The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

AKA: We only had a few ideas that could not possible support a full movie.

OR

We are already famous so people will watch it and will like it.

I want to start that I like westerns, actually I love them. My first TV series I’m developing is heavy handed on the western vibe, with that say, here my opinion.

I refuse to call this a movie, hell! I refuse to call it a series of short films. It has 2 short films at most and the rest are a few of skits that have no heads or tails and just happen, is like take a rhyme and just shot at verbatim what is said “Early bird gets the worm” and just put on the screen a bird getting a worm, boom here is your movie. NO! That is not a movie, you need, character development, something to happen, evolution on story, escalation or de-escalation, even for a short film you have to tell a story, simple but a story. This thing has nothing at all, only with the 2 stories that you can get a little with the characters because are longer stories and have a shit ton of exposition. And that is something extra, they rely a lot on exposition, because they don’t know how to make the audience to know about the characters and situations they just tell you. But of course if you like to waste time on songs we have time for that, they do not work for the plot or character development but you have the full song want it or not.

Well I’ll separate it on the different skits and tell you why each of them are boring and should stay on someone’s head instead to get to paper and after that on a screen.

Also Spoilers, but the stories are so plain and one directional that you can consider this spoilers.

1-The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

It is the one that starts, is supposed to give you the setup, the idea, the feeling of it. Starts with a fairly long song about nothing two bits on cantinas to show that guy is the best and a duel which he loses, that’s it. It has no deep, characters or direction, the guy arrives, is the best and dies, the end. I just could think on a dumb phrase “You are the best until you are not” and you think OK will be something short about the characters but will move from one to the other, but no, just happen and move on to a different story completely unrelated and on a different rhythm. After each story you could hear something like “Well that happen” and that’s it.

2-Near Algodones

The idea behind this to me was “I want someone with a pot on his head” I mean starts with a bank robbery, the clerk has a shotgun and armors himself with pots and pans, the robber is going to get hung but manage to break free and is captured again so is hanged, the end. That was it, you don’t get to know the characters, motivations, anything to resembles an ark is way beyond the writing levels of the person who made this one. When I saw the memes with the “First time” joke I thought “This is going to be a recurring thing, will be between stories and every time he will break free until the end” but no, I was expecting way too much from this one. He just died on the second try.

3-Meal Ticket

OK, someone told me this one was the saddest story they saw in a long time, but I hated the guy after the second time he said his speech, I knew he was going to die at the end and I could not wait to see that happen, but I thought that it was going to be even more dramatic that Liam Neeson was going to be 100% committed to the guy and one night he was going to drop dead out of the blue and the other guy was going to be sitting in the middle of the woods and realize he could not survive the night without his partner, and the shot going out along with the flame dying. But no, they waste a good chunk of reel with that guy only saying the same words over and over until Neeson realizes there are easier cheaper ways to earn the beans than carry that guy around, so he does what I wanted to do for almost the whole story. Here no one is relatable, one has no personality more than “Has no limbs” the other, nothing, and that we have to give it to the writer and director because is difficult to get nothing out of Liam Neeson. This story is boring to the point that is almost unbearable, I don’t get why people like it, is an easy tearjerker and most people fell for it, because there is a guy with no arms or legs.

4-All Gold Canyon

This story is a simple one, a prospector looking for gold. Not much to explain, and it would be an OK story, I don’t need several characters or anything, he quest was to get gold, they could have made it just him looking for the gold and that’s it, it would be OK but no, they had to pot a twist. One guy waited for him to get the gold and shoot him on the back. To this point I was waiting that to happen in that exact moment, because the whole line of stories where, something happen, something crappy happen, the end. Well not surprises here, he gets shot but survives and gets the gold. If you wanted to put a difficulty set a cave in, a storm, a cougar or bear, something that would have been more related with being alone in the wild, more than a guy that was keeping an eye for all that time and the prospector not even realizing.

5-The Gal Who Got Rattled

This one is the more similar to a full story, but then again it has a shit ton of exposition, there is no a single moment of silence, almost every frame is set with dialog for exposition for character development, or plot related, because of that you can get to know the characters and the situation, but then again, you can foresee the ending to every conversation and situation as clear as day. But all considerate this is more developed story. Yes I was expecting that ending since the moment they say “The Indians don’t attack us”. Also the bit of the kid walking backwards was useless, pointless and made only to set it on the trailer.

