noahputt

I don't think I would have appreciated this film if I'd seen it earlier in my life. Its depiction of life in small-town white America-its myths, its cruelties, its lies, its deprivations, its disparities, its loneliness, its disappointments, its bleakness, its nostalgia for a time that never was or will ever be again-is so specific, but so universal.

Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan are masters of their craft and steal the show. I don't know who else was nominated for Best Supporting Actress that year, but it's no wonder why Leachman took home the statue. A heartbreaking and flawless performance.

Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion is perfectly cast as the moral center of the film. His presence is meta in the best way possible, with no winks given. Just a simple, honest performance that speaks for itself (and another acting statue, to boot.)

It's fun to see a young Jeff Bridges just beginning his journey as an actor. Timothy Bottoms is good as the young protagonist Sunny, and makes you wonder why his career never took off. Maybe due to a limited range that lent itself well to Sunny but didn't translate to other roles? In her screen debut, Cybill Shepherd is appropriately vacuous, if somewhat one-dimensional.

Bogdanovich recreates the early 50s twenty years after the fact with a balance of verisimilitude and style-though sometimes leaning more heavily into style, with jarring Wellsian close ups and shadows. Everything feels deeply intentional, even if the intention isn't always clear.

I'm glad I caught The Last Picture Show while I still could. I can see why it's considered one of the great films of its time.

I keep asking myself, why another adaptation of Nosferatu/Dracula, and why now? Why is this the story the writer/director wanted to tell? I'm not well versed enough in the mythos to be able to compare it to previous iterations. Yes, the film is visually striking, but eventually the effect wore off and watching it became tedious, much like Eggers's previous films. They look and sound great, and have memorable moments, but the story tends to drag and be unnecessarily confusing. Even in this film, whose story is basically familiar, the wants and needs of the characters are confoundedly muddled. The actors don't seem to agree on what movie they're in. Once again, it seems Eggers is more interested in visual cohesion than in the actual storytelling. I felt nothing for any of these characters, and couldn't care less what became of them. Nor did I find it remotely scary. I get that Nosferatu doesn't have a heart, but neither did this movie.

They obviously got the cheapest director, dp, and editor money could buy. Even so, whatever they paid them, it was probably too much. The writing makes no sense at all. (What's with all the cockroaches?) SFX is so confusing. I had no clue what I was looking at half of the time. The monsters are kind of cute, actually. I was rooting for the monsters to win. And I liked the dog. The dog did a great job. In fact, I'd say the dog is the only one deserving praise for their work on this movie. Everyone else should probably just take this one off their IMDB because it's just embarrassingly bad. Sorry.