The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Title: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Tagline: Stories live forever. People don't.

Genre: Western, Comedy, Drama

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, Willie Watson, Harry Melling, Grainger Hines, Jonjo O'Neill, Saul Rubinek, Chelcie Ross, Stephen Root, David Krumholtz

Release: 2018-11-16

Runtime: 133

Plot: An anthology film weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The Coens are back...

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I have not read how this film came together so I don't know if this was a deal where they struggled to get funding and then turned to Netflix or if Netflix came to them and wanted a picture from them. Where the Coens were once "important" filmmakers I think in today's market they are just direct to streaming or VOD guys. I know Scorsese's The Irishman was dumped to Netflix because they felt the budget was too much but odd to see guys like the Coens and Scorsese turning out Netflix pictures.

 

[TravisR]

The Coens are back...

And they've brought Franco along?!

 

[Tino]

Where the Coens were once "important" filmmakers I think in today's market they are just direct to streaming or VOD guys.

No way. They are top tier filmmakers and have never struggled to find funding.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

No way. They are top tier filmmakers and have never struggled to find funding.

Well, I think you and I would agree that Martin Scorsese is a "top tier" filmmaker too. He also is tired of struggling to get funding for his pictures. Hey, I'm with you, Tino, if the Coens are making a film, to me, it's a big deal. I love their films.

The sad thing is that today unless you are doing a superhero film or a Star Wars movie, or a sequel, or an animated family film...well...none of the money people are interested and really, neither are the theater chains. They want nothing but those type of films on their screens. If it is being made for people older than 15 then it is no longer "theater worthy" and the place for those films is streaming and VOD...in other words, watch that at home.

Look at something like Mandy, RLJE could not get that into theater chains. This Coen picture looks like it will have the same fate, a very limited theatrical run in a small number of theaters, likely art houses (what's left of them) and major cities and dumped onto Netflix at the same time so that people have no need to venture out to a cinema to see it.

I am not in any way diminishing what the Coens do...I think they are awesome...but the type of pictures they make and stories they want to tell no longer "fit" what financial backers want nor what theater owners want on their screens. They are films for adults.

David Cronenberg, another guy I think of as "top tier" basically says he is retired and a big part of that is he was tired of struggling to get funding to make a picture. Here's a recent quote:

“People think, well, Marty, he’s famous; he has won this and that – he can snap his fingers and get anything made. Of course, it is absolutely not true. It is always a struggle.”

David Lynch did not do anything for years for the same reason. Lynch walked away after Inland Empire mostly because nobody wanted to back his pictures...which at that point relied on foreign investors anyway.

Remember the brawl Alex Garland had to go through to get Annihilation into some theaters. Scorsese has railed for years about the difficulty of securing funding for something outside of the banal stupidity of franchise films and sequels. He has specifically talked about his concerns that talented filmmakers can't get funding for their pictures and that even guys that have made great films (Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson for example) will have funding dry up for them.

I guess we can look at it more than one way. We can see it as a positive thing in that guys like the Coens can still make pictures because Netflix or Amazon will pay for the content. So, there remains the possibility of seeing more from them or from other talented filmmakers because that outlet exists. We just are more likely to see these films at home.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Due to the fact that I live near a major city I will see this in a theater I hope. I mean, it's the Coens...I've seen all their films in a theater so I really hope I can continue to do that. Call me old fashioned but I like going to the cinema.

 

[JohnMor]

No way. They are top tier filmmakers and have never struggled to find funding.

As someone who works in the financial end of the industry, I can attest that it is absolutely true. Unless you are mounting a comic book or super hero movie, funding is EXTREMELY hard to come by and frequently falls through or dries up mysteriously at the last minute. It is not the same industry it was 20 years ago.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It's a sad state of affairs, I think anyway, for those of us that want to see original films made by talented filmmakers in a cinema.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

There are no spoilers in what I have written below:

Years ago I had to go on a long drive and to keep my mind occupied and entertained on the way out of town I stopped and picked up an audiobook of short stories by the Coen brothers read by people like William Macy, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Matt Dillon, and John Turturro among others. Each was given their own little yarn to tell. It was called Gates of Eden, which was the name of the absolutely hilarious tale of a hard boiled Weights and Measures man read expertly by William Macy. I mean it was as if the Coens had perfectly cast each one of these readers to deliver the specific story they tell. This was tremendous fun and I ended up listening to the entire thing twice, on the drive to and then on the drive back. If people in cars passing me on the highway had glanced over to see me laughing hysterically as I drove my guess is they probably thought I was a madman.

