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Epicurus.com - Cool Hand Luke
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List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $8.99
Your Save: $ 0.99 ( 10% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou Antonio, Robert Drivas
Directed By: Stuart Rosenberg
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780790733906
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 0790733900
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1998-02-03
Running Time: 129
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1967-11-01
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Editorial Reviews:
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Paul Newman gives one of the defining performances of his career, and cemented his place as a beautiful-rebel screen icon playing the stubbornly tough and independent title character in Cool Hand Luke. And before he became familiar as a sidekick in 1970s disaster movies (Earthquake and the Airport movies), George Kennedy won an Oscar for playing Dragline, the brutal chain-gang boss who tries to beat loner Luke's cool out of him. It's a classic rebel-against-the-repressive-institution story in the line of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest or The Shawshank Redemption. Certain moments have become classics--particularly the hardboiled egg-eating contest, and the immortal line (drooled by Strother Martin, as a sadistic redneck prison officer), "What we have here is a failure to communicate." And don't forget, Luke is also the source of the oft-quoted driving ditty, "I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I have my plastic Jesus, right here on the dashboard of my car..." He is cool, all right. --Jim Emerson
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: newman's legacy
Comment: I remember this film vividly because when I first saw it, it was at a cinema in Paris--and this was my first time in the City of Light!! Also I was on my 3 day leave from the Air Force and when I saw that famous scene when warden Strother Martin beat Luke (Newman) after he says, "Boss, why are you so nice to me?" to which Martin utters the famous lines, "What we have here is a failure--to communicate", it rang in my ears as an ironic twist to my days in Basic training. The late Paul Newman, who died just this last Friday, the 26 of September, lived and died like his character, Luke, in defiance but always smiling. His defiance was in what people had pegged him for--the handsome movie star with beautiful blue eyes with a classical face. Instead he channeled this defiance into helping other less fortunate people than he was---the terminally ill children (the Hole in the Wall), relief funds for the people in the Gulf, various charities, etc. Also he lived away from Hollywood, in Connecticut where he and his family were just folks. But another reason I've seen this movie countless times is because it was shot near my hometown of Stockton, California---those crossroads in the film sure remind of the Valley. This film could stand as perhaps the best or if not one of the best, a great film in the Newman catalog--it pre-dated other rebel films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Dog Day Afternoon" by almost a decade. If one could chose one film that is indicative of Paul Newman--this is it!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Spirit of the Anti-Hero
Comment: Paul Newman died yesterday, and I watched 'Cool Hand Luke' in his memory. Paul liked to think he was an ordinary guy. He played ordinary guys in his films, and he hung around ordinary people. The difference is that Paul Newman knew his own mind and no one could push him. That is the kind of character that Paul Newman best portrayed.
Luke Jackson was a war hero, who may have suffered from PTSD. Certainly Luke did not want to face his demons, he did not like people, he did not want to be anyone's hero; he wanted to go his own way. Damn those people anyway.
Luke was caught drunk removing the top of parking meters and sentenced to two years in a southern chain gang. Sounds like Hell and it was. Day after day with sweaty back breaking work. Up at dawn and back at night. He fit in with the other guys, he was silent but was not afraid to speak up. He spoke back to the boss and went his own way. Luke was beaten to a pulp by the leader of the group, Dragline, played by George Kennedy and from then on they had an easy truce. He ate 50 eggs in a contest to ease the boredom, and he became someone the other guys looked up to. He spent a couple of nights in the "box' when his mom died so he would not be tempted to escape. However, escape he did three times. And, each time he was brought back and mercilessly beaten by the guards. His escape was all of their escapes, and the fellas cheered and reveled in his freedom, but the last time he was brought back and broken down piece by piece until he was only a mirror of himself. He became the yes man to everyone and did what he was told. And, then the last escape, and he knew this was it, he did not have the strength or the will to continue. He left smiling as he always did. He was tired of playing a hero and he had become a discouraged man who would no longer pay the price.
'Cold Hand Luke' was made in 1967- the end of the era of heroes. Luke was one of the first anti-heroes. He did not care what people thought of him. He was a good guy who became a bad guy because he didn't like us or them. And, we believed him. Paul Newman was our hero whether he wanted to be one or not. He was the good guy.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 09-27-08
The Films of Paul Newman (The Verdict/The Hustler/Butch Cassidy)
The Long, Hot Summer
Customer Rating:
Summary: Newman's quintessential role
Comment: Well, one of many ... My favorite actor, ever...and one of my favorite films of all time. My heartfelt condolences to Paul Newman's family, at his passing 9-26-08...
Customer Rating:
Summary: What we have here is a failure to communicate! (And hard-boiled eggs!)
Comment: "Oh Lucille, Lucille! Any girl with legs and a body like that has got to be named Lucille!"
*Includes roadwork, digging, a carwash, a cardgame, a egg eating, three escapes, and lots of Paul Newman smiles.
The best prison movie to date, better than Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. One of the best movies of all time. My favorite movie right up there with Fight Club.
Clawed - The Legend of Sasquatch
Customer Rating:
Summary: Near Perfection
Comment: Over the years, this film has become one of the most poular and widely viewed films of all time. It is one of those rare films that is both immensely entertaining and accessible, and also takes on the "big" questions of life in an effective way. If anything, it has been underappreciated by critics.
Released in 1967, this film could almost be seen as the first example of "70's" cinema, a film that succeeds in being artistic in all of the best senses of the word. It famously addresses both the question of the place of the individual in modern society, and humanity's relationship to God, and does so in a deeply intelligent and endlessly thought-provoking way. And yet, it never comes off as even remotely pretentious and can be enjoyed by just about anyone as simply a good piece of entertainment.
The character of Luke is very much like the character R.P. McMurphy as portrayed by Jack Nicholson in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Both are decorated war heroes and rebels who have their freedom taken away by the system over petty offenses against society. Both are fun-loving jokers who possess incredible levels of inner strength and determination. Both decide to take on the system in a deadly battle of wills with sinister, repressive authority figures. And both end up as Christ figures, giving up their own lives, but inspiring the men around them, giving them back a sense of hope and meaning in life. "Cuckoo's Nest" swept the Oscars in 1976, but "Cool Hand Luke" didn't receive its due in 1967, and its genius continues to get short shrift. Newman's portrayal of Luke as envisioned by director Stuart Rosenberg is actually more interesting than Nicholson's portrayal of McMurphy in "Cuckoo's Nest". McMurphy is a comic, charismatic force of nature, but he has little inner life. Luke, however, is fascinating as an individual who has so many gifts, but whose life is caught in a downward spiral of self-destruction. He is an individual who can do anything that he wants to do, and yet can't find it in himself to care about anything enough to do anything other than laugh and rebel, because he can see no ultimate meaning in life. He is conflicted to the very end, searching for God and for meaning but unable to find either. The best that he can do is find what peace he can through resignation and detachment, "laughing it up" the best that he can. Luke is one of the most philosophical characters in one of the most philosophical films ever brought to the screen. You learn something about life just by watching it, if you look for it.
In addition to all of this, the direction and cinematography of this film are both original and flawless. The cast is one of the best ever assembled on film. The music is a perfect fit for the storyline. The script contains some of the most quoted and quotable dialogue ever written, and a collection of unforgettable scenes. The new, deluxe edition is highly recommeded even for fans who already have the film, as it contains a very entertaining documentary piece about the making of the film, and a very interesting and thought-provoking "commentary" study of it as well.
It simply doesn't get any better than this.
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