Texasville
i thought maybe because i enjoyed the last picture show so much (so very, very much, actually) that i'd get really into texasville, its 1990 sequel. i watched all of it, but now i kind of hate all the characters, because they proved to be massive losers. i suppose that's how life is sometimes--you are full of vigor, sparkle, ambition, cunning, drive as a teenager, and then you get older. then you get old. it's not pretty.
i think what i disliked so much was the lives that mcmurtry and bogdanovich mapped out for these folks. how on earth does ruth popper (cloris leachman) become this sort of hip, jogging, sage-minded bookkeeper for duane jackson's failing oil company? why is jacy farrow (cybill shepherd) so boring, yet pseudo-successful? who are all these drunks?
i was glad when about two thirds of the way through duane (jeff bridges) comments on how everyone seems to have gone crazy. this was exactly what i was wondering: is this how life is normally in anarene, texas, or has everyone just gone crazy? and by crazy i mean women leaving their husbands and getting pregnant by duane's son dickie, then falling in love with each others' estranged husbands, or sometimes tumbling around with duane, who goes home to a three ring circus led by his wife karla (annie potts) and their troubled children--slutty nellie (and her kids? those two are hers? what the...?), stud dickie, and the twins. oh, the twins.
and of course, just because someone needs to take some kind of moral high ground, jacy's there to embrace the kids, remind duane to love his wife (of course she won't go near sonny (timothy bottoms) with a ten foot pole, but wasn't he her last lover in town thirty years ago? why don't they interact until the end? is that even interaction?) and to pointedly not sleep with duane. oh hell. i wish she'd have just gone to bed with him. it would have been the one interesting thing in the movie.
it was sad beyond words to see the shell of the old picture show, and sadder still to see sonny sitting up in the balcony, thinking he's watching a movie. is that what small town life is like? no wonder jacy ran off in 1952 and didn't come back until 1984. centennial rodeo or not, i wouldn't come back for all the money in the world (which apparently, no one has there anyhow). while last picture show was a stark, sad, stirring, sexy movie, texasville was sadder still--badly scripted, well-acted (actors rising well above the material, although, poor, poor eileen brennan. i'd have said no, honey), dreary, awkward, and sparkless.
i wish they'd have left a great thing alone. films like the last picture show are not a franchise, and aren't meant to have sequels. magic cannot be recaptured; or, if it can be, it at least ought to be with far, far, far better material.
i think what i disliked so much was the lives that mcmurtry and bogdanovich mapped out for these folks. how on earth does ruth popper (cloris leachman) become this sort of hip, jogging, sage-minded bookkeeper for duane jackson's failing oil company? why is jacy farrow (cybill shepherd) so boring, yet pseudo-successful? who are all these drunks?
i was glad when about two thirds of the way through duane (jeff bridges) comments on how everyone seems to have gone crazy. this was exactly what i was wondering: is this how life is normally in anarene, texas, or has everyone just gone crazy? and by crazy i mean women leaving their husbands and getting pregnant by duane's son dickie, then falling in love with each others' estranged husbands, or sometimes tumbling around with duane, who goes home to a three ring circus led by his wife karla (annie potts) and their troubled children--slutty nellie (and her kids? those two are hers? what the...?), stud dickie, and the twins. oh, the twins.
and of course, just because someone needs to take some kind of moral high ground, jacy's there to embrace the kids, remind duane to love his wife (of course she won't go near sonny (timothy bottoms) with a ten foot pole, but wasn't he her last lover in town thirty years ago? why don't they interact until the end? is that even interaction?) and to pointedly not sleep with duane. oh hell. i wish she'd have just gone to bed with him. it would have been the one interesting thing in the movie.
it was sad beyond words to see the shell of the old picture show, and sadder still to see sonny sitting up in the balcony, thinking he's watching a movie. is that what small town life is like? no wonder jacy ran off in 1952 and didn't come back until 1984. centennial rodeo or not, i wouldn't come back for all the money in the world (which apparently, no one has there anyhow). while last picture show was a stark, sad, stirring, sexy movie, texasville was sadder still--badly scripted, well-acted (actors rising well above the material, although, poor, poor eileen brennan. i'd have said no, honey), dreary, awkward, and sparkless.
i wish they'd have left a great thing alone. films like the last picture show are not a franchise, and aren't meant to have sequels. magic cannot be recaptured; or, if it can be, it at least ought to be with far, far, far better material.
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