The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

I never feel comfortable making Best Films of the Year lists. I love reading those of other critics, but my movie watching habits are so uneven and idiosyncratic sometimes, I don’t often feel I’ve seen enough films to make a fair, informed list. However, while I can’t tell you the ten best films released this year, I can tell you about the one best film I’ve seen this year, and it comes from both a likely and an unlikely source. 

 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was written, produced, directed, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, two of America’s most talented filmmakers. So the fact that their latest film is wonderful is no surprise. What is surprising is that despite a very limited theatrical release that began on November 9^th, this newest offering from the makers of Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit was released primarily on Netflix. The streaming giant has been backing dump trucks full of money up to the houses of big name filmmakers like Martin Scorcese and Guillermo Del Toro for a couple of years now, trying to get their mainstream credibility to add a sheen to Netflix’s sometimes lackluster original programming. So far, these bigger projects have been hit or miss, but with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Netflix has its first bona fide great film on its hands. (Roma is the second.)

The film is an anthology, a collection of six shorter films that are linked on setting and theme. As some of their best films are, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a western, set somewhere between the end of the Civil War and the end of the 19^th century in the majestic, beautiful, brutal American west. Each vignette shares the Coen brothers’ trademark dialogue – original, strangely formal, utterly polite even in the face of violence. They also share the filmmakers bleak outlook on life – absurdity and death are regular partners, profound violence can strike at any moment, death comes for us all and when it does, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

It’s rare that anthology films work. All too often, they are uneven. But in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, each piece is a polished jewel. They vary in tone and cast, but each one is perfect all on its own.

While there isn’t a weak section at all, there are a couple that stand out.

In “Meal Ticket,” Liam Neeson plays a traveling impresario who carts around a performer billed as The Wingless Thrush, an armless, legless man who recites poetry, the Bible, and the Gettysburg Address. Neeson’s character takes care of the Thrush’s needs, feeding and cleaning him and setting him up for performances as they travel from one Rocky Mountain mining town to another. Except for the Thrush’s orations, the film is almost entirely silent, and it’s that quiet and stillness that draws the viewer in, making you wonder what’s going to happen at the end of the story’s long, slow burning fuse.

“The Gal Who Got Rattled” is my favorite section of the six. It features the very best of the Coens’ courtly, unlikely dialogue; the closest the filmmakers get to making a love story; and an ending so bleak and heartbreaking, it’s got me thinking about it weeks later. As the gal of the title, Zoe Kazan plays one of only a couple of female characters in the whole film and practically walks away with the whole thing. It takes some of the western genre’s most familiar tropes and makes them fresh, visceral, and devastating.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is violent, odd, poetic, and perfect. Like all great art, it stays with you long after its over and invites you to come back for more. It is one of the very best films of 2018, and lucky for us all, it is inexplicably streaming on Netflix for your enjoyment.  

Pocketful of Miracles

Every December I dedicate one show to a Christmas movie alternative. As much as I love the cable tv marathons of It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Elf, too much of a good thing is still too much. Plus, there are so many movies that are set during, touch on, or revolve around the holidays, it seems short-sighted to only watch the same two or three over and over again.

My alternative Christmas movie suggestion this year is 1961’s Pocketful of Miracles directed by none other than Frank Capra himself, the man who helmed It’s a Wonderful Life in 1946.  Pocketful of Miracles is an adaptation of a short story by Daymon Runyon, the same author responsible for Guys and Dolls and other tales of hustlers, tough guys, and gamblers. In this case, the story centers on Apple Annie, an old woman who sells her namesake fruit on the rainy streets of New York, and Dave the Dude, a gangster who buys Annie’s apples every day for luck.

Annie sent her only daughter to Europe for school as a child and since then has kept up the illusion that rather than a street peddler, she’s a refined lady of wealth living in one of New York’s finest hotels. Now a grown woman, her daughter is returning to America with her aristocratic finance in tow.

Meanwhile, Dave the Dude is negotiating with a Chicago gangster who wants to create a national crime syndicate and he wants Dave onboard or else. Dave relies on Annie’s apples for luck in his life of crime and so feels obligated to help out with her problem. He bankrolls her masquerade as Mrs. E. Worthington Manville, a high society lady, putting her up in a fancy hotel and providing her with everything from a butler to a husband.

Naturally, hijinks ensure but ultimately everything works out. Pocketful of Miracles lacks the mythic pathos of It’s a Wonderful Life, and critics of the time thought it inferior to the original version, Lady for a Day, which Capra also directed back in 1933. Plus, it was a troubled production with fights and behind-the-scenes intrigue between the leads, Glen Ford, Bettie Davis, and Hope Lange.

