{"id":8442,"date":"2025-01-18T14:16:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T14:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8442"},"modified":"2025-01-18T18:30:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T18:30:27","slug":"kevin-costner-in-praise-of-cool-hand-luke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8442","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Costner in praise of \u2018Cool Hand Luke\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been \u00a0a fan of Kevin Costner, who turns 70 today, since \u2018Silverado\u2019 and I\u2019ve liked most of his movies since then even \u2018Waterworld\u2019. I was pleased to find that he\u2019s good company back in 2003. He took time out from shooting Mike Binder\u2019s \u2018The Upside of Anger\u2019 in London to pay tribute to Paul Newman and his 1967 film \u2018Cool Hand Luke\u2019 (pictured below) at an Indyssey Entertainment\u2019s Grand Classics charity screening.<\/p>\n

The monthly movie tributes at the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, co-sponsored by Sky Movies, benefitted the British Film Institute and featured filmmakers speaking about films they treasured.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mike Binder, a friend of my good L.A. pal John De Simio, introduced me to Costner at the event. \u201cIt’s very difficult trying to occupy the place that Newman, and people like Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy and Steve McQueen filled,\u201d Costner told me. \u201cThese are the men whose shoulders we stand on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He joked that today test-screen audiences would insist that Newman’s character had to live at the end of \u201cCool Hand Luke\u201d \u2013 \u201cStudios used to be run by entrepreneurs. They made movies they loved and they didn\u2019t change endings. They don\u2019t love their movies today the way they used to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of his about-to-be released western \u2018Open Range\u201d, Costner said: \u2018It\u2019s not in fashion, especially if you\u2019re trying to make a \u201ccomeback\u201d. I don\u2019t feel that way but I\u2019ve heard it said. I\u2019ve had very high and very low moments trying to make original movies. Trying to make an original movie is really hard and whenever I watch a classic movie, I realise that I have to do better.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett I\u2019ve been \u00a0a fan of Kevin Costner, who turns 70 today, since \u2018Silverado\u2019 and I\u2019ve liked most of his movies since then even \u2018Waterworld\u2019. I was pleased to find that he\u2019s good company back in 2003. He … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1263,9],"tags":[4270,4268,4272,1692,1691,4273,4267,4269,957,4271],"class_list":["post-8442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-memory-lane","category-news","tag-cool-hand-luke","tag-the-upside-of-anger","tag-british-film-institute","tag-electric-cinema","tag-grand-classics","tag-indyssey-entertainment","tag-kevin-costner","tag-mike-binder","tag-paul-newman","tag-sky-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11426,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8442\/revisions\/11426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}