The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Bouquets&Brickbats

2018 has yielded a lot of interesting films, and it’s been hard to choose which most deserve Bouquets. Still, we’ve managed it, and here – in order of viewing – are those that made the cut.

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Alexander Payne’s brilliant satire had its detractors, mostly people who had expected a knockabout comedy – but we thought it was perfectly judged and beautifully played by Matt Damon and Hong Chau.

Coco

A dazzling, inventive and sometimes surreal love letter to Mexico, this Pixar animation got everything absolutely right, from the stunning artwork to the vibrant musical score. In a word, ravishing.

The Shape of Water

Guillermo del Toro’s spellbinding fantasy chronicled the most unlikely love affair possible with great aplomb. Endlessly stylish, bursting with creativity, it also featured a wonderful performance from Sally Hawkins.

Lady Bird

This semi-autobiographical story featured Saoirse Ronan as a self-centred teenager, endlessly at war with her harassed mother (Laurie Metcalfe). Scathingly funny but at times heart-rending, this was an assured directorial debut from Greta Gerwig.

I, Tonya

Imagine Good Fellas on ice skates and you’ll just about have the measure of this stunning biopic of ice skater Tonya Harding, built around an incandescent performance from Margot Robbie, and featuring a soundtrack to die for.

A Quiet Place

This film had audiences around the world too self-conscious to unwrap a sweet or slurp their cola. Written and directed by John Kransinski and starring Emily Blunt, it was one of the most original horror films in a very long time – and we loved it.

The Breadwinner

Set in Kabul, this stunning film offered a totally different approach to animation, and a heart-wrenching tale of a young woman’s fight for survival in a war-torn society. To say that it was gripping would be something of an understatement.

American Animals

Based on a true story and skilfully intercutting actors with real life protagonists, Bart Layton’s film was a little masterpiece that gleefully played with the audience’s point of view to create something rather unique.

Bad Times at the El Royale

Drew Goddard’s noir tale brought together a brilliant cast in a unique location, and promptly set about pulling the rug from under our feet, again and again. There was a superb Motown soundtrack and a career making performance from Cynthia Erivo.

Wildlife

Based on a Richard Ford novel, this subtle but powerful slow-burner was the directorial debut of Paul Dano and featured superb performances from Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal and newcomer, Ed Oxenbould.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Coen brothers were in exquisite form with this beautifully styled Western, which featured six separate tales of doom and despair, enlivened by a shot of dark humour. But, not for the first (or the last) time, we heard those dreaded words ‘straight to Netflix.’

Roma

Another Netflix Original (and one that’s hotly tipped for the Oscars), this was Alfonso Cuaron’s lovingly crafted semi-autobiographical tale off his childhood in Mexico, and of the nanny who looked after him and his siblings. It was absolutely extraordinary.

Philip Caveney & Susan Singfield

19/11/18

The release of a new Coen Brothers movie is always something to look forward to but, in what is fast becoming a trend, this classy anthology of Western-themed stories has gone directly to Netflix. Early talk of a simultaneous theatrical release doesn’t seem to be much in evidence and, ironically, if ever a Coen Brothers’ film deserves to be viewed on the big screen, this is the one. With its gorgeous location photography and scenes that pay homage to veteran directors like John Ford and Sergio Leone, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a veritable feast for the eyes and is hardly done justice by the modest screen we have at home.

Still, this being a Coen Brothers movie, we aren’t going to let the opportunity to see it pass us by, even if we’re obliged to watch it on an iPad.

The Coens have always proudly displayed their evident love of the Western genre. There is, of course, True Grit, a superb remake of one of John Wayne’s most successful oaters; but even the likes of Hail Caesar and The Big Lebowski have gleefully sported cowboy characters, strangely at odds with the times in which the action is set – and what is No Country For Old Men but a contemporary Western, replete with violent gunplay and frantic chases across arid landscapes?

The conceit of TBOBS is that it’s presented as a book of short stories, each one complete with an accompanying Frederic Remington-style illustration that directly refers to the action. The stories vary greatly in tone: from the titular, singing-cowboy spoof, in which Tim Blake Nelson portrays a kind of psychopathic Roy Rogers, to the dour and savage Meal Ticket, in which limbless actor, Harrison (Harry Melling), struggles to make a living as he tours his oratory skills around a succession of frontier towns, while his impassive minder (Liam Neeson) watches and draws up his merciless plans for survival.

If the stories have a theme in common it’s that all of them deal with different aspects of death. There’s also the overriding conviction that most characters in the old West were ruled by cold-blooded self-interest. Even The Gal Who Got Rattled, the closest this film has to offer us in the way of a love story (and arguably the most compelling of the six tales), is haunted by a powerful sense of tragedy.

This is one of the Coens’ finest achievements, a brutal, bloody compilation laced with a thread of the darkest humour imaginable. And, if I’m being honest, who knows how well this would have fared at the cinema, where six part Western anthologies are as rare as hen’s teeth and where, so often, it’s mediocrity that succeeds in putting bums on seats?

That said, if you should be lucky enough to live near a cinema that’s actually screening this little gem, mosey on down there and grab yourself a Stetson-full. Or just go to Netflix. The simple truth is that whatever sized screen you end up viewing it on, this is filmmaking of the highest calibre.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Bouquets & Brickbats

Theatre – Film – Comedy – Food

Film Bouquets 2018

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs