I’m actually not that fond of this era. “New Hollywood” I guess it was called? It’s always seemed to me like there was a bunch of American directors really impressed by European films, so they tried to make their own — but they had none of the depth or interest of the movies they were aping, so instead you got… American 70s movies.
And this is about The Magic Of Movies, I guess.
I’ve never seen this one before, but I’ve wanted to, so here we are.
I’m not sure about this 4K Criterion restoration… There’s no scratches or anything, it’s stable, and the blacks are black, but there’s so much grain that it looks like fake grain. It’s like a swarm of bees — I’m not sure you can see that in the clip above, but it’s pretty distracting.
So picaresque… it’s just like we’re in 50s Italy…
One of the big problems with these movies are that American actors act (and they’re good at acting). And in these movies the director is always going “no, just be natural! be natural!” and they get so stiff and artificial.
Hey, it’s that guy.
Tense!
OK, I guess I understand why this movie made a splash…
I’ve seen almost no Bognodovatorish movies… I’ve seen What’s Up, Doc? And that might be it. Possibly Paper Moon, or I might have read the Mad Magazine version of it.
One of the most disturbing things about this movie is the foley work. They have a guy making noises throughout the movie — so when they get in the bed, there’s squeek squeek squeek etc. It sounds so fake.
What’s her name! She looks so familiar…
The plot on this movie is frankly unbelievable. Cybill Shepherd is hot for this asshole and he’s all like “no, not until you’ve had sex (with Jeff Bridges)”, and she’s like “oh no, not Jeff Bridges”.
It’s like… wat?
This movie annoyed me on many levels. I mean — it’s a good movie — but it goes for the easy solutions all the time. Like killing off the goofiest character, so that it’s “tragic” but not too sad? The easy sentimentality of small town theatres closing down. The horniness. (OK, that’s actually fine.)
I guess I was most annoyed by how the actors seem a millisecond away from looking at the director going “was that OK, mr. Bogdavonitarish? was that natural?” all the time.
The Last Picture Show. Peter Bogdanovich. 1971. ⚃
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