Stars: Timothy Bottoms (Sonny Crawford), Jeff Bridges (Duane Jackson), Cybill Shepherd (Jacy Farrow), Ben Johnson (Sam the Lion), Ellen Burstyn (Lois Farrow), Cloris Leachman (Ruth Popper), Randy Quaid (Lester Marlow)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Awards / Honors
- 2 Oscar wins - Best Supporting Actor (Ben Johnson), Best Supporting Actress (Cloris Leachman)
- 6 Additional Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Wrting (Adapted Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Ellen Burstyn)
- # 95 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
- In 1998, The Last Picture Show was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 2 hours, 6 minutes (Director's Cut)
Format: DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating: 3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)
John's Take
John's Take
The Last Picture Show was the first movie on the list that I hadn’t seen previously. I knew some general information about the film – like it stars Jeff Bridges and Cybil Shepherd, it was set in a small town in Texas, and it was set in the early 1950’s – but I knew nothing of the details of the story of the movie, etc. So, I was really looking forward into being able to “review” a movie that I hadn’t seen before and admittedly probably wouldn’t have choose to watch on my own if the movie hadn’t been on the list.
I was feeling all film-connoisseur-like. :)
Now having seen it, there are many elements of the movie that I could discuss; such as how Sonny, Duane, and Jacy all desperately want to escape the small town they had lived in their whole lives. I could discuss their fear of turning into their parents and /or other adults that make up the tiny town of Anarene. I could talk about the cinematography and how the purposeful choice of black and white film over color affects the movie. However, there was one thing that kept popping into my mind as I watched the film…
All of you out there who live with your “significant others” already realize that there are some things you do just to keep the peace in the house. Sometimes it is better to just lean in and take one for the team than to fight about it. In my case, one of those things is watching ‘Dancing with the Stars’ with Beth. She loves that show and I must admit that I have grown to like the show as well. Now, I wouldn’t watch if Beth didn’t want to watch it – I still have that much testosterone left in my system – but at least I don’t feel dirty afterwards like when watching ‘Kendra’.
Side note: Thank God, Kate Gosselin has finally been eliminated this season! I hate that woman with the intensity of a thousand suns. I probably saw maybe an entire episode worth of ‘Jon and Kate plus 8’ during its run on TV, but that was enough to convince me she is a total bitch-on-wheels. This season’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ has only cemented that image in my mind. While I certainly don’t condone cheating on one’s spouse, and it is probably true that Jon is no man-of-the-year himself, getting a little something-something on the side may have been the only thing keeping Jon from smothering that woman with a pillow while she slept. I’m just saying.
Back during season seven of Dancing with the Stars, Cloris Leachman was one of the participants and her pro was Corky Ballas (and I agree it is probably not a good thing that I remember so much about DwtS). She was terrible, but she was like 81 or something and playing it up for laughs. For a while, she was fairly entertaining. Unfortunately, her shtick started getting old for me about Week 4, but she didn’t get eliminated until about Week 6. In other words, I had more than my fill of Cloris by the time she left.
Fast forward – Beth and I are watching The Last Picture Show and some of those Leachman-DwtS scars hadn’t quite healed over yet. They apparently hadn’t healed over in Beth’s case either as she and I keep making little ‘Dancing with the Stars’ jokes every time Cloris Leachman appeared on the screen. “Hey, it looks like she is going to teach Sonny how to Tango – nudge, nudge, wink, wink.” – that sort of thing (trust me, they seemed funny at the time). We couldn’t help ourselves. The Last Picture Show isn’t exactly the feel-good comedy of the year. We found ourselves doing it to lighten the mood. It then started carrying over to the other stars in the movie. For example, we started making ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ jokes every time Randy Quaid came on screen. A young Higgins from Magnum P.I. is in the movie for God’s sake, and you can’t let something like that go by without some sort of comment. Unfortunately I ended up taking it a step too far and ended our little comedy cavalcade when I started making Tron jokes about Jeff Bridges. Just slightly too esoteric a movie reference for Beth, and when I stopped to explain what Tron was about, the melancholy of film kind of seeped back in and put a kibosh on our little routine.
And I think that illustrates, at least for me, both the strength and the weakness of this film. The quiet desperation of the characters to escape their hometown but their inability to do so, hits you in the chest like a punch. That is due, in large part, to what a fabulous job the entire cast does in portraying their characters. In many cases this was the first major movie the members of the cast had ever been in, which makes it even more impressive. The flip side of that coin, however, is that they all become far more famous in other roles, and that it is easy for one’s mind to start to fixate on those other roles as self-defense mechanism from the despair that drips from the film. “Don’t worry Jacy, you won’t feel like such slut once you become a famous model and start your detective agency with Bruce Willis.” It is this second side of the coin that I just had a hard time getting over.
