Cool Hand Luke

Like a lot of prison movies, Cool Hand Luke relies on the quality of the craftsmanship on the screen more than the events that drive the story. Not a whole lot happens in the plot, but it still sustains itself well for two hours thanks to skillful direction by Stuart Rosenberg and a good, restrained performance by Paul Newman. George Kennedy acquits himself well in an Oscar winning performance as Dragline, and the rest of the cast is solid as well. But it's Newman's performance I'll remember the best, doing a great job holding up the character end of a character-focused story. He can be the coolest guy in the room in one scene and a broken-down mess in the next, and while his journey can be depressing, on the other hand it's also an example of how the human spirit can never truly be broken, and in a way it's about how legends are made.

Luke is a war hero who seems bored with life, and gets arrested and sentenced to two years in a Southern work prison when he gets caught drunkenly cutting the heads off parking meters. Dragline is a leader among the inmates, and at first the two butt heads. But eventually they bond when Dragline is impressed by Luke's refusal to ever give in, and gives him his Cool Hand nickname after a poker game. Things go pretty well for Luke considering the prison setting for a while, but after a tragedy, he is unfairly punished and becomes rebellious, repeatedly trying to break out of the place, which results in some pretty harsh treatment. The transformation of the character is the meat of the whole movie, and while it's often difficult to see it's always compelling as well. The movie is also famous for some of its dialogue, like the prisoners telling the guards about everything they're doing and the "failure to communicate" line, and those things were entertaining to see, but what most impressed me about the film is just the amount of care that went into making it. Prison is usually a good way to examine the psychology of men, and Cool Hand Luke is as good an exploration as any. It's not my favorite, but it's darn good.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

I feel like this movie was a little funnier than the second Naked Gun, although it again didn't stand up to the first. That was pretty obviously unlikely from the beginning though, so I mostly just tried to enjoy it for what it was, the most 1994'd 1994 movie to ever 1994 in 1994. I still feel like this style of comedy feels like it belongs in the 80s, but so much of the actual content just screams out 1994. O.J. Simpson's back, right before the whole trial thing blew up. Anna Nicole Smith is the stunt casted famous-for-little-reason hot chick who causes trouble, at the height of her good looks. The final act of the movie takes place during an Oscar telecast, and it's stuffed to the brim with people who were more famous then than they are now, like Weird Al, Vanna White, Florence Henderson, Olympia Dukakis, Elliot Gould, and Raquel Welch. A bit of it's funny in places, although it mostly seems like forced celebrity ball washing after the funnier first hour of the film. It's hard to remember the funnier bits now all of about a week later, but there's some solid jokes revolving around a prison escape and marital troubles that kept me entertained enough to keep watching. There's really a boatload of familiar faces everywhere you look, and while it's far from the pinnacle of edgy comedy, it's hard to dislike too. Not brilliant but certainly watchable if you like Leslie Nielsen.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear

David Zucker's political shift is weird to me. Here he is making a movie all about environmental conservation and energy efficiency twenty years ago, and now he's making crap like An American Carol. Apparently he's still pro environment though. What's important is that he used to make funny movies. The sequel to the first Naked Gun movie doesn't have quite the same pizazz, as it covers a lot of the same ground and doesn't have a lot of truly memorable jokes. It has its moments, and it can be funny just to watch Leslie Nielsen eat dinner. But when you have a mundane premise for your wacky comedy like a cop trying to stop some evil industry executives, it takes a whole lot to keep the mood right the whole time. And it's still weird watching O.J. Simpson act the part of blundering sidekick (He murdered his ex-wife and her friend and got away with it).

Uh... man. I hate when this happens. Robert Goulet is a capable slimy villain and Priscilla Presley returns still competent in her role as Attractive Woman with Decent Comedic Ability which a movie like this always needs, despite being a bit old for it. Um. There's a scene where Nielsen fights off a goon in a bathroom that's pretty good. They're having that typical movie style fight where they're constantly grabbing items to use as makeshift weapons, but it's goofy shit like electric toothbrushes. It's funnier if you watch it. Though most of the jokes in the movie are like that.

The Dirty Dozen

I know Inglourious Basterds got to me because I keep watching old movies that are somehow related. Dozen is a popular sixties movie with a similar premise on the surface, an officer training a group of ragtag soldiers for a special purpose during World War II. In this case, Lee Marvin is given twelve soldiers condemned to hard labor, prison, or execution and what amounts to a suicide mission to kill as many Nazi officials as possible holed up in a chateau on the eve of D-Day. Most of the movie is just Marvin training the soldiers into a cohesive unit while they occasionally rebel against perceived injustices, but eventually they get to the surprisingly violent climax.

Just like the Basterds, most but not all of the Dozen get significant character development. Charles Bronson is a former officer and the old hand of the group, almost a secondary leader. It's funny how he has the hard reputation and when they do the lineup by height, he's the fourth shortest. Donald Sutherland has an early role as Pinkley, who's a bit dimwitted, but ends up being one of the more likable characters. Other ones that stick out are the big guy, the black guy, the rebellious guy, the short guy with the moustache, and the crazy one. Ernest Borgnine is also the general in charge of the operation, and he's pretty much the same dude he still is today. It takes a while, but eventually the Dirty Dozen (so named because of their refusal to bathe or shave with cold water) gel into a cohesive whole, proven when they win a training exercise through unconventional means.

Then they drop into France, and the tone shifts rather dramatically. The carefully orchestrated mission has a couple slip-ups but still stays on course until someone screws it up big time (guess who!), when things turn into a bloodbath. It's a pretty large scaled and impressive action sequence for the time, although there were a couple situations where it was less than obvious that certain characters died and I just had to assume they did later when they didn't show up. Their Plan B to take out as many Nazis as possible is surprisingly brutal for the time, and honestly made me a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. But I guess the whole point of movies like these is to show how hellish war can be. The conclusion isn't exactly satisfying, but it's what you might expect from a cynical movie like this. I was pretty impressed overall.