Powerful

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I love this film -- it has so much sadness, but there's nothing weak or self-pitying about any of the characters. They just carry on, even without a purpose in their lives. Larry McMurtry is a genius at taking stuff that would be unspeakably horrible if it weren't so funny, and then making it really funny. Peter Bogdanovich focuses more on the sadness than the laughter, but he also gets a glowing sensuality from Cybill Shepherd (as Jacy) and a warmth and humanity from Ben Johnson (as Sam the Lion) that are only hinted at in the book. One obvious issue no one else has mentioned is the irony that this book (and film) appeared long before the LONESOME DOVE mini-series, yet it deals with the Texas that rangers Call and McRae sacrificed so much to create. One of the themes of LONESEOME DOVE is Gus asking plaintively, "was it worth it?"And of course, the answer is contained in this film. Because these characters are living such stunted, joyless lives that it seems very hard to believe that the buffalo, the Comanche, and the Mexicans all had to be sacrificed to make way for the town of Thalia. And more than that, you feel that somewhere Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf are actually laughing at these people. And that if a war party of ghost Comanche could come back and destroy the whole town it would be more of a mercy killing than anything else. And none of that makes the book itself any less poignant. Just the opposite, in fact.

I initially hated The Last Picture Show when I first saw it. I thought it was a pretentious version of Peyton Place, which was also a period piece about sex-obsessed teens coming of age in a small, sleepy community. But upon a second viewing I've changed my mind just a little, if only because of how influential the movie was. It inspired so many movies, from more family-friendly stuff like American Graffiti to Larry Clarke films. So it deserves some credit for that.Still, I can't help but feel lukewarm about the film. The black and white cinematography may be beautiful, but no amount of it could make it feel like it was taking place in the 1950s; everyone and everything looked too contemporary. Also, by making the movie so "country", this also took away the illusion that it was taking place in another time. The reason why is that country music and fashion spans several decades, so there's nothing about it that really sounds and looks like it could be of any time period. On top of that, The Last Picture Show is really much ado about nothing. The movie summaries try to make it seem a lot more than it is, like it's some deep, sweeping sociological drama about a "dying town." Nah. It's about a group of hormonal teens grappling with sex for the first time in their lives. Being immature, they make a lot of mistakes and get into a lot of the usual foolishness that teens do (like fistfights). But then real life happens and they grow up. In many ways, this movie is basically just the 1970s version of "Kids" or--better yet, "Ken Park"--where we see teens stumble their way through sexual situations, but it all happens in a very dreary, plodding fashion. If you've ever seen Larry Clarke movies, then you'll know what you're in for when you see The Last Picture Show, just more of the same, except shot more artfully shot and taking place in an older time period.Watch it out of intellectually curiosity if you must, but don't expect to be blown away by it.

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is a low budget, black and white character piece exploring the situation faced by youths coming of age in a dead-end Texas town in 1951. It's notable for helping a number of fresh-faced actors break into Hollywood; many of the cast here have gone on to great fame and fortune, and yet the film itself is a little disappointing, as is so often the way with these pictures that receive endless praise over the years.This film features more like a television production in terms of scale and I found it quite unaffecting, especially given the fact that many of the characters are self-centred and unlikeable. The exception is Cybill Shepherd, whose breathless beauty and carefully poised character is a highlight; she would later go on to greater things, not least TAXI DRIVER, but she's perfect here, capturing a sense of innocence mixed with desperation.The male characters fare less better, although the acting remains strong. Jeff Bridges plays a brash youth with some heart hidden away inside; Timothy Bottoms does the kind of kookiness that would later serve him well in the disaster flick Roller-coaster. Watch out for Randy Quaid in a small cameo, with the likes of Ellen Burstyn and Clu Gulager prop up the adult cast. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is a film in which nothing much really happens, but it is realistic even if the effect is ultimately depressing. I thought Lucas's American GRAFFITI explored similar themes in a much more entertaining way.

In this 1971 Columbia Pictures Peter Bogdanovich-directed screen version of the novel written by Larry McMurtry, I could not see enough reasons to justify it being nominated for any top award, though I will qualify that to an extent: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and the beautiful and drawing icon Cybil Shepherd were very capable in their individual roles. Also, an excellent job was done with the nostalgia effects, and since I entered the first grade in 1952-the year Jo Stafford's song "You Belong to Me" was one of the number one hits of the year-I did receive an adequate idea of what the early '50's was like in many ways, so I do think this was a great film from that standpoint.It was appropriate that the movie was filmed in black and white, for it indicated a basic fact about movies of that era: most movies were filmed in black and white, and thus there was a scarcity of movies filmed in color at that time. The story line was simple: a small Texas town is dying, and toward the end two boys go to the last picture playing in the local movie theatre.But where was the plot? There basically was none. Concomitantly, where was the substance? Young people go skinny-dipping and have their big fling at sex. The movie was something of a collage, since too many pieces (brief scenes representing different types of persons, different ideas being represented) were simply thrown together. There was no plot present. Therefore, for the Best Picture of the Year award it hardly qualified.