed that hawke & the family were able to achieve that but somehow didn’t diminish either Paul or Joanne in the process. like, by showing that it wasnt perfect it still somehow didnt affect my overall opinion.

plus god those long movie clips were so great

I remember seeing an interview with Newman talking about Color Of Money where he talked about how much he enjoyed working with Scorsese and that he'd love for him to cast him again - "I'm still here, you know!". Never happened. :(

Actually I have seen The Miracle Worker, so there’s one. But there are clips from all those Woodward movies and many more in the documentary. Some looked interesting but none leapt out as must-sees. It’s interesting that for somebody who had as long a career as she did, and won basically all the awards you can win, she doesn’t really have a single movie or performance in the “all-time great” canon. Her movies don’t really have much of a critical presence — unlike Newman, who has several films I grew up regarding as classics, she’s not someone you hear about or read about much even if you’re into movies. Some of that is probably just sexism, since she made lots of melodramas and women’s pictures. But even compared to other top actresses of her era — Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe — it doesn’t feel like she has much of an enduring footprint.

Lol never mind The Miracle Worker is Anne Bancroft. See what I mean?

Woodward is fine in the Newman-directed Rachel Rachel and as the victim of Newman's quiet haute bourgeois suppression in Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.

Judging Woodward, a fine actor, is hard because she paid as much if not more attention to raising kids.

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge is one that has interested me — maybe because it’s one of her few high profile roles that came out while I have been a moviegoing adult.

And yeah, this series very much portrays the imbalance in the relationship when it came to taking care of the kids. Tho to Newman’s credit he used his clout to make a lot of movies with her.

I dunno, The Wicker Man is pretty widely regarded as a classic. I can't actually think of any other movies he was in, so in terms of percentages he's up there with John Cazale.

Hang on. There was Breaker....

Ah, sorry. I'll get my coat.

lol I have in fact seen more Edward Woodward movies than Joanne Woodward movies ...

One of the best, most underappreciated actors of his generation. The reactions itt to his death at the time are striking.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,one of the many she did produced and directed by Newman (their daughter Nell Potts is also real good in that).

A favorite of the Cahiers du Cinema critics in the 1970s. Eli Wallach's daughter is also good in it.