The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Spoiler-free!

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology film of six short story segments that essentially is the Coen Bros indulging themselves in brief studies of their particular style, and using to full advantage the Netflix release model, like the masters they are. A lot of people don't care for the idea of movies going straight to Netflix when they could be given theatrical releases -- and I get that, I do -- but if this drastic and controversial change to the distributions of movies is at all a good idea, this movie is exactly why.

It's Coen through and through, but like we've never seen before. (Can that be said of all their projects...?)

Guaranteed if it had been released in theaters it would have underperformed. Probably simply because it's an anthology film and people go to the movies to see big, fleshed out films. And Venom. This film is just a series of vignettes, their only connection to each other being that they're set in the wild west era, and that they all have a Coen signature stamped directly on their forehead. It's not theater material -- but it is perfect material for a quiet afternoon at home. Sweatpants material. The Coens aren't gonna start releasing only to Netflix now I'm sure, but this new model allowed them to release something different, a bit experimental, and proves itself to be completely worthy of existence.

I don't watch many short films, but I have read a lot of short stories. I have a collection of short horror stories that I'm making my way slowly through -- like The Tell-Tale Heart, The Shunned House, and The Metamorphosis -- and this film reminds me of them in the way they impacted me. Those three short stories I thought of off the top of my head out of 30 or 40 and they floated to the top by having such an impact that when I think of horror short stories they spring readily to mind. There are others I can think of if I try; others that I remember when I'm reminded of the title; and still others that I can't recall at all, unless perhaps I read them again.

And so it goes with short films as well. Some moments of this film with haunt me forever.

I don't love any of those short stories. Not in the way I love novels anyway -- but that's totally irrelevant because they're not novels. But I love reading them, and I think about them just as much as I do any other stories that have left impressions on me. I'm fairly certain that I think of The Metamorphosis daily. (I'm not sure that's a good thing.) The point being: brief as they are, they still left a lasting impression that will stick with me for life. And that's what The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in like. It may seem like casual viewing, but you will likely find yourself thinking of the huge moments created within those tiny spaces for a long time.

For me, I'll always remember the title story -- because it's the title and it's first -- it sets a disarming tone and pulls you in with warm comedy, but doesn't feel out of place from the fully dark segments either. The Gal Who Got Rattled is most likely to pop up in my thoughts regularly. It was my favorite, if I can say such a thing. I thoroughly enjoyed Near Algodones for it's perfectly delivered dark comedy and conciseness. All Gold Canyon I'll remember for one fantastic moment, and the satisfying way it ends. Meal Ticket is one of those situations where it makes you understand it so well that you wish you didn't. And The Mortal Remains is last in both orders. It feels so conclusive that its perfect to go last and wrap up.

An impressive line-up. 

Acting is great all-around and its fun seeing so many familiar faces pop up, especially in roles that they'd never get were these stories full-length movies, but what stands out most is direction and writing. There were different themes, characters, locations, and even color palates, but every story still felt very much like they belonged together, because of the clearly presented and consistent Coen tone. There's varying degrees of happiness, sadness, lightness and darkness, but the same tone is always there -- a kind of pleasant, excited dread for what lies just around the bend.

As far as flaws go, the only thing I can offer is that I'm simply not attached to it in the usual way, which, of course, isn't really a flaw at all. I believe it to be fully what it was meant to be, and I believe it had the intended effect on me, but I don't see myself returning to it anytime soon, if ever. There's nothing new to be gleaned, which is why I usually return for seconds. They're very concise stories that give up all their fruit in one dramatic go. And I know how they end, which is the main point of it all to begin with.

They're pros. They know what they're doing, and they do it well.

In the 24 or so hours since watching it, it has returned to my thoughts many times, and that simple but important impact is the best recommendation for this film's quality I could ever give. Like the better horror shorts I've read, these tales are crafted in a precise and bold way, to showcase style, concentrate wit and creativity, and portray neatly closed stories and dramatic irony that are unlikely to fade from memory -- whether revisits to their strange, bleak and warm land is due or not.

Colossal

Spoilers!

In spite of Dan Stevens and a very memorable fantasy premise, Colossal for me was nothing more than a colossal waste of time.

Sorry, but they walked into that one.

Although, I do get to write a review about it, so, waste of time maybe, but I can't say I regret watching it. It's about Anne Hathaway, who's a party girl, and a drunk, out-of control loser. The movie's fantasy element is a parable for what it's like to be out of control with an addiction. Because of some flimsy magical happenstance, whenever Anne -- Gloria -- walks through a specific playground at exactly 8:05 AM, a giant Godzilla-like monster appears in Seoul, South Korea, and mimics her movements.

From the moment I saw the trailer I wondered about the logistics of the premise. I was left unsatisfied.

When her boyfriend (Dan Stevens) can't stand her lazy drunken shenanigans any longer and kicks her out, she goes to her hometown, and starts working at her childhood friend's bar. Yes, wonderful place for an alcoholic to hang out. His name is Owen and he's played by Jason Sudeikis. She chances to walk through this specific playground at the right time several times, is shocked along with the rest of the world at the appearance of the monster, and eventually discovers that the monster is her -- because of a tick where she scratches her head in an obvious and exaggerated manner. Then she gets drunk and shows off her odd party trick to her new buddies (Austin Stowell and Tim Blake Nelson) and Owen, accidentally trips, falls, and kills lots of South Koreans.

But don't worry, it gets better. Owen, trying to catch her, goes into the playground too, and he also has something materialize in Seoul and copy his movements -- a giant robot. Awesome. Now he's kinda excited about his newfound power like Gloria was, but for her there's a bit of a damper because she realized for the first time that her boyfriend was right. She's out of control. She's literally killed people. The parallel between her heightened situation and real-life addiction is obvious. She vows never to let her monster materialize again, and seems to be on the road to recovery, but then things escalate beyond even her control.

*fantasy intensifies*

I suppose this part is meant to be the metaphor for how your addiction can begin to control you. Owen now gets drunk and starts goofing off in the playground. For some reason she feels responsible for this and is quick to break her vow in order to stand up to him. He apologizes, but later is drunk again and back at it, and before you know it, reaches full villain scale when he threatens innocent lives to make her stay working for him. When she doesn't take him seriously enough he makes good on the threat in one of the most weirdly dark and unpleasant scenes I've witnessed in a movie. As he stomps on the wood chips, she's laying on the ground inches from him reaching out and screaming, yet never moves to physically stop him. We're supposed to understand that she can't, but it simply doesn't make sense.

After that the allegory falls apart, because to solve the problem she goes to Seoul, making her monster appear at the playground, picks Owen up, and hurls him across the state, killing him. But it's okay, because he called her a b**** before she decided to do it. What's the takeaway from the ending? I have no clue. There's an obvious point of girl-power, because she never gets any help from her friends or the police, and she ends up alone but "happy." But after thinking about it for a few days, the only lesson I can see concerning addiction is that it seems to say that once you've solved you own problems, it's totally okay for you to kill people with the same problems if they don't figure it out like you did.

Nice Job. Let's hope no one takes that attitude to heart.

I am %1000 sure that that is not what the movie makers meant the point to be, but if there's a more reasonable one, I completely missed it. I think Owen is always meant to be an extension of a sort of Gloria's problem, since story-wise her problem isn't truly fixed until she's rid of him, but if that's the case I don't get what killing him is a metaphor for. (If you have any insights I'd welcome a discussion.)

One definite, but probably unintentional lesson is that you should never let, or go to others for help. Dan Stevens goes to her aid, but only comes across as needy and wishy-washy because he kicks her out and then gets jealous of her for moving on. Then there's Austin Stowell's character, who was present on the sidelines for many of her fights with Owen to get him out of the playground. This guy totally could have stepped in and helped her, but in the movie's eyes it isn't even a possibility. He's even on her side. But he just stands there. It doesn't make sense.

The head-scratching bit irked me to no end because of how played up it was.

I don't care for Anne Hathaway, and I don't think she did a particularly good job, but I don't blame her for my inability to sympathize with her character. Gloria comes across surprisingly unsympathetic in spite of what happens to and because of her. The culprit is, I believe, the movie's insincere tone. Jason Sudeikis did do an interesting job turning into a disturbing villain, but the transition was jarring in a way that doesn't sit right. The movie's tonal shifts are all jarring, though you can see attempts at dark comedy throughout. Instead it comes across as irreverently dark, milking the disturbing moments for shocking drama, then kicking back and flippantly expecting us to laugh at it all, which is the last thing I felt like doing.

It's a fantasy movie, but tries to ground itself in reality, drawing clear parallels to real-life problems, but the grounding doesn't take. The story slowly floats further and further away from reality until by then end it cops out with a falsely empowering ending, and never finishes it's thought on addiction, the reason the story existed in the first place. I think they simplified the issue far too much, and instead of letting the story drive through its natural path to a conclusion, it was forced to go the way they wanted. Each forced turn pushed the movie further and further into its own fantasy land.

"Moral of the story? Oh, idk.... addiction is... um, what were we talking about?"

I don't have much experience with this kind of thing in real-life, but I think they ignored the most overarching truth -- that if you need help you don't have to face your problems alone -- merely so they could scrounge up an inspiring and empowering ending for their amazingly dis-likable heroine. The way I see it, Colossal never moves past the stage she was at in the very beginning; in denial that it has a problem in the first place. It just stomps around in wild destruction, shouting its incoherent message into a fantastical, meaningless void.