Paul Newman Will Live On at Your Local Grocery Store

September 28 2008 20:47 Filed in: Poop
Newman
Paul Newman’s body of work needs no introduction. For the 30ish and under 30 generation though, you probably saw more of him at the salad dressing isle. In 1982, Newman started up “Newman’s Own” food products which has endured as one of the most recognizable brands of salad dressings.


I think on my favorite things about Newman was some comments he made about his final motion picture role, the voice of The Hudson Hornet in Pixar’s Cars. I have a 4-year-old, so needless to say I’ve seen all or part the film well into the double, if not triple digits. I think Cars, while still a fun film, is by far Pixar’s weakest. However, Newman, an actor pushing 80 when he voiced the role and a cinema veteran/legend admitted that he felt it was one the best performances in his career. I don’t know personally if I can agree with that, but I certainly can’t argue with it.

I like to pick out more obscure work from a dead actor’s filmographies to tell you to check out, but that’s kind of hard with Newman, who didn’t have too much notable work that would classify as “obscure” that I’m familiar with, so I guess I would have to fall in with the crowd and recommend Cool Hand Luke from 1967. For a 40 year old film, it stands up still as one of the best prison films of all time and I comfortably rank it right up there with Shawshank Redemption as one of the two films I always think of when the genre “Prison Film” is mentioned. Cool Hand Luke stands the test of time as one of the films that helped define a genre.

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