Movie of the Week 25

​The Ballad of Buster Scruggs   2018   drama western 

Available for streaming on Netflix

The Coen brothers have a talent for making Western movies with first rate production values (e.g. True Grit), so I could not resist their new western. The structure of this film is interesting - six separate stories with no common storyline except the shared theme of cruel Death. This film is wrongly billed as a comedy. I did not laugh once, and many reviewers thought some of the six stories were unwatchable. Of course, I soldiered on and watched all six segments which I will rank. My favorite was the first segment titled “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”; 2nd – “All Gold Canyon” (segment 4); 3rd – “The Gal who got Rattled” (segment 5); 4th – “Near Algodones” (segment 2); 5th – “Mortal Remains” (segment six); and lastly the bleak, creepy and haunting “Meal Ticket” (segment 3). 

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