About Paul Newman

Of all of the Paul Newman movies that I love, The Hustler is easily my favorite. The world depicted in that film is a world that I knew. There is a pool hall near where I grew up that could have come right out of that movie. I suspect most pool halls could have. Hustlers and cutthroats abound. Everyone is hustling and everyone is being hustled and, no matter how good you are, you don't know which one you are until you leave. There is ALWAYS someone better than you and skill is not the only or most important ingredient in pool anyway. The film makers and the actors got everything exactly right about that. I love the pure acknowledgment at the end:

Fast Eddie: Fat man, you shoot a great game of pool.
Minnesota Fats: So do you, Fast Eddie.

Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats played two matches in the movie: once in the beginning and once in the end. Eddie was the hustled in the first match and was the hustler in the second. His transformation from one to the other was what the rest of the movie was about and was very sad in a way. The reason he wanted to play Fats in the first place was he wanted to prove he was the best. Shooting pool at a pool hall isn't about being the best, though. It's about winning. It's about the money. To beat Fats, he had to do it on those terms. He'll never know if he was the best. The table was always tilted one way or the other.

More tributes at Sheila's and at The Coalition.

RIP, Paul Newman.

Quote of the Day

How should I play that one, Bert? Play it safe? That's the way you always told me to play it: safe... play the percentage. Well, here we go: fast and loose. One ball, corner pocket. Yeah, percentage players die broke, too, don't they, Bert?

Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), The Hustler

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "The driving-with-animals bill was backed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Los Angeles but ridiculed as the "Paris Hilton bill" by critics who described it as unwarranted interference by government."