Delayed Reaction: Twilight

The Pitch: Paul Newman in a Hollywood neo-noir.

How I Came Into It: For a long time, I knew of this movie as "that movie that has Reese Witherspoon naked". Then, after Wild came out in 2014, I mostly knew thought about this for the funny confused Netflix reviews that its connection to the vampire movies caused. Really, I knew nothing about it. I didn't even know it was a Paul Newman movie.

Why I Saw It: This is a great example of what being a movie star is. Paul Newman commands the screen and basically wills this to be interesting. That's not hard when his sparring partners are Oscar Winners Susan Sarandon and Gene Hackman. And then there's future Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon, James Garner, half the cast of The West Wing, the Chicken man, and TV's Margo Martindale.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I like to think of this blog as a safe place. I don't need to pretend to be someone I'm not here (you know, except for pretending that I have any authority to talk about film and TV). So, I'll be honest. Naked Reese Witherspoon happened far too early. I really need that to happen 40 minutes in, so when it's over, I'm already interested enough in the story to continue. As it was, I barely had any story to go off and little investment to continue. The movie was deliberately paced, perhaps to a fault. Every time it had a little momentum, it's like the director said, "No. Pull back...this is a noir".

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend