Texasville
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Movie Reviews of Texasville
Movie Review: You Can't Go Home Again
Summary: 3 Stars
There is no question in my mind, at least, that Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show is a great post-World War II (about 1952), boom/bust oil patch Texas, but could have been a lot of places, coming-of-age story. Director Peter Bogdanovitch, (with McMurtry writing the screenplay) stayed fairly close to the story line of the book and produced a great film out of the tangled teen relationships of three Texas youngsters, Duane, Sonny and Jacy. I have watched that film several times and have not changed my mind in that regard; if anything I like it better these days.
Fast forward thirty years (about 1984) and take the same characters, the same writer, the same producer and the same actors (mainly) and make it a film about mid-life crisis (or crises) and the premises fall somewhat flat. It is not the acting. Jeff Bridges is well, Jeff Bridges, born for these Texas-type roles (witness Oscar-winning Bad Blake- Duane Jackson at 57). Cybil Sheppard (Jacy), although showing her age a bit and not the femme fatale teen of Last Picture is still okay. Timothy Bottom (Sonny) has definitely wilted. But like I say it is not the acting. Nor is it the writing, this is still based on good McMurtry material (unlike the seemingly endless later parts of the Duane saga). Nor is it Bogdanovich who evokes 1980s boom-bust (some things don't change) Texas well enough. Let's just chalk it up to a preference for black and white dust bowl grit film footage of small town Texas over color; a preference for the bite of original stories over sequels; and, most importantly, for coming-of- age stories over mid-life crisis. If you can believe this I would rather now watch distant teen trauma (although I would not want to relive it) over more recent and symptomatic mid-life crisis. That story is "old."
Movie Review: Texasville vs The Last Picture Show
Summary: 2 Stars
What excites one about Texasville is that it has been made by essentially the same team as made The Last Picture Show. The surprise then is that almost nobody seems to be aware of the previous film, though, in the case of the performers, they were in it, and though, and most damning, in the case of the director, he made it. Perhaps there is no way to follow up or catch up with these characters. MacMurtry has a better and more honest chance at it because it is only on the page. The first thing one notes is that Texasville is not shot in black and white as The Last Picture Show was. To do so would be a mistake; color was "too pretty" for the original, but these sequel needs to be pretty. Less glum, less oppressed, but therefore less than... The hyper realism of The Last Picture Show is replaced by a not completely light hearted series of set pieces. We're looking at a comedy-romance this second time around. And on its own terms, it might be all right. The problem is the two movies do not present the same the world, not even a world where twenty years have passed. Texasville is full of contrivances, from Junior roping the oil well to the kids starting an egg war. There was no such contrivance in The Last Picture Show. Though both films have wonderful performers, Texasville is marred by its children performers, especially the twins, who are acting cute for the camera, and Jimmy Howell, who plays Duane's son, is fairly awful and impossible to believe as someone that the girls just fall all over ("one in a million"). His heroics contrast sharply with the realistic vision offered by The Last Picture Show in which none of the boys were really heroes; they didn't win football games; they didn't really get all the girls; they were bumbling around. Only one of them still bumbles and only his story suggests the heavy sadness that hangs over the original, and that is Sonny. It's worth noting that Cybil Shepard has not aged well; she looks good, but not when you remember her from The Last Picture Show and Taxi Driver, when she was terribly beautiful.Movie Review: Not too Great
Summary: 1 Stars
Unfortunately, this was one lackluster flick. The Last Picture Show was great; Texasville just did not get off the ground.
Too bad. The cast was capable of something far better.
If I had the DVD, I'd put it out where a garbage truck could run over it. To put it out of its misery.