The Ballad of Buster Scruggs | The Coen Brothers | Netflix Trailer

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
It better come to my local theater.... son of a bitches. It probably won't.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
You have a car? :b ...Make a nice evening of it, invite your lover in one fine Seattle's seafood restaurant, and go watch the movie later on after a walk on the ocean's boardwalk for digestion.

* Tip: Perrier
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
Oh, I didn't know it was that long of a drive. Anyway it's going to be on Netflix, November 16.
Anything the Coens Brothers direct is worth watching...the story, the writing, the acting and the direction...plus their unique sense of humor. This trailer looks like it's going to be awesome.
They are among my favorite filmmakers.

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-ballad-of-buster-scruggs
 

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
Agreed on Coen brothers.

Travel is 4 hours, then traffic, then dinner, then movie, then 4 hours. 12 is a fair estimate.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
I watched it last night, excellent good fun entertainment.
It has six short films, the total of the six comes to 133 minutes.

The first short film (#1) is my favorite. I also like the one with Tom Waits (#4) as a gold prospector. And number 5 is something else ... you'll see what I mean.

1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - 92*
2. Near Algodones - 78
3. Meal Ticket - 70
4. All Gold Canyon - 89*
5. The Gal Who Got Rattled - 86*
6. The Mortal Remains - 74

Overall for the six shorts all together: 82

It's good humor, good writing, good acting, some actors sing, good cast, superb cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel)...just wow! Everything is top notch clear and vibrant ... picture, sounds, dialog, decor sets, vistas, music by Carter Burwell.

Highly recommended. The Coen Brothers never made a bad film. They are an American legend.
 

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
I got bored and turned it off. I know directors like doing these short tales, but it’s more for them than us. IMO this is their first bad film. It did have lots of good “things” but overall leaves me with regret for watching. If I am going to experience a cheap point to be made, well, I would like to at least get invested in the characters and portrayal of it all. Instead it is liking watching a bunch of one liners.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
Ok, I had to come back on this film because it's the talk of the western town. We are in 2018 and money still runs the world...money, power, gold and oil. Treasures are buried underground and we all dig for it, consequently digging our own graves. America was discovered a long time ago by man. Before man establish himself on the new frontier there was already man living in America, and horses. The steam train came much later on, and then the cars, and the planes above the plains.

Folsom, you said that you turned it off; where about?
Ethan and Joel gave us vignettes of western America with sarcasm and humor.
It's only a very small glimpse, a narrow vision viewed from their own eyes and mind.
Their trademark is swift dialog, storytelling, stylish marriage between form and function.
On this one they are telling us that the western period was a marking one in America's history.

Before the Coen brothers we had John Wayne, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Now we have electric cars, bitcoin, oil under the sand and ocean floor.
We have less trains, more planes and ships, and pipelines.

I look @ films as for what they are, for what is onscreen with the music directing my emotions.
We have science-fictions films like 2001, westerns like Lawrence, adventures like The Gold Rush, actions like Rambo, romances like Once Upon a Time.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a western, like Lawrence of Arabia and Citizen Kane and Casablanca and The Searchers. It's no Sergio Leone or Quentin Tarantino type of style a la Clint Eastwood and Cristoph Waltz. I'm employing a figure of speech here to get behind the mule, the message of these six new vignettes of the Western American frontier.
It's only a very small glimpse in the entire world's picture. Man conquered man and history is made. Man takes what he figures is his because he dig for it under the land that is his land.

Before the first man came to America there was no man, only buffalos, wild horses, mountains, rivers, lakes, and two oceans on each side. It's a figure of speech again, just bare with me, it's coming to the Coen brothers' messages from their last flick on Netflix.

Each short film from the six has its own western message. There is no doubt that we are entering the wild frontier behind the mind of the Coen brothers. The simplicity of it all is a good approach.
Each vignette has its own unique power/message. And beyond those messages there is an entire history of filmmaking, storytelling, style, American history, land of the brave and the free.

Gold was certainly a big part of Wall Street back then when the rush was on...check chapter number four to go back in Charlie Chaplin memory lane. It's a beautiful land too, before all those holes.

Chapter number two hasn't changed today, we are still living it, but only the technologies have changed a bit and the coin.

Chapter one is crystal clear as Black and White.

A good speaker is only as good as a chicken can hit the notes and attract real interest.
There is great irony still today with our chickens, our zoos, our circus and our speakers.
Check it out in chapter three.

There is nothing more dramatic than in chapter five. Everything in that chapter is weaved to perfection, like a precision scalpel under the hand of a professional scalper/surgeon. The dialog is incisive, and so is the silence. This is pure mastercraft drama with the saddest twist of them all.

Chapter six is a lesson in the art of persuasive immortality, a tour-de-force from the actors sitting inside that coach...five of them and the sixth one riding the horses from above...invisible character.

The more we look the more we see, the more we see the closer we get to the Coen brother's vision. They sure have their vision of the American frontier from their new western flick.
Their touch is uniquely addictive in a well mastered tell.

Folsom, which chapter did you miss?
And why do you say that they made this special western more for themselves than for their audience?
 