But there’s a lot to recommend here, including fantastic supporting performances from Peter Falk as Joy Boy, the Dude’s right hand man and Sheldon Leonard as Steve Darcy, the Chicago gangster. Falk was nominated for an Oscar and should have won for his wise-cracking, exasperated, one-liner-delivering tough guy. Pocketful of Miracles is also notable for some important firsts and lasts. Ann Margaret appears here in her first feature film as Apple Annie’s naïve but loving daughter, and it was Thomas Mitchell’s final film role as “Judge” Henry G. Blake, the blowhard pool hustler who poses as Apple Annie’s husband. Mitchell famously played Scarlett O’Hara’s father in Gone With the Wind and Doc Boone in Stagecoach. He plays his combination of high class and low class to perfection.

In some ways, Pocketful of Miracles feels old fashioned, especially considering it was made in 1961. It’s the last film from a classic Hollywood director at the end of the classic Hollywood period. But that’s part of what makes it a good Christmas film. There’s a sentimentality and an artificiality that reminds me of the best, cozy hokiness of the holiday season. The film starts off a little slow, but once the con is on, it becomes a fun, sometimes zany, ultimately sweet film that would be perfect to watch with your family this holiday season. 

Oh Lucy!

This week, a movie you might have missed. Oh Lucy is a Japanese/American production released in 2017. Written and directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi, the film blends very culturally specific Japanese and American elements to make a weird, sweet, unique film.

 Shinobu Terajima stars as Setsuko, a quirky, lonely office drone working in Tokyo. She chain-smokes, distains her co-workers, is estranged from her only sister, and holes up in her tiny apartment that’s overflowing with hoarded junk. She doesn’t seem unhappy, per se, but she sure doesn’t seem fulfilled either. Out of the blue, her niece, the daughter of Setsuko’s estranged sister, contacts her asking for a favor. The niece has already paid for a series of English lessons that she no longer needs, and she’s hoping her aunt will buy out her remaining lessons. Setsuko agrees out of affection for this daughter she never had and her only accomplice in holding a grudge against her sister.

The English lessons end up being taught by John, played by former heartthrob it boy, Josh Hartnett. Encouraging her to immerse herself in American culture, John immediately takes Setsuko into a long, warm hug, and then gives her a blonde wig and a new American name: Lucy. Setsuko is so taken aback by this handsome stranger who insists on hugging her, she goes along with his ridiculous methods. She meets another of his students, a man who has taken on the name of Tom, and is very much looking forward to more lessons until she finds out that John has abruptly quit and returned to America.

Setsuko figures out that her niece and John are lovers and left for the states together. She contacts her sister, explains the situation, and together the two of them head for America, partly to retrieve family, partly to find out what happened to the man Setsuko unexpectedly fell for.

The tension between Setsuko and her sister walks the line between hiliarity and profound discomfort. We discover that her sister stole Setsuko’s boyfriend back in the day and married him. It’s the hurtful, sometimes hilarious secret that hangs over the two women.

The uncomfortable combination of humor and pathos pretty much sums up the whole film. At first, it comes across as a quirky, lonely hearts comedy, but it takes surprisingly visceral, melodramatic, sometimes explicit turns. There are several unexpected moments that made me laugh out loud, but the tone veers pretty wildly in the second half of the film. What begins as a lighthearted comedy takes a rough turn when her niece tries to commit suicide, her sister cuts her off again, John rejects her advances completely, and upon returning home, she loses her job. The turn is unexpected but not unwelcome. It gives the film more heft and resonance than your average romcom.

Terajima as Setsuko is wonderful. Her character is earthy and snarky, but she has a twitching vulnerability and self-destructiveness underneath. Her bemusement with and attraction for John are palpable, but it’s also apparent that it’s more about a longing for something meaningful and human in her life than it is about her handsome English teacher. Your heart breaks for her when everything falls apart at the end because both her warmth and her dysfunction feel so real.

The other surprise here is Hartnett. Having gone off the A-list radar for several years now, he’s popping up in smaller, independent projects like this one. His character is affable but more complex than his California slacker persona suggests, and his frustration with his muddled romantic situation is palpable.

Oh Lucy isn’t like any other film you’re likely to see, and that’s a big part of the pleasure. It’s unexpected, but it’s not just quirk for quirk’s sake. Grounded by Terajima and Hartnett and fueled by a warm empathy for a broad range of flawed characters, it’s a funny, sometimes sad film that ends on a hopeful note. It’s worth seeing, and it’s available on streaming now.