Well, what The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is, is the movie equivalent of that audiobook. It is a group of short stories written by the Coen brothers over the last 25 years. This time they are all set in the old West and like the audiobook they are each expertly cast with perfect actors delivering these stories to maximum effect.

Each tale is an individual work, they are not connected by anything other than they are all supposed to have come from the same book of short stories naturally called The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Everybody in this, all of the actors, do a fabulous job of bringing Joel and Ethan's imagination to life. Liam Neeson is flat out awesome in this and it was so good getting to see him do this kind of work. But so are Tim Nelson, Tyne Daly, and Tom Waits. It's just an incredible cast that's been gifted some really fun writing from the Coens. And I have to say at times I thought of Tarantino's The Hateful Eight but what really stands out to me is while both the Coens and Tarantino love to write characters and dialogue...the Coens are just far better writers than Tarantino will ever be. It's not even close.

This may seem a bit of a trifle to some as it is an anthology of stories but it is wonderful and does seem a throwback to earlier days in the brother's career. It is also absolutely beautiful to look at as is always the case with their work and it is the first time they have shot a picture digitally rather than on film.

I managed to catch this in a cinema. Then I went home and watched it a second time on Netflix. I highly recommend you get to a cinema to see this if you can. It is a beautiful looking film and the western settings look fantastic up on the big screen. It's terribly sad to me that a film of this quality by a couple of our greatest living filmmakers will be seen by most people on Netflix. Nothing against Netflix but this picture was obviously made to be shown in a cinema.

 

[Tino]

Loved it. Classic Coen Bros I thought.

Great dialogue. Great cinematography. Funny. Sad. Heartbreaking.

Terrific

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Loved it. Classic Coen Bros I thought.

Did you get to see it in a cinema, Tino, or on Netflix?

 

[Tino]

Did you get to see it in a cinema, Tino, or on Netflix?

Last night on Netflix. Wish it were playing near me. It’s sooo. Cinematic.

 

[John Macri]

Watched it last night. Beautifully rendered on a 4K display. Just another reminder why the Coen Bros. are one of a kind.

 

[Tino]

Watched it last night. Beautifully rendered on a 4K display. Just another reminder why the Coen Bros. are one of a kind.

Too bad it was only in HD and not true 4K.

 

[JohnMor]

I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen here in L.A. last weekend and it looked and sounded GORGEOUS.

Great film. Classic Coen Bros., in my opinion. Jumped immediately to the very upper tier of my list of favorites from them.

 

[cinemiracle]

Loved it. Classic Coen Bros I thought.

Great dialogue. Great cinematography. Funny. Sad. Heartbreaking.

Terrific

I agree - it was a brilliant movie. Nothing was predictable. I did notice that in the scene where one man is shooting at a group of Indians, on two occasions they fell off their horses without any bullets being fired at them. Maybe the sound effects person forgot to include the sound of the bullets hitting them before they fell. Did anyone else notice this.

 

[John Macri]

I did notice that in the scene where one man is shooting at a group of Indians, on two occasions they fell off their horses without any bullets being fired at them. Maybe the sound effects person forgot to include the sound of the bullets hitting them before they fell. Did anyone else notice this.

I believe their horses stepped in prairie dog holes as they were charging through a "dogtown".

 

[Tino]

I believe their horses stepped in prairie dog holes as they were charging through a "dogtown".

Exactly. He kept saying “dog hole” or something like that every time the horse stepped in the hole.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

I thought this was beautifully shot, expertly crafted, and exquisitely performed, but other than the silly and playful first story (which I loved), boy was it ever grim. The Liam Neeson segment in particular will haunt me for days.