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Cohens Go Netflix: Ballad of Buster Scruggs


NWBuck

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I think I have Near Algodones at the bottom right now.  It's still great, I've just thought about it less than any of of the other ones.

Meal Ticket is tough but damn - the whole venture was grim and fucked up when it was going well, became more grim and fucked up when it started to falter and you could see exactly what both the man and the stump were thinking.  And then of course it happens, because why would there be a twist.  Dudley watching the dude feed the chicken.  The subtext of "high" brow versus low brow and pandering to the masses just adds to it.

I think Meal Ticket bumping against All Gold Canyon is a bit of whiplash, even with how slow it is.  It was tough for me to believe that after all of that, and after having watched Dudley get replaced by a chicken, that Tom Waits was going to walk out of that valley with Mr. Pocket.

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The Coens had me at Blood Simple and it shall continue as long as I can find their work.  34 years - so hard to believe.  This antholgy is no exception.  I'm still savoring every chapter, a veritable feast for the senses.  It's hard to watch Stephen "Pan Shot!" Root without flashing back to the blind deejay.

Edited by Bama Llama
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Suppose I better spoiler all this:

Spoiler:

Spoiler

 

I think my favorite was the Oregon Trail one. Brutal scene with the Indians, but until that scene was a completely different film. Did the dog really "survive" or did the guy let it live?

Also really liked the one with Liam Neeson. Was the actor really missing both arms and legs or was that some camera trickery?

I'll be the contrarian here: My least favorite was the Ballad of BS. (I didn't say I didn't like it, I said it was my least favorite.) 2nd least favorite was the gold valley one.

Anybody else think the carriage ride one was going to veer off into some sort of supernatural carriage ride to hell?

 

/Spoiler

I also really liked that each one was so very different from all the rest.

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Still have one or two episodes to go.

This is moving from good to possibly fantastic.  The pace they are using in some of these episodes are fantastic.  The Oregon Train/Dog episode was perfection.

Is this one of the most beautiful flicks ever made?  Even the Waits episode held the whole thing together.  I could have watched another hour just enjoying that valley. 

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On 11/28/2018 at 1:46 PM, Sbbruin said:

I think this is my next go-to if I can get the wife on board.

Ha ha. 

Seriously?  My wife refuses to watch ANY western with me, other than her re-watching Silverado now and again.

She has the worst taste in movies of anyone who has ever drawn breath, but when I got tired of riding the trail and sleeping on the ground, I figured I needed to take a wife, and start a family,, and she was available.  

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1 hour ago, tantric superman said:

Ha ha. 

Seriously?  My wife refuses to watch ANY western with me, other than her re-watching Silverado now and again.

She has the worst taste in movies of anyone who has ever drawn breath, but when I got tired of riding the trail and sleeping on the ground, I figured I needed to take a wife, and start a family,, and she was available.  

We are often at odds as well.  So we've made it through the first four, and she is not engaged.  She thought the "All Gold Canyon" was boring, but I liked it.  Only 2 to go, so I'll force it on her, like I do my wiener.

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On 11/30/2018 at 4:21 PM, tantric superman said:

Ha ha. 

Seriously?  My wife refuses to watch ANY western with me, other than her re-watching Silverado now and again.

She has the worst taste in movies of anyone who has ever drawn breath, but when I got tired of riding the trail and sleeping on the ground, I figured I needed to take a wife, and start a family,, and she was available.  

are we married to the same person?

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On 11/30/2018 at 9:21 AM, tantric superman said:

Ha ha. 

Seriously?  My wife refuses to watch ANY western with me, other than her re-watching Silverado now and again.

She has the worst taste in movies of anyone who has ever drawn breath, but when I got tired of riding the trail and sleeping on the ground, I figured I needed to take a wife, and start a family,, and she was available.  

I see what you did there.

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I guess I am in the minority, but I thought it was just okay.  Visually amazing, but the stories were just okay.  Acting was fine but I just couldn't connect.  I liked the Ballad of Buster Scruggs the best and it's wackiness sets it apart from the rest.


Yeh, same


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40 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

I really liked that you got a sense of dread that Mr. Arthur was going to do something that prevented the couple from being together and in the end, he was a complete heroic bad ass.

 

well he kinda did do something that prevented them from being together.  he gave her the gun and told her to blow her brains out if she needed to. 

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2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

I really liked that you got a sense of dread that Mr. Arthur was going to do something that prevented the couple from being together and in the end, he was a complete heroic bad ass.

 

Me too. Similar thing happened in a few of them.

 

1 hour ago, futureman said:

well he kinda did do something that prevented them from being together.  he gave her the gun and told her to blow her brains out if she needed to. 

 

Saw that one coming though.

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motherfucking Tom Waits. Having him singing and getting his shit was just great. My favorite

Meal Ticker - Damn

Gal who got rattled - made me think of Romeo and Juliet

Mortal remains - great. made me think of Willie Wonka's boat ride

My least favs were the first two (+ meal ticket)

beautifully shot. Just like with any Coen bros movie I will have to watch again and just listen the the dialogue a bit more. 

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I'd be really interested to know what their big influences were for this movie. The Girl Who Got Rattled reminded me of that famous Ambrose Bierce story where the union solider is trapped in a well or ravine or something (no spoliez). Saw nods to Blood Meridian (pretty sure one character was called "the kid") and nods to western artists and authors like Dobie, Tom Lea and Frederick Remington. The Coens used some kind of filter effect to create amazing colors for a lot of the movie (kind of like Soderbergh did with Traffic except he used it to saturate certain scenes with one color). It was beautiful without being too cartoonish. I'm sure they looked at a milion old west books with "plate illustrations" like the title book had.

mustangs-frank-dobie-1952-signed_1_0cea8

Here's a pen and ink from some Dobie books, and they have captions just like the book in the movie did.

27278_suemood010-768x1142.rev.1520546771

"The manner of settling difficulties"

021117e.jpg?v=1464895297

Tom Lea

Pass-of-the-North.jpg

Art.jpg

 

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