The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

[aabattery]

[aabattery]

It's the bee's knees. Made me laugh, made me sad, pretty much covered all the bases. Definitely the best film Netflix has slapped their logo on.

 

Man, would I have liked to see the Golddigger story on the big screen. The whole movie was gorgeous but that one was just so pretty.

[CoolioD1]

ranking those stories

 

1. The Gal Who Got Rattled - looooved this. definitely the fullest story of the six. carter burwell kills it especially in this section i thought.

 

2. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - i'll take a full length buster scruggs movie. and a six season buster scruggs netflix tv show please

 

3. The Mortal Remains - like five weird coen side characters stuck in a carriage together. makes you wonder what their version of hateful eight would look like. really liked the eventual gothic tone of this one.

 

4. All Gold Canyon - tom waits

 

5. Near Algodones - fun but by far the shortest so there's not much here. maybe needed an extra hanging idk.

 

6. Meal Ticket - nice photography and cool chicken but otherwise didn't really get anything out of this one.

Edited November 16, 2018 by CoolioD1

[cookie]

All Gold Canyon, Meal Ticket and Gal were my favorites. Agree with Coolio that Algodones could've been longer.

[The Panda]

They all mostly fell flat for me, idk.  

 

Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Funniest of them all, but I was pretty satisfied when Scruggs got shot. B+

 

Near Algodones - Way to short, needed something between the first and second hanging. But loved the robbery part, and the native laughing at him. B-

 

Meal Ticket - Really empty imo, nice to look at, kind of a downer without getting at much. C

 

All Gold Canyon - The prettiest to look at, fun enough, dragged a little bit at the beginning. B-

 

The Girl Who Got Rattled - The most complete story arc of them all, didn’t necessarily like the native stereotype there.  Felt bad for the girl, and President Pierce was an annoyingly cute dog.  I was most invested in this story. B+

 

The Mortal Remains - Fun dialogue, liked the Victorian mood, was a little worn out so symbolism may have gone over my head.  Felt more like an opening to a strong movie, except you don’t get to see the meat of it. B

 

Honestly, I wish they had cut Meal Ticket, Near Algodones and All Gold Canyon and taken more time with the other three.  You mostly get glimpses of some concepts but don’t get the full schabang.  Just makes me want to watch a full Coen Bros Movie

 

B-

Edited November 25, 2018 by PANDA

[DAR]

Apart from Meal Ticket I pretty much loved this

[shayhiri]

Simply brilliant movie. Kept me awake all night. The last of the six sections is redundant, but all the others are masterpieces of short-storytelling. Would have seen it 5 times in cinemas - were it not for the damned Netflix. Hope they die and stop stealing good movies from cinemas. There's enough TV schlock and the Shay never watches TV.

 

Very rarely I torrent a movie (because of the f*ucking Netflix) - but it's a damn shame to see something this good (and now Mowgli, for Christs sake - die, Netflix!!) outside of a big screen.

Edited November 30, 2018 by shayhiri

[Webslinger]

I actually watched the whole thing the day Netflix released it for streaming, but neglected to post the review here until now (despite posting it to Letterboxd more than a week ago). I'll try not to drag my feet nearly as much with Roma in a couple weeks.

 

To say that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is unlike anything the ever-eclectic Coen Brothers have ever done is all too accurate. Even by their standards, it’s an ambitious, admirably bizarre experience with plenty of startling moments and hilarious gallows humor. That being said, the six segments are so different that it doesn’t make much sense to assess them together, so here are some more specific thoughts about each one:

- “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs:” The titular vignette provides the weirdest and funniest touches of the entire film. As soon as Tim Blake Nelson starts singing, viewers will know they’re in for a wacky, surreal western – and the rest of the segment delivers on this promise in spades. Nelson is endlessly watchable as Buster Scruggs, and while his fate feels obvious from the onset, the ways in which the film arrives at this fate are quite entertaining and have a payoff that does not disappoint in its sheer weirdness.

- “Near Algodones:” Though the trailer gives away a major detail in this segment, it’s still an effective piece of dark humor with suspense that would feel hair-raising if not for said trailer spoiler. Watching James Franco struggle while hoping his horse doesn’t move just far enough to leave him hanging from the tree branch is an experience fraught with tension and line-crossing humor.

- “Meal Ticket:” It’s definitely the slowest of the six vignettes, but Harry Melling’s impressive monologues, Liam Neeson’s largely non-verbal acting, and the twisted ending all add up to a slight but satisfying dark pleasure.