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
I am not sure what one I turned it off on. I stopped caring long before it. I wouldn’t spend the time to psychoanalyze something that was so awful. And yes, after awhile you start to notice when films are more entertaining for people in the business than the general audience. Film buffs try to act like they enjoy it, but really some things are just exercises in different aspects of the industry.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
Well, if we comment on the merits and flaws of this American western "ballad" comprised of six chapters, there are no scientific measurements to rate it collectively; it's a personal preference or deterrence.

Film buffs who try to act are the actors and actresses we see in movies.

I was truly wondering which chapters you didn't see to have a better grasp on your opinion.
Still, I highly recommend that everyone watch this magnificent filmmaking from two of our greatest filmmakers living today in America. ... A solid Western to be sure, from my own eyes and ears.
 

Folsom

VIP/Donor
Oct 25, 2015
6,024
1,490
520
Eastern WA
I pretty much despise short films combined into a movie. I thought the Coen's might be able to pull it off... nope.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
I see. I have three PIXAR animation Shorts on Blu-ray. Vol. 1, 2 and 3.
Each volume consists of their best short animated films during a certain period of time.
I also have other films which consist of various film directors where each director submits his own short. They are different vignettes and not necessarily from the same subject.
Each animation, each short is judged on its own merits.

In the case of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coens brothers have achieved a superior cluster of American's history through the wild west in their own unique touch of humor and sarcasm and wit.
 

marty

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
3,025
4,173
2,520
United States
I watched it last night, excellent good fun entertainment.
It has six short films, the total of the six comes to 133 minutes.

The first short film (#1) is my favorite. I also like the one with Tom Waits (#4) as a gold prospector. And number 5 is something else ... you'll see what I mean.

1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - 92*
2. Near Algodones - 78
3. Meal Ticket - 70
4. All Gold Canyon - 89*
5. The Gal Who Got Rattled - 86*
6. The Mortal Remains - 74

Overall for the six shorts all together: 82

It's good humor, good writing, good acting, some actors sing, good cast, superb cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel)...just wow! Everything is top notch clear and vibrant ... picture, sounds, dialog, decor sets, vistas, music by Carter Burwell.

Highly recommended. The Coen Brothers never made a bad film. They are an American legend.

I don't know man, all I can say is that the Coen brothers is an acquired taste and I have never acquired it. Irreverant to the point of warped? Sure. Dark Humor? Absolutely? Pretentious with misguided insights? Yup. And of course, well-crafted and well-acted. Yet these are inadequate to describe a Coen brothers film. Perhaps the best phrase is simply "weird". Everything they have done is a bit weird and although it often amuses, it always leaves me shaking my head in dismay that people consider their work or their vision great art. Putting that movie in the same sentence as Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Casablanca is just sacrilegious.

That said, I do agree with your ranking of the vignettes with 1, 4 and 5 being the standouts. The others were pretty pathetic. After watching #1 I was almost at the point to think this might be worth watching after all. I was wrong. Just not my cup of tea I guess.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
It's only a movie, there is no sacrilege in movies, only a state-of-mind.
Here's the real thing; the more you plunge into it the more you appreciate their fun vision.

I don't know man, movies and music they all have their fans and not.
We tell it like it is, our own impression, of the movies and of the music.
I like Opera, others like Country, some Heavy Metal.
I enjoy Electronica, others enjoy Rap and Disco.
I'm a Blues fan, others are into Punk.
I like Motown, others like Funk.
I like Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, others like Bach, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, me too.

I like everything that looks and sounds right, including The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
I like it all for all what it is. There isn't one bad chapter.

We tell it like it is, it's our soul, our vibrating chords, we judge no one and no one is judging us, it's only a movie and a great one @ that. I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I'm just talking freely and without fear of committing a sacrilege.

Glad you agree with #1, 4 & 5. But I disagree with you Marty about the remaining three as being pathetic. Sacrilege, I don't know where you get that word from, must be lost in translation.
If I put those films here it's not a 'sacrilège', it's an honest representation of filmmaking from a higher caliber, in the appropriate ranks of great cinema and vistas and dialog and decors and actors and angles. It is a veneration, a reverence. ...Far far away from a disrespect. It is among the top films of 2018, and my eyes don't lie, neither my ears, and my heart.
A sacrilege, I don't think so sir Marty, not in a thousand years, not in Bob's soul.
We do what we do best, and the Coen Brothers did it again. We see what we see, and hear what we hear.
 
Last edited:

bonzo75

Member Sponsor
Feb 26, 2014
22,443
13,473
2,710
London
I don't know man, all I can say is that the Coen brothers is an acquired taste and I have never acquired it. Irreverant to the point of warped? Sure. Dark Humor? Absolutely? Pretentious with misguided insights? Yup. And of course, well-crafted and well-acted. Yet these are inadequate to describe a Coen brothers film. Perhaps the best phrase is simply "weird". Everything they have done is a bit weird and although it often amuses, it always leaves me shaking my head in dismay that people consider their work or their vision great art. Putting that movie in the same sentence as Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Casablanca is just sacrilegious.

That said, I do agree with your ranking of the vignettes with 1, 4 and 5 being the standouts. The others were pretty pathetic. After watching #1 I was almost at the point to think this might be worth watching after all. I was wrong. Just not my cup of tea I guess.

Agreed, they are not in the same league. Fargo seemed good when they said it was on a true story, not when it turned out it wasn't.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing