I watched this movie on Netflix’s Roku device. This is wonderful way to watch oldies and goodies on TV. The only complaint I have is the lack of caption on the movies. Sometimes, it’s hard to comprehend the speech without the captions.

Luke, the central character in the movie, portrayed by Paul Newman is a renegade young guy, who is glutton for punishments. Luke got drunk and starting cutting off the parking meters. After being imprisoned in a country-side prison with a sadistic warden, Luke kept running away from the prison for at least 3 times. The last time he ran away, he went out with a big bang, shot by the sharp shooter of the prison.

The most impressive plot in this movie is his eating 58 eggs within an hour to win a bet. Playing up to the prison guards is pretty funny too. You just know that he’s going to get hurt but he kept doing it.

Paul Newman’s performance in the movie was outstanding. Without his performance, this movie doesn’t really have sufficient plot to keep people interested, except for the commodarie among the prisoners, which is not realistic given what we know about today’s prisoners. I don’t know if the prisoners nowadays are being treated the same way; it’s what “doing the hard time” is all about.

Paul Newman just died of lung cancer on 9/26/08 at the age of 83. The old blue-eye left us lots of movies including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, great charities, and Paul Newman food products.

I’ll slowly catch up to his old movies now I have the Roku.

Mark Twain is famous for his “Huckleberry” and “Tom Sawyer” novels. He has many famous quotes that have been recited many times. I haven’t known much about his life. This PBS-produced autobiography depicts Samuel Clement’s life from his childhood in the south to his death in New York.

Mark Twain, Samuel Clement’s pen name, has a rather tragic personal life. All of his family members, his wife and all but one of his 4 daughters and one son died before him. His business acumen or lack thereof caused his financial distress and forced him to go back to the lecture circuit at his old age of 60. And he managed repaid all of his debts eventually. But it took the toll on his family. Nevertheless, his propensity for vanity and spotlight makes him a true American or “the American.”

Mark Twain is the quintessential standup comedian with a flare for literature. He recognized the evil in slavery (thus the novel “Huckleberry Finn” and spoke up against big businesses, politics and imperialism.

I was amazed how well traveled he was in that era. He traveled to all over America, Europe, middle east and even India. I think the only place he hadn’t traveled was China. I believe these give him a worldview perspective. Though his other novels did not enjoy as much acclamation as “Huckleberry” and “Tom Sawyer” but there are so many of them.

The biography shows lots of pictures from his young age until his death, thanks to the invention of photography and even movie in his life time. These are real tresures. Mark Twain left us lots of legacy and his literature gifts. In a way, he re-defined the American literature.