BEFORE: Liam Neeson carries over from "The Commuter", and after this I won't see him again until the second week of June, a few days after "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" when I'll need a link to this year's documentary chain. It seems like a long ways off, that's about 75 films from now - and in a way it is, but it could also feel like that time passes quite quickly, if the movies are good. But as I get better at this linking thing, I often see the benefits of watching all the films on my list with one actor, except for one. That is to say, I can clear all the James Franco or Nicole Kidman films, but there could be one that forms an important link between two other films, and it might have to live away from the rest of that herd.
Hell, there are probably a million different ways to link between these films, but I'm really looking for the path that pleases me most, or maybe the one that forms a chain that lasts all year long - hey, a guy can dream, right?
THE PLOT: Six tales of life and violence in the Old West, following a singing gunslinger, a bank robber, a traveling impresario, an elderly prospector, a wagon train, and a perverse pair of bounty hunters.
AFTER: Some of my most favorite films from over the years have come from the Coen Brothers, like "Raising Arizona" and "The Big Lebowski", then of course there's "Fargo" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou", and maybe a little bit further down on my list there are spots for "No Country For Old Men", "Burn After Reading" and "The Man Who Wasn't There", and then WAY WAY down on the list of films to not miss are things like "Barton Fink", "The Ladykillers" and "Intolerable Cruelty". In other words, when I hear they've got a new film out, I make plans to see it, but over the last few years, their output has been rather hit-or-miss with me, like "Inside Llewyn Davis" and "Hail, Caesar!" barely moved the needle for me.
But I'd still like to be able to say, at some point, that I've seen every film that they've had a hand in, whether that's from writing, directing and producing, or some combination of those. Like I watched "Suburbicon" and "Bridge of Spies" even though they wrote them, but didn't direct. And I'll still have to get to films like "A Serious Man", "Romance & Cigarettes" and "Gambit" if I want to be a completist. But I think I've done pretty well for myself if those are the only omissions on my list. "A Serious Man" is on my Netflix list, but I haven't been able to link to it yet. I think I've been confusing it with the Colin Firth film "A Single Man" though.
Anyway, a few people whose opinions I usually admire said that they liked "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", so that, coupled with the Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, prompted me to move it up sooner on my schedule. And it certainly didn't hurt that the cast list is quite large, and it turned out to be easy to link to - though I suppose if it didn't fit HERE, I would have caught up with it at the end of March when I've planned to clear the James Franco category yet again.
There are six short stories here in this compilation, and only one of them managed to feel like it ran too long - so for five out of six to not wear out their welcomes, that's a pretty good return. I felt that the segment with the wagon train really captured the spirit of the long, slow, migration across America - it was, generally speaking, that boring. And that miserable. But when you put all of the stories together, and appreciate the fact that not all of them end well - OK, very few of them end well - what we get in summary is a complex portrait of the American West as a harsh, brutal, unforgiving chapter in history. And I believe that's accurate, this is a point that was made by other films like "The Hateful Eight" and "A Million Ways to Die in the West", only in vastly different ways.
And maybe it's the fact that we just filed our tax return over the weekend, but if there's a common thread running through the six segments, a larger point to be made about our country, it's that nothing comes without a price, and whatever good things you have in your life, like money or fame or power or the promise of a relationship, bear in mind that those things can be taken from you with little or no notice. Always, always, someone somewhere is conspiring to separate you from your money or your position - and I don't mean the immigrants coming to "take your jobs", because I'm betting the jobs they're coming for aren't the ones that you want to hang on to - no, I mean there are people in power who don't want you to be happy or well-off, or even alive at the end of the day.
The first segment, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", demonstrates this with the tale of a singing gunslinger. Even though he's quick on the draw, and quick with a song, the minute he goes to a new town and is regarded as a stranger, his life is on the line. And his reputation and talent only mean so much, when it only takes ONE of his many challengers to be quicker on the draw. In the 2nd segment, "Near Algodones", a bank robber with a pistol learns that he's no match for a bank teller with a shotgun and some armor made from pots and pans. And he might cheat the hangman's noose once, based on an unlikely series of events, but how long before his luck runs out? In the third segment, "Meal Ticket", a man with no arms and legs is driven across the West by his manager in a converted stagecoach, and in every town they stop and put on a show, where he recites Shakespeare and the Gettysburg Address for spare change. But the manager finds that taking care of a handicapped man is such an enormous task that he starts to consider alternative acts, and that's not good news for the performer.
In the fourth story, "All Gold Canyon", a prospector spends weeks digging test holes near a river, searching for a rich underground vein of gold. But in the thrill of the hunt, he lets his guard down at the wrong moment, putting his weeks of work in jeopardy. The fifth story, "The Gal Who Got Rattled" is the wagon train story, where a young woman headed for Oregon has to deal with more and more hardships along the way, and she's not even sure about the opportunity waiting for her at the end of the journey, so an unexpected offer from one of the wagon train leaders seems like the best way out of her predicament. And in the final story, "The Mortal Remains", five people on a stagecoach have a conversation that leads down some dark paths, when two of the passengers are revealed to be bounty hunters transporting a deceased corpse to their destination.
The last story reminded me of a sort of Old West "Twilight Zone" episode - because there's two ways to take it. Either the two men are indeed bounty hunters and just very, very creepy, or possibly everyone on the stagecoach is dead, and traveling to an other-worldly destination. So many of the things said by the passengers have two meanings, so one possible interpretation is that they're all being transported to the great beyond, having been harvested by the "reapers", as the bounty hunters call themselves. Sure, it's grim, but every story here has some touch of grim irony to it. And really, in the end, whose story ends well? Come on, give me one example. Just sayin'.
I've got a NITPICK POINT about animals that appear to be able to do mathematical calcuations, but I think you can probably guess where I'm going with that one. It's always, always some kind of parlor trick or mechanical subterfuge. Even that chicken in Chinatown that appeared to play tic-tac-toe. You know that wasn't for real, right?
Also starring Tim Blake Nelson (last seen in "Holes"), David Krumholtz (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Clancy Brown (last seen in "Stronger"), Willie Watson, E.E. Bell, Tom Proctor (last seen in "Wilson"), Danny McCarthy, James Franco (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Stephen Root (last seen in "Hello, My Name is Doris"), Ralph Ineson (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Jesse Luken, Michael Cullen, Harry Melling (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"), Paul Rae, Tom Waits (last seen in "Keith Richards: Under the Influence"), Sam Dillon (last seen in "Boyhood"), Zoe Kazan (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Bill Heck, Grainger Hines (last seen in "The Family Fang"), Jefferson Mays (last seen in "I Am Michael"), Eric Petersen, Ethan Dubin, Tyne Daly (also last seen in "Hello, My Name Is Doris"), Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "Assassin's Creed"), Jonjo O'Neill, Saul Rubinek (last seen in "The Singing Detective"), Chelcie Ross (last seen in "Novocaine"), Jackamoe Buzzell.
RATING: 7 out of 10 yoked oxen
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