Posted on 02/27/2019 4:48:26 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
It’s hard to pin down the Coen brothers’ new film, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” an anthology film that presents itself as a literal story book, first edition 1873. As the mournful air that supports the ballad “Streets of Laredo” (and other lyrics, as the movie demonstrates in its last story) plays, the book opens, the pages turn; a full-page illustration shows a moment from a tense poker game; and away we go.
Into a rather goofy singing-cowboy vignette, the title story, starring Tim Blake Nelson as a man in a white hat who addresses the viewer most cheerfully before he begins blowing holes in any number of dirtier men who won’t cooperate with him. Is he, as a wanted poster paints him, a “misanthrope?” No, he insists, he just doesn’t like to be, um, contradicted.
This episode is a gasp-inducing wonder, a perfect storm of Frank Tashlin and Sam Peckinpah stylings, suggesting this is going to be one of the more raucous and absurdist Coen outings. The next story, starring James Franco as an ill-fated bank robber, leads up to a punchline that’s one of the funniest in the Coen canon.
In the third story, “Meal Ticket,” the movie takes a grim, mean turn. Its protagonists are a taciturn, hard-drinking traveling showman, Liam Neeson, and his charge, an armless and legless young man with a great store of poetry and scripture at his command, billed as a great “Orator.” Beginning his “set” every night with Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” he speaks to ever-dwindling frontier audiences, compelling Neeson to make an arguably ruthless business decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at rogerebert.com ...
The story of a young woman and her brother on a wagon train headed to Oregon is one of the most poignant, sad stories I've ever seen on film. The dialog and romance are just delicious.
A bit more from Ebert...
What’s most bewitching throughout “Scruggs” is its sense of detail. Its meshing of formal discipline and screwed-down content sometimes give it the sense of a work that has been carefully and elaborately embroidered rather than photographed.Highly recommended!
For the purposes of this marvelous and disquieting movie, it’s enough. Its pleasures—the endless succession of perfect shots of remarkable scenery, the gorgeous music by Carter Burwell and others that swells and dips like the landscapes themselves—are real, and acknowledged as such, but there’s something more real underneath it all.
Watched it a couple weeks ago. Very good.
I’ll give it 4 stars cause you can waltz to it.
The cinematography is outstanding. All Coen Brothers movies are beautifully shot, and have wonderful imagery that add to the picture. But this one is really really good.
4 stars.
You have to be in the mood for something weird to enjoy this movie. To say it is warped is an understatement. This is a love it/hate it movie, all dependent on the viewer
Loved the wacky Buster Scruggs tale. The miner’s tale was great too.
Filmed in New Mexico. Lots of movies made here. I can tell which ones just by the sky and clouds.
Totally agree!
The character in the first vignette is the same guy - “Shorty” - in “O Brother Where Art Thou” that dashes forth to be baptized:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztz_Vr9uHk
BTW, if you like the music and visuals in that scene, check out Iris Dement’s “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1r-aTbaA-c
Blessings to all my FR brothers and Sisters
Enjoy! (-:
I watched everything through Meal Ticket and, feeling I must have been missing something, stopped watching out of boredom and pointlessness. Sorry I couldn’t get into it.
Ping.
Ebert died in 2013.
Review is actually by Glenn Kenny since Ebert is long dead.
Didn’t quite get the last one though.
It’s a weird movie. But “highly recommended”, indeed.
Every vignette in the movie ends in a way that you don’t quite expect. But yet each ending makes sense. Would I put it in my top-ten westerns list? Well, just maybe I would. Because it’s so unique.
I started watching it and then quit - I hated it.
Then nothing else to watch so I started watching it again and I loved it. Until I hated it again.
Did that numerous times and ended up watching the entire thing. Goofy, but also had some great meanings hidden in there. In the end I did really enjoy it.
Meal Ticket was my least favorite. It dragged too much and could’ve gotten the point across in less time. If you can power through Meal Ticket (or skip it), the rest of the movie is good. Not as good as the vignettes before Meal Ticket, but worth watching.
No man can compel another to engage in recreation. That said - it’s the Coen Brothers best ever - which is why yours truly has seen it 3 times already
A home run that totally took me by surprise.
Any movie with Tom Waits in it gets a thumbs up from me.
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