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 ...
So did Tom Clancy but he's still putting out books somehow.
I liked the Buster Scruggs movie. It's a movie you need to watch late on a Saturday night or some other night where you don't have to get up early the next morning. Not sure why but the weirdness of the movie is best suited for late at night. Not the sort of movie you watch on a weeknight after having a dinner of roast chicken and peas if you know what I mean.
Like Pulp Fiction...
Clancy had a guy doing research before he died. With the family’s blessing, he does the new stuff.
This is the first I’ve heard of “Ballad....” I’ll have to look for it.
It was a hoot! But I didn’t like the ending.
He was in every vignette, wasn’t he?
All the tales were excellent...hard to pick a favorite. Miner one was very good - loved the old, grizzled miner still prospecting alone in his 60s. Interesting the way they tied nature in harmony and peace until man showed up, then, after he departs, the elk inspecting his diggings and all the birds, insects and animals returning.
I really liked the wagon train tale. What a bitter ending.
The stagecoach tale was incredible because of the dialog among the passengers and the mysterious guys with the dead body. They sure played it up they were Old Scratch and spooked the other passengers.
Oh, yeah. I remember, now. It’s been awhile since I watched it. THAT’S the one whose ending I hated.
I watched it too and was pleasantly surprised...good movie! But Roger Ebert is still alive???
The credits say film locations were in New Mexico, Nebraska, and Colorado. Wiki has more...
“The Gal Who Got Rattled” was shot on private land north of Mitchell in the Nebraska Panhandle.
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and “Near Algodones” were shot in New Mexico.
“The Meal Ticket” and “All Gold Canyon” were shot in Colorado, the latter in Telluride.
“The Mortal Remains” was shot entirely on a sound stage.
You wrote “The character in the first vignette is the same guy - “Shorty” - in “O Brother Where Art Thou””
THANKS...that was bugging me. It was one of those “I know I’ve seen that guy before” moments. I forgot to look it up.
The only vignette really warped and campy was the opening “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” I thought all the rest were somewhat plausible.
Exactly.
It's been a long time since a movie made me cry. That made me cry. It built up so you could see the hope dawning and love kindling and a whole future ahead of them...and boom.
I saw it on Netflix in November and have recommended it many times.
Very well done.
Thanks for the link to Iris Dement’s “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
The photographs that accompany the song are fantastic.
Funny, I have exactly the opposite opinion. I was spellbound by the interactions of people, the wonderful dialog, the human emotions exhibited in so many ways. I’ll gladly watch this again and again. I wish it were twice the length.
“To say it is warped is an understatement.”
Yes, watched part of it (hubby was watching it), really quite creepy. Esp the part about the wagon train.
But, it sticks with you, that I will say.
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