Story of teenagers in a small Texas town just prior to the hero leaving for Korea and the closing of the town’s movie theater.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 13-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVDLike Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, and The Graduate, The Last Picture Show is one of the signature films of the “New Hollywood” that emerged in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry and lovingly directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who cowrote the script with McMurtry), this 1971 drama has been interpreted as an affectionate tribute to classic Hollywood filmmaking and the great directors (such as John Ford) that Bogdanovich so deeply admired. It’s also a eulogy for lost innocence and small-town life, so accurately rendered that critic Roger Ebert called it “the best film of 1951,” referring to the movie’s one-year time frame, its black-and-white cinematography (by Robert Surtees), and its sparse but evocative visual style. The story is set in the tiny, dying town of Anarene, Texas, where the main-street movie house is about to close for good, and where a pair of high-school football players are coming of age and struggling to define their uncertain futures. There’s little to do in Anarene, and while Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) engages in a passionless fling with his football coach’s wife (Cloris Leachman), his best friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) enlists for service in the Korean War. Both boys fall for a manipulative high-school beauty (Cybill Shepherd) who’s well aware of her sexual allure. But it’s not so much what happens in The Last Picture show as how it happens–and how Bogdanovich and his excellent cast so effectively capture the melancholy mood of a ghost town in the making. As Hank Williams sings on the film’s evocative soundtrack, The Last Picture Show looks, feels, and sounds like a sad but unforgettably precious moment out of time. –Jeff Shannon
Buy “The Last Picture Show: The Definitive Director’s Cut “ For Only $8.10
February 5, 2006
#1
If it were possible to give this movie zero stars, i would have. Although it may have won an Academy Award and been considered great in it’s day, it is now outdated and boring. Unless scenes of teenagers trying to have sex with anyone are interesting to you, then maybe you will find it interesting. When i say anyone, i do mean anyone. The main chracter, Sonny, who is a teenager sleeps with Ruth, wife of his footbal coach and the young girl, Jacy, sleeps with her mother’s lover on a pool table. The film also attempts to bring up homosexuality but keeps it muted. You would think a movie called “The Last Picture Show” would be more about a picture show but it really has very little to do with the movie. There is some nudity which was huge for the time of it’s release since it was practically unheard of. The film is also completely in black and white which was a choice of the director so the film could give a better feel of the time period, 1950′s. This movie also gives a bad impression of those who live in the country, making them look like they are so bored of their desolate surroundings that they must seek sex with anyone who is willing. If this movie would have been made in present day, it would be your typical porn movie but since none of the sex scenes are actually shown they just show the faces and i guess that is what it allows it to be called an “award winning movie” and not a porn. Also if you think the movie was bad, try reading the book it was based off of, much worse.
February 5, 2006
#2
Ben Johnson earns one of the stars here given; Polly Platt, the de facto co-director, earns the other. Platt, Boggy’s girl until he dumped her for the mindless Sheperd, was responsible for what [little] merit looney Peter’s films ever had.
One can look at the film and pick out the Ford-homage (i.e., ripoff), the Hawks-homage and the Welles-homage (even to a scene cut from “The Magnificent Ambersons”!).
This is filmmaking by the film-nerd numbers.
The acting by all concerned save Johnson is deficient in one way or another.
Bottoms is a cypher.
Sheperd an incompetent in the ‘Tippi’ Hedren mold.
Burstyn and Brennan combine in highly unlikely spasm of omniscience.
Gulager is all goggle-eyed wardrobe creepiness.
Bridges a one-note brute.
Quaid a goofball.
Leachman the benificary of an over-wrought desperate Oscar-begging scene.
Upon first viewing, one can see why the film garnered attention.
However, decades and multiple viewings later, this stunt-film collapses, its Ford/Hawks/Welles bag of tricks emptied and exposed as the derivative hodgepodge it is.
February 5, 2006
#3
This flick is overrated. But you’ve got to give the filmmakers credit for going with black- and- white, for shooting it in Texas (where the story takes place) and for not trying to squeeze in too many characters into the “plot.”
The Chase, starring Marlon Brando, that also takes place in Texas, might have received all the praise heaped on the Last Picture Show flick had they gone the black -and- white route and stayed away from the Universal back lot.
Hud, also shot in Texas, was a better film than this. It seems to me, a good rule of thumb to doing pictures in Texas is to go with black-and-white photography. Don’t know why, could be the automatic, built-in authenticity factor one gets with B & W. Color very often means Hollywood glitz, and doesn’t seem to work well with this type of tale.
Anyway, it’s not the worst flick ever made. Ben Johnson does a nice job, so does Ellen Burstyn. The latter two deserve four stars for their work here. Sybil Shephard was drop-dead gorgeous at the time.
February 5, 2006
#4
So-so story and acting by young and inexperienced few barely lift this movie to watchability.
February 5, 2006
#5
Set in rural West Texas, but reflects life of American teenagers in the fifties more generally. See also American Graffitti. If you grew up in the fifties, then you may see yourself in these films!
(A Kentuckian)