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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a weird picture. I’ve never seen Ladykillers, so it’s peculiar to see a Coen Bros joint that isn’t polished to a shine, but it’s clear that it’s a project they really wanted to make and just couldn’t quite nail. I’m a mark for both westerns and anthology films, though, so I’m dead center in the target demographic. Overall, it doesn’t feel cohesive, which is a bit of a weird criticism to levy at an anthology film, but the tonal and stylistic differences are dramatic and don’t work together to evoke an overarching mood or statement as a whole work. It feels like a mark of a lack of confidence that the movie opens with the titular sequence. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs would be better served in the middle of the film. Starting out, it creates an expectation of a fantastical quality that isn’t found anywhere else in the movie. In the middle, this would’ve been a refreshing surprise, especially following the dreary sequence about the dramatic orator, but in the start it’s a little odd. That sequence about the orator is the real low point of the film. Morose, cruel, and ableist, it’s got a streak of nihilism that other Coen Brothers films manage to make entertaining with an artful touch of absurd humor that never appears here. By contrast, the sequence about the prospector hews really close to a similar pitfall, before soaring out of it when the protagonist brutally reverses the fortune of his predator. It’s still scary and has a mean streak, but the highlight of the scene is a very authentic, humorous performance by Waits as he winds down from having overcome his would-be killer. The picture is, on the whole, a work of absurdist existentialism that’s well situated in the Coen Bros’ oeuvre. Unexpected turns of fortune and a sense of cosmic meaninglessness pervade the work, and in that sense, I guess that not having any of that is a surprise in itself, in the case of the orator sequence- it just isn’t very entertaining. Overall, it’s definitely worth a watch, even if the parts are better than their sum product.
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Nov 19, 2018 17:18
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married but discreet posted:So does Sukiyaki Western Django elicit the same kind of hatred in western fans as Cabin in the Woods does for horror fans? Sukiyaki Western Django is the worst movie I’ve ever seen.
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Nov 20, 2018 16:42
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Basebf555 posted:Finally watched The Great Silence and goddamn, that is a brutal ending. Not sure I've ever seen an ending quite like that in a Western. I once showed this to a class and, upon learning that the studio forced the filmmakers to shoot an alternate ending where the sheriff shows up at the end and saves everyone, the majority of the class agreed they would have preferred that ending.
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Jan 2, 2020 17:10
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Last night I watched Rancho Notorious, a western directed by Fritz Lang. (Criterion just put a bunch of “noir westerns” up on their streaming service fyi.) It’s alright. I wouldn’t have pegged it as a Lang picture if I hadn’t known beforehand. The weird thing is that the story would have been both more believable and more immediately understandable if the casting of the lead men had been switched such that the super hot guy was seducing the lead woman away from her normal, older-looking boyfriend rather than the other way around. They put a little streak of grey in the handsome guy’s hair to signal that he was meant to be older, but it just made him look more hot.
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Jul 6, 2020 15:48
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I don’t really remember much about Red River other than that I was also disappointed by the ending, so it must be a pretty big letdown.
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Jul 6, 2020 21:22
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I had the pleasure of screening The Great Silence for an audience that had, for the most part, never seen a western before that week. They really dug it.
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Jul 6, 2020 22:29
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Been scarfing down these Budd Boetticher Westerns on Criterion Channel and they are such a treat for the enthusiast. They look great, they’re short, and the plot never goes where you think it will. My favorite so far is The Tall T, which features a brilliant bad guy performance by Richard Boone. Thanks for the rec, I will check these out.
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Sep 5, 2021 17:21
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The Great Silence rocks. Its political underpinnings are a bit compromised by how terrible the real Mormons actually were, but still a great movie.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:05
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FreudianSlippers posted:Them being Mormons isn't mentioned in the Italian dub. In that they're just poor citizens who turned to banditry. Oh poo poo, lol
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Jan 17, 2023 15:17
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The only thing I’ve found awry with the Criterion Collection’s movie descriptions is that they have a much different definition of what constitutes a comedy than I do. I always double check a different source when they’re billing something as funny or lighthearted.
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Jan 18, 2023 14:17
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The Sabata movies rock. I wish they’d make a modern one that went even crazier with the old timey gadgets and gimmicks.
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Feb 25, 2023 16:28
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