Friday, February 01, 2019

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Joel and Ethan Coen have made some of the best movies in the past 35 years.  My first Coen brothers' movie was The Hudsucker Proxy back in the winter of '94, and I've been a fan ever since.  They've made some really funny movies, some really great films, and some quirky near misses.  The Ballad of Buster Scruggs has its moments, but overall must be placed in the "near miss" category.
Unfortunately, this made-for-Netflix feature length movie feels just like a made-for-Netflix feature length movie.  Now I realize that Netflix and Amazon have produced films that become Oscar contenders, but those are definitely in the minuscule minority.  I'm concerned that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs could be part of a trend, where filmmakers see the opportunity to make a quick buck without fear of too much criticism, because bad movies are the norm on these streaming platforms.  That being said, I really enjoyed the first of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' four episodes - it was laugh-out-loud funny and had the quirkiness of O Brother, Where Art Thou?  I'm not sure why the brothers ran this episode first, perhaps it's because they saw the metrics showing that the average streamer only gets through the first 10 minutes of a movie before switching back to watching The Office or Friends...  If you don't front-load a Netflix movie, no one will ever see the rest.


FYI - I completely made up the statistic used towards the end of this review, but it seemed to support my argument.

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