6-The Mortal Remains

I haven’t seen anyone staying that this is a rip-off from “The Hateful Eight” (Movie that I haven’t finish because is not a western, is boring and very poorly executed, but that is for a different review). You have the carriage with unlikely travelers, the more unlikely to be traveling on a carriage was the trapper, who I suppose should have his own horse, mule, ox and wagon to take the skins and other goods to town, a person like him will be more likely to go by himself to different towns and may be not staying in luxury hotels but more like the inn on top of the saloon. This piece has 2 whole songs and a couple of dialogs on heavy on the Tarantino side, where the dialog is there to get into the mind of the characters but, why do we need that, if the characters will be gone in 2 minutes and will be over. Well like in Hateful 8 we got bounty hunters with their captured guy, by some reason everybody are afraid of them the end. The only reason I can think is that all of them had a bounty on their heads and didn’t want them to know, but that would be if the writer would have some talent or imagination, or wanted to make a full story. Then again nothing happens and just filler dialog for something that has no pay off.

The movie has very good actors totally wasted, beautiful scenery, and good budget on the art department, but this shows that no matter how good the actors are, your locations how majestic, and how much effort the art department puts in, if you have a bad script or something that you just write on a napkin because you thought was a good idea but never worked on it there will be no way to save it.

In my opinion you can see it but jump parts watch:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs light heartedly to remember the Bugs Bunny cartoons of the old days.

Near Algodones, to see a quick joke that extends itself and is not funny

Meal Ticket if you like the noon Mexican telenovelas and cry when the maid gets proposed by the rich guy

All Gold Canyon to see tips and tricks from a prospector/Crazy old man

The Gal Who Got Rattled if you like over exposition on a medium to good story

The Mortal Remains if you liked the intro from Hateful Eight

After all to me it goes All Gold Canyon and The Gal Who Got Rattled are OK, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is mediocre, the other 3 should have not existed

So getting three zeros, a three and two fours gets a punctuation of 1.8 stars, but because it is supposed to be a movie it gets a 1 star rating which means, not worthy of your time.

Theory Of Everything

I don’t know if you noticed but last review was difficult to me, difficult because I didn’t know how to start, what to talk about it and how to end it. The reason is that I didn’t had any passion about that movie, there was nothing there to make me care, to love it or hate it, nothing to defend or attack, something that I wanted to say about that movie, and I think that is the best reason why that should not be nominated for best film. Because it had nothing for me to get winded up, all my review was going to be was “It’s an OK movie” and that is not worthy of the best movie of the year.

Now let’s see if the last one has something that generates some spark on the old noodle pot.

The theory of everything

The life of Stephen Hawking through the eyes of his wife. I think that was the selling line of the book and the movie. Is a good idea because besides of the sickness that afflicts Stephen he had no bigger problems in it. Was like “I invented a science that will change the world of Physics” the answer was “OK, here is your Nobel”

We see the life of Hawking, his children and how he got through every problem with the help of his wife and other people.

The acting is good and you see the expression of human drama on the characters also as the struggle in life to overcome all the world trials. Wow, I had a regression to film school where I used to justify even the more mindless youtube video, and man I am good to make sound cerebral almost everything. But yes the acting is good and the story is appealing so you are there for a good time.

But nominate Eddie Redmayne for best actor? The guy acts for like 20 minutes and then is the chair and the computer doing all the job, because the guy can’t move. I admit that he gets a pretty good hit with the ground in one moment, and as I said last year “someone capable to take a hit like that deserves an award” but last year Lupita Nyong'o was around for two thirds of the movie, here he was just sitting rolling around, in that case I should got an award years ago.

But I know that he is going to get the Oscar because like Tropic Thunder teach us “you never go full retard” and well there should put a new award call “the not going full retard” there Theory of Everything and Still Alice could fight the award.

And then again I fall on the same point. I don’t get that much passion and heart from this movie, just a good movie that I’ll remember as the life of Stephen Hawking. But is like a Time Life movie, not that great and good for a Saturday afternoon, after lunch, that you feel too full to even play videogames and want to watch a good movie but not very complicated, demanding or immersive, just somebody’s life. And you don’t give an Oscar to a Time Life movie of the week, you just don’t.

So if you want to see this movie go watch it, but is not “you most watch this movie” because is kind of mild and bland, but worth watching it when is on TV or Netflix.

The Imitation Game

Here we have a very important part of the World War, is not a great battle or a new super weapon, is the oldest and more useful weapon of all, Intelligence. To know what your enemy is going to do, so you can act accordingly.

During World War 2 the Nazi army had the “Enigma Machine” a machine that created a new code each day so it was thought to be unbreakable. This movie is about the team how broke the code of this machine with a machine bigger and more expensive, the way everything is made :P so basically they created a computer in the 40s to break the code, to make the oldest decrypt program a brute force one (but to be fair is the one most people use to the date)

The main character of the story is the creator of this machine, Allan Turing in a deformed way because everybody who worked with him describe him as he was charismatic, charming, funny and very social person. But here our writer decided to take what his teachers told him the first day in script class and make him a social awkward, and a recluse person who doesn’t know or want to talk or work with others, so we could have a “fish out of the water” experience, but beside of that we have a good story.