That, and the fact that I kept picturing 81-year-old, Dancing with the Stars Cloris Leachman instead of a 40-year-old Cloris Leachman during her sex scenes, and that I am doomed to carry those images around in my head is ultimately Beth’s fault for me making watch Dancing with the Stars in the first place. Shudder.
It probably deserves better, but I give The Last Picture Show -- 3 Stars.
I was feeling all film-connoisseur-like. :)
Now having seen it, there are many elements of the movie that I could discuss; such as how Sonny, Duane, and Jacy all desperately want to escape the small town they had lived in their whole lives. I could discuss their fear of turning into their parents and /or other adults that make up the tiny town of Anarene. I could talk about the cinematography and how the purposeful choice of black and white film over color affects the movie. However, there was one thing that kept popping into my mind as I watched the film…
All of you out there who live with your “significant others” already realize that there are some things you do just to keep the peace in the house. Sometimes it is better to just lean in and take one for the team than to fight about it. In my case, one of those things is watching ‘Dancing with the Stars’ with Beth. She loves that show and I must admit that I have grown to like the show as well. Now, I wouldn’t watch if Beth didn’t want to watch it – I still have that much testosterone left in my system – but at least I don’t feel dirty afterwards like when watching ‘Kendra’.
Side note: Thank God, Kate Gosselin has finally been eliminated this season! I hate that woman with the intensity of a thousand suns. I probably saw maybe an entire episode worth of ‘Jon and Kate plus 8’ during its run on TV, but that was enough to convince me she is a total bitch-on-wheels. This season’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ has only cemented that image in my mind. While I certainly don’t condone cheating on one’s spouse, and it is probably true that Jon is no man-of-the-year himself, getting a little something-something on the side may have been the only thing keeping Jon from smothering that woman with a pillow while she slept. I’m just saying.
Back during season seven of Dancing with the Stars, Cloris Leachman was one of the participants and her pro was Corky Ballas (and I agree it is probably not a good thing that I remember so much about DwtS). She was terrible, but she was like 81 or something and playing it up for laughs. For a while, she was fairly entertaining. Unfortunately, her shtick started getting old for me about Week 4, but she didn’t get eliminated until about Week 6. In other words, I had more than my fill of Cloris by the time she left.
Fast forward – Beth and I are watching The Last Picture Show and some of those Leachman-DwtS scars hadn’t quite healed over yet. They apparently hadn’t healed over in Beth’s case either as she and I keep making little ‘Dancing with the Stars’ jokes every time Cloris Leachman appeared on the screen. “Hey, it looks like she is going to teach Sonny how to Tango – nudge, nudge, wink, wink.” – that sort of thing (trust me, they seemed funny at the time). We couldn’t help ourselves. The Last Picture Show isn’t exactly the feel-good comedy of the year. We found ourselves doing it to lighten the mood. It then started carrying over to the other stars in the movie. For example, we started making ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ jokes every time Randy Quaid came on screen. A young Higgins from Magnum P.I. is in the movie for God’s sake, and you can’t let something like that go by without some sort of comment. Unfortunately I ended up taking it a step too far and ended our little comedy cavalcade when I started making Tron jokes about Jeff Bridges. Just slightly too esoteric a movie reference for Beth, and when I stopped to explain what Tron was about, the melancholy of film kind of seeped back in and put a kibosh on our little routine.
And I think that illustrates, at least for me, both the strength and the weakness of this film. The quiet desperation of the characters to escape their hometown but their inability to do so, hits you in the chest like a punch. That is due, in large part, to what a fabulous job the entire cast does in portraying their characters. In many cases this was the first major movie the members of the cast had ever been in, which makes it even more impressive. The flip side of that coin, however, is that they all become far more famous in other roles, and that it is easy for one’s mind to start to fixate on those other roles as self-defense mechanism from the despair that drips from the film. “Don’t worry Jacy, you won’t feel like such slut once you become a famous model and start your detective agency with Bruce Willis.” It is this second side of the coin that I just had a hard time getting over.
That, and the fact that I kept picturing 81-year-old, Dancing with the Stars Cloris Leachman instead of a 40-year-old Cloris Leachman during her sex scenes, and that I am doomed to carry those images around in my head is ultimately Beth’s fault for me making watch Dancing with the Stars in the first place. Shudder.
It probably deserves better, but I give The Last Picture Show -- 3 Stars.
John
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