The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

[BetterButter]

[Simon Boccanegra]

I'm a big Coen brothers fan, and I loved this. I'm glad it received those three surprise Oscar nominations, although it will surely go 0 for 3. It has some of the built-in limitations of the anthology format, in that characters and story arcs can't have the fullness they would have in a feature, but this time I think the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

The debates will rage forever over which installments are more or less good, and it's like a personality test. People have their own favorite Coen brothers full-length films too, and it's rare to find two ranked lists that are identical, even if some films consistently come out near the top (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) and others near the bottom (The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty).  

I've seen several good movies from 2018, but this one has that sheer moviemaking brio, the obvious love of finding the possibilities in images and sound, that I've missed in so much of what I've seen.

My favorite was "Meal Ticket." Perhaps it's predictable that someone who has No Country for Old Men, Inside Llewyn Davis, and The Man Who Wasn't There as three of his top four Coen pictures would gravitate to the segment a lot of people find too bleak and depressing to handle. Next to that one, I liked "All Gold Canyon," which Tom Waits carries brilliantly. It's the best screen-acting opportunity he has ever had, and he's played major roles for Coppola, Babenco, and Altman. Then, "The Gal Who Got Rattled," which is so sweet and poignant. "The Mortal Remains" was a grower; it got better as I thought about it when it was over, and made me want to watch it again.

The two I liked least, actually, were the first two. The one that gives the film its title is fast and funny (the Coens in Raising Arizona mode) but not very substantial, and I join the consensus opinion that "Near Algodones" is the closest thing to a dud, despite the efforts of James Franco and the cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (who, in all six installments, gets shots that really do look like color plates in the illustrated books being evoked). It has a great final scene, but it plods on the way to it.  

Still, five out of six is a great batting average. 

Edited February 9, 2019 by Simon Boccanegra

[Cheezwiz]

I enjoyed this overall. I loved the first segment for it's outlandish silliness - Tim Blake Nelson was perfect in the role. My absolute favourite was "The Gal Who Got Rattled" - so unexpectedly sweet and sad - even more so if you still had the words on the opening title page in your head at the conclusion. I loved the old-fashioned device of opening to an illustrated book plate to introduce each segment, and wondering how the words on the page would fit into the story. I thought it worked especially well for that particular segment.

The rest of the stories were, for me, pretty uneven. I thought Tom Waits was perfectly cast as a half-crazy old miner, but I felt it dragged on for too long. "Near Nogales" would have been somewhat amusing, but it was ruined by the presence of James Franco, who I loathe. "Meal Ticket" as well as the final segment were simply too bleak and depressing. All in all for a Coens flick, I would rate it just ok, but worth seeing for litmus test of which stories you like the best!

[Simon Boccanegra]

What I loved about "The Gal Who Got Rattled" was the way we could see Alice and Billy falling in love with each other, but it was between the lines. Their conversations were so understated, ostensibly about pragmatic matters, like how many acres they'd be entitled to in Oregon. That felt true to the period and the circumstances. People could gravitate together as much out of need and expediency as anything else, and they made lives together and grew to love each other or not. Still, his tenderness and solicitousness and the way she responded to him made the spark between them unmistakable. I'll definitely look for Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck in other things in the future; both were new faces to me.   

I watched the whole film a second time, and managed to like it even more, which is saying a lot. There are some things that registered more fully when I knew where everything was going, like the way the last time we hear Harrison (the quadruple amputee) perform, his reading of the Shakespeare sonnet has greater anguish and intensity. He can see the writing on the wall, and he's personalizing the words as never before ("I all alone beweep my outcast state / And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries / And look upon myself and curse my fate / Wishing me like to one more rich in hope..."). This heartfelt performance is passing for nothing. Very few people are listening, and those who are listening have not heard him deliver it any other way on other nights. 

[Cheezwiz]

12 minutes ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

What I loved about "The Gal Who Got Rattled" was the way we could see Alice and Billy falling in love with each other, but it was between the lines.

Yes, I loved that too - their interactions were very formal, but you could see that they would be well suited to one another, and that there might be some brightness ahead for Alice, who had endured what was likely an unhappy marriage, and was now stuck on a difficult cross-country slog. I've seen Zoe Kazan in a few things (most notably The Big Sick), but she didn't really register with me. She was adorable in this though. I've never heard of Bill Heck before, but he was perfectly cast as the gentlemanly wagon master -I will keep an eye out for him in the future. (Also the Jack Russell terrier was great too!). I just loved this segment so much, I wish it had been a feature-length movie, but it probably would have been too sad.

[Simon Boccanegra]

I think Billy would have been Alice's first husband. She was living and traveling with her brother, and he planned to marry her off to his new business partner in Oregon ("He will propose once they meet each other"). Later, she says her brother's connection to this man with the orchards, and that man's interest in marrying her, may have been only speculative. 

Since she and her brother have the same last name, and she never mentions a prior marriage, my reading is that she's a "maiden" rather than a "widow of honor" (tm Billy).    

[Cheezwiz]

3 minutes ago, Simon Boccanegra said:

think Billy would have been Alice's first husband. She was living and traveling with her brother, and he planned to marry her off to his new business partner in Oregon ("He will propose once they meet each other").

You're absolutely right - I had completely forgotten about that detail, and had somehow turned her brother into her spouse in my mind for some reason! In any case, she wound up in pretty dire circumstances through no fault of her own. It was a great story, from the illustrated bookplate opening to the heartbreaking conclusion.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 2/9/2019 at 3:20 AM, Simon Boccanegra said:

I'm a big Coen brothers fan, and I loved this. I'm glad it received those three surprise Oscar nominations, although it will surely go 0 for 3. It has some of the built-in limitations of the anthology format, in that characters and story arcs can't have the fullness they would have in a feature, but this time I think the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

The debates will rage forever over which installments are more or less good, and it's like a personality test. People have their own favorite Coen brothers full-length films too, and it's rare to find two ranked lists that are identical, even if some films consistently come out near the top (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) and others near the bottom (The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty).  

I've seen several good movies from 2018, but this one has that sheer moviemaking brio, the obvious love of finding the possibilities in images and sound, that I've missed in so much of what I've seen.

My favorite was "Meal Ticket." Perhaps it's predictable that someone who has No Country for Old Men, Inside Llewyn Davis, and The Man Who Wasn't There as three of his top four Coen pictures would gravitate to the segment a lot of people find too bleak and depressing to handle. Next to that one, I liked "All Gold Canyon," which Tom Waits carries brilliantly. It's the best screen-acting opportunity he has ever had, and he's played major roles for Coppola, Babenco, and Altman. Then, "The Gal Who Got Rattled," which is so sweet and poignant. "The Mortal Remains" was a grower; it got better as I thought about it when it was over, and made me want to watch it again.

The two I liked least, actually, were the first two. The one that gives the film its title is fast and funny (the Coens in Raising Arizona mode) but not very substantial, and I join the consensus opinion that "Near Algodones" is the closest thing to a dud, despite the efforts of James Franco and the cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (who, in all six installments, gets shots that really do look like color plates in the illustrated books being evoked). It has a great final scene, but it plods on the way to it.  

Still, five out of six is a great batting average. 

I'm going to have to give this another chance.  Your post has made me reconsider.  Incidentally, my Coen faves are A Serious Man and Hail, Caesar!  Yup.  Like you I also like The Man Who Wasn't There.  But I love almost all, really.

[tres bien]

Another Netflix movie I finally got around to watching which is interesting because I mostly like anything set in the old West.

This is a weirdly beautiful movie.