All the events revolve more around the machine itself and the race against the clock. We see the team trying to break the code, and how the Turing’s machine is a struggle from the moment of making it, because in that time nobody thought it was possible a machine could make something that needed to be revised. Then there is the problem to keep the faith of the people because it was pricy keep that thing going. But also we have the life of Turing the way it should be presented, as part of the plot not taking over, a natural progression of events.

This movie is well acted and directed, is not that great to be called the best movie of the year but is a gush of fresh air to the World War 2 movies, because all those movies are the same, we almost never see the guys in military intelligence deciding what to do next, the classic conversations of numbers that are “Take this point will only take us 700 men” but how do they got to that decision. In this movie is a problem after the other; money, strategy, morality. Every time something is in the way of a simple solution.

This is a good movie, worth watching in the theatre or in the home. Because it doesn’t have great cinematic moments is more about the story and the characters. The moments between Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch move the personal plot and Turing’s Machine and the Enigma moves the rest.

So in short, yes go watch the movie but I think the actors don’t surpass others that I have reviewed or I’ll review next. So better luck next time.

American Sniper

Wow! Absolutely no response on the last post, that rises some theories, that everybody agrees with me but don’t want to admit it, or that I was so offensive that nobody wanted to be find close to that, anyway the time is now for another Biopic and is the other one that created some controversy:

 

American Sniper

I have heard a lot of this, lots of things about US propaganda and a rubber baby but almost none of the movie itself. That is horrible, I mean the US propaganda is in the eye of the beholder and the rubber baby is less than 2 minutes, so let’s get talking of the movie and the portrait of things and then clarify these 2 points that are the ones that get more attention.

The movie pictures the life of a US soldier from childhood, his formation and how he decides to take certain steps on his life that takes him to enlist and ending as a sniper for the US fighting brown people. So far so good, we see his life in the battlefield and then his life between tours, and you realize that his mind is more set to be in the battlefield than in a calm US town, and well is difficult to get pass that kind of tension, then he goes again in the tours and back again until he decides to retire from active duty and tries to adapt again to a more average life.

The point of seeing him on and off battles is to see that he is a warrior, and I’m not saying that in a “America Fuck Yeah!” kind of way, like they said you can take a warrior out of the battle but you can’t take the battle out of a warrior. What I’m saying is that there are people how enjoys war, enjoys battles, the conflicts, to having someone wanting to kill them but not the simple killing. There are lots of people who think they are that way and at the sight of conflict they freeze, others are normal but in combat something triggers inside of them and they turn into someone different. But them they can’t go back to how they were, and in peace time they are always restless, how they said in the movie “Paton” the lack of war is what is going to kill him.

And in this movie we see that, we are not looking at a hero or a demigod he was a sniper doing his job, some people take him for a hero because they got out alive because of him, well people call the firefighters heroes because they take people from dangerous places, so is almost the same. But in the movie we see a soldier how can’t find rest out of the conflict, how he doesn’t consider himself a hero. We see how he is totally out of the world when he is back in home but how is totally in the moment when he is in the war zone.

So yes, to me the guy was completely crazy. But I understand how he though, because that kind of people is like loaded guns ready to fire, what they just did was point him in the direction they needed him.

Now the rubber baby, as I said is a 2 minute scene and the baby is just a lump they carry, I noticed but I didn’t cared, I mean you pay attention of the movie, and what is happening, or then someone will tell me that they could not get into the movie because the killings are not real. For all I know they could have used a kilo of tortillas instead of a baby and the scene would have had the same impact.

Is it American Propaganda? Is it pro war? No, well to me it isn’t. Because it doesn’t portray the war as something glorious, more like it is, an event where you go meet friends and then you look at them get killed and scars you for life. And yes at the end there are a ton of US flags but is because that is the actual footage of his funeral. The people considered him a hero and the news make him that big. Yes he killed a lot of people but he also saved a lot, of a nonsense war that they should have never been there to start with but even so, if you are already there better make sure to help all you can to make it back.

In a related note, did you know how hard is to get the movie poster without the US flag? Man it was difficult :P

So in short is a good movie, if you like to get into the character’s mind by his/her actions then you’ll like to see this guy go around. There will be people that will quote the book, saying that the guy watched everything black and white, but the movie message is very grey, like every Clint Eastwood movie, that even having a dark sad ending you get something good from that, if you pay enough attention. Then is a movie that is not for all but if you liked Clint Eastwood movies then you might like this one.