- “All Gold Canyon:” Tom Waits is admirably strange as a miner in search of gold, and the cinematography and sound design in this largely dialogue-free segment are expertly done. It also successfully plays with and subverts audience expectations with an ending I wasn’t expecting.

- “The Gal Who Got Rattled:” This segment is bound to be the most divisive in the film. I can see why some viewers would be pissed with the ending after spending so much time with these characters, but I loved it for that exact reason – among numerous others. Zoe Kazan gives the best performance in the entire film as a woman in over her head after her brother’s unexpected death and an equally unexpected bond with one of the company drivers. There’s room for sneaking suspicion that all is not as it seems and something sinister is bound to happen to this poor gal… and yet it does not play out at all as I expected and comes with an ending as brilliant as it is cruel and out-of-leftfield. It also gets bonus points for feeling like the most literary of all installments; its sprawling plot leading up to a startling downer ending feels appropriately reminiscent of the naturalist movement of its setting.

- “The Mortal Remains:” I wasn’t as impressed with this one, but it’s a well-constructed and well-acted segment that closes the film on an eerie note. Perhaps I was just a tad let down with it because it was the last segment of a long anthology film and I kept expecting a twist that the segment only hints at toward the end.

 

A-

[CoolioD1]

3 hours ago, Webslinger said:

 

- “The Gal Who Got Rattled:” This segment is bound to be the most divisive in the film.

really? seems to me this is one of the consensus choices for the best of the flick, at least from what i've read. the liam neeson one and the last one seem to be more divisive. 

[WrathOfHan]

43 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

really? seems to me this is one of the consensus choices for the best of the flick, at least from what i've read. the liam neeson one and the last one seem to be more divisive. 

Nah, I've seen a lot of people calling it the worst. A lot of it has to do with its pacing because it feels significantly longer than the other stories. It was my least favorite upon watching it, but I'd probably put it ahead of Meal Ticket and All Gold Canyon now that it's sat with me.

[CoolioD1]

2 hours ago, WrathOfHan said:

Nah, I've seen a lot of people calling it the worst. A lot of it has to do with its pacing because it feels significantly longer than the other stories. It was my least favorite upon watching it, but I'd probably put it ahead of Meal Ticket and All Gold Canyon now that it's sat with me.

reading about the film on twitter, reddit, letterboxd, just reviews in general and thru conversation i've seen it come up as the best along w/ the tom waits one more than anything else. i'm sure there are different groups of people that think each segment is the worst i'm just saying there's for sure more consensus around this one. 

[WrathOfHan]

17 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

reading about the film on twitter, reddit, letterboxd, just reviews in general and thru conversation i've seen it come up as the best along w/ the tom waits one more than anything else. i'm sure there are different groups of people that think each segment is the worst i'm just saying there's for sure more consensus around this one. 

I feel like Buster Scruggs is the consensus favorite as I've yet to see anyone have a negative opinion on it 🤷‍♀️

[Webslinger]

12 hours ago, CoolioD1 said:

really? seems to me this is one of the consensus choices for the best of the flick, at least from what i've read. the liam neeson one and the last one seem to be more divisive. 

I think I was basing that assessment on the reactions from my movie-savvy friend group. I've been pleasantly surprised by how positive the general reactions to it have been since I typed that.

[Rorschach]

I'm late to the train on this one but this was some good shit. The dark humor really hit me hard in a couple of places and I found a level of enjoyment in each of the individual stories, even if some of stronger than others. 

 

Anyways, here's my personal ranking of the shorts:

 

1. All Gold Canyon - The cinematography and Tom Waits are pure gold.

 

2. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - This had me laughing my ass off and was definitely the right story to start the film off.

 

3. The Gal Who Got Rattled - In terms of a complete story, this one probably is the best out of all of the six. Zoe Kazan, Bill Heck, and Grainger Haines are all really great here, especially Kazan. Genuinely was not expecting the ending but that made it all the more better for me.

 

4. The Mortal Remains - A really eerie way to end the film I might say. Still, the entertaining exchanges between the characters had me more than invested and entertained.

 

5. Meal Ticket - A great example of (mostly) visual storytelling with very little dialogue aside from the performer's monologues. Harry Melling is quite great here (I was wondering throughout the story why he looked so familiar and was pleasantly surprised to see his previous filmography) and so is the chicken. Ends on quite the downer though.

 

6. Near Algodones - My only gripe against this one is how short it is compared to the other stories. It's still an entertaining watch regardless. The part where James Franco is almost hung by his hungry horse was hilarious. 

 

Compared to other anthology films, I'd say this one of the better one's I've seen.

 

9/10