#29 Cool Hand Luke: What's your dirt doin' in his ditch?

1967 dir. Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D. Cannon.

Seen it before? No.

Before I begin here, may I just ask - That Tooth Fairy movie, starring The Rock - they're joking, right? That's not a real movie?

Anyway, Cool Hand Luke. You read that correctly, I haven't seen it before now. On the other hand, this is one of those movies that's been parodied and ripped off so many times that it all felt very familiar. Sort of like Citizen Kane, which I'm pretty sure you could assemble entirely from clips from The Simpsons.

The titular Luke is Paul Newman, playing his usual too-cool-for-the-movie self. At the beginning of the movie, he gets drunk and destroys some parking meters, so they sentence him to do 2 years at a prison camp. At first it's all fun and games, and he's pretty much able to smirk his way through life. He eats 50 eggs for some reason. Then he tries to escape, and things get complicated...

OK, so:

Obvious Christ imagery. Lots of it. He gets beaten up pretty bad a few times but he just takes it. It's not quite as bad as that snuff film my mother-in-law made me watch but it was close.

Also Luke is constantly holding his arms out as if being crucified, and at one point they even put a white robe on him.

60's counterculture: Luke just doesn't dig your rules, man.

What was with that Plastic Jesus song?? That came out of nowhere.

I want a pair of those mirror sunglasses. That guy was harsh, I don't think he said two words the whole movie.

I thought George Kennedy (the Garlique guy, and he won Best Supporting Actor for this movie) was pretty funny. Such an obvious man-crush on Luke.

Hey, it's Trapper John!

The scene with the girl washing her car felt gratuitous. Not that I'm complaining.

Position in the list: 125
Should be sued for plagiarizing this: Shawshank Redemption