Usually I save all of my favorites for Fridays, but last night my husband and I watched a film that deserves a mention today. We watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. We didn’t know anything about the film going into it, other than it had decent review scores. It turns out that the movie is several movies in one. It is read like a storybook and each story is a vignette of its own. All of the stories are old westerns, with their characters ranging from outlaws, to singing cowboys, to Comanches, to pioneer people, bravely (and perhaps desperately) heading out west in covered wagons. The stories range from silly, to surprising, to horrific, and most of the stories are honestly, quite dark, and yet, I felt myself being in the state of a young child, saying, “Tell me one more! Just one more!” There are a few big actors who play in the movie like Liam Neeson and James Franco, but all of the other actors who played in the movie, and who were not actors I recognized, were just as fascinating, and obviously quite into their roles. The characters are truly developed in this interesting to watch, and easy to get engrossed in, old-timey movie. Go into The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with an open mind, and prepared to be entertained, in a way you aren’t used to be entertained these days. (This movie is a Coen Brothers movie. If you liked O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you will like this movie.)
“We all love hearing about ourselves, so long as the people in the stories are us, but not us.” – Englishman (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)