The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Movies to See Right Now

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Roma is now available to stream on Netflix. I think that it’s a masterpiece. Your best choice in theaters is Green Book (link goes live this weekend).

And tickets are on sale (and going fast) for Silicon Valley’s best Holiday movie experience – the Stanford Theatre’s Christmas Eve screening of It’s a Wonderful Life.

OUT NOW

  • Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars.
  • Green Book (link goes live this weekend): Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
  • Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
  • Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind and its companion documentaries, all available to stream on Netflix.
  • Bitter Melon, H.P. Mendoza’s dark indie comedy on an issue that a Bay Area family must finally face.
  • The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
  • Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes provides insight into of the man who founded Fox News and thus defiled the American body politic and made possible our venerable nation’s descent into Trump’s America.
  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers’ anthology of darkly funny Western vignettes, is recommended only for Westernphiles and Coen Brothers fans. It is streaming on Netflix.
  • The Favourite (link goes live this weekend): Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
  • The Outlaw King, with Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, exists for those who need a dose of medieval slaughter and a spunky queen, but there’s not enough there for the rest of us.
  • Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.

 

ON VIDEO

THE RIDER

My Streams of the Week are the eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far that are already available to stream: Leave No Trace, The Rider, The Death of Stalin, Beast, Custody, Monrovia, Indiana, Three Identical Strangers, Quality Problems and Outside In.

ON TV

On December 17, Turner Classic Movies will broadcast the top heist film ever, the pioneering French classic Rififi: After the team is assembled and the job is plotted, the actual crime unfolds in real-time – over thirty minutes of nerve-wracking silence.

RIFIFI

Movies to See Right Now

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LEAVE NO TRACE

The Must Sees are Roma, Shoplifter and the best 2018 films that you can stream today, especially Leave No Trace.

 

BITTER MELON

OUT NOW

  • Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars.
  • Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
  • Bitter Melon, H.P. Mendoza’s dark indie comedy on an issue that a Bay Area family must finally face.
  • The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
  • Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes provides insight into of the man who founded Fox News and thus defiled the American body politic and made possible our venerable nation’s descent into Trump’s America.
  • Just in case you haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet – Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born. Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.
  • What They Had is an authentic and well-crafted dramatic four-hander with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster.
  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers’ anthology of darkly funny Western vignettes, is recommended only for Westernphiles and Coen Brothers fans. It is streaming on Netflix.
  • The Outlaw King, with Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, exists for those who need a dose of medieval slaughter and a spunky queen, but there’s not enough there for the rest of us.
  • Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.

ON VIDEO

My Streams of the Week are the eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far that are already available to stream: Leave No Trace, The Rider, The Death of Stalin, Beast, Custody, Monrovia, Indiana, Three Identical Strangers, Quality Problems and Outside In.

ON TV

I don’t want to make a television recommendation this week. I guess you could watch The Prowler on Turner Classic Movies on December 13. But you should really be watching the best movies of the year in theaters or via streaming.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS: some chuckles for Coen Brothers fans

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Zoe Kazan in THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the Coen Brothers’ homage to the Western genre; it’s an anthology with SIX of their darkly funny stories. They clearly share Mark Twain’s cynically wry take on human nature, which they depict in Western situations of wagon trains, stagecoach rides, prospecting and hangings. The Coen brothers are not just making fun of Western clichés but also celebrating the genre, with beautiful vistas of New Mexico’s harshness and the spectacular Colorado high country.

The funniest is the opening vignette, with its over-the-top send up of Western conventions – white and black hats, saloon gambling, super fast gunplay and the rest, including nods to the “loquacious Western” subgenre.  And it cements Tim Blake Nelson as having the funniest shit-eating grin in cinema.

The best performance is Harry Melling’s in the Meal Ticket segment. Melling is best known as Harry Potter’s Dudley Dursling.  He plays an itinerant performer who only speaks during his performances; Melling is startlingly brilliant in those performances and even better when he silently and fatalistically regards his competition.

Harry Melling in THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

By far the best story is the saddest, The Gal Who Got Rattled, about a sad-eyed young woman (Zoe Kazan) who is following her delusional brother west, to what we all know will be heartbreak. Untethered by her obligation to the brother, she gets the Old West’s opportunity to remake her destiny until the Old West’s cruel chance intervenes.

The movie peters out in the ghostly last story, The Mortal Remains, despite Saul Rubinek’s delicious portrayal of a Frenchman in the Old West.

I don’t recommend The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for general audiences, but Westernphiles and fans of the Coen Brothers dark, dark humor will find it worthwhile viewing; it doesn’t rise anywhere near the level of the Coen’s best:  Blood Simple, Fargo, A Simple Man, No Country for Old Men or True Grit. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is playing in a few theaters and streaming from Netflix.