World Famous Comics: The Last Picture Show (Definitive Director's Cut Special Edition)
The Last Picture Show (Definitive Director's Cut Special Edition)
Starring: Sam Bottoms, Timothy Bottoms, Eileen Brennan, Jeff Bridges, Gary Brockette Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Sony Pictures Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 30, 1999 Running Time: 125 minutes Theatrical Release Date: October 22, 1971
Product Description: Story of teenagers in a small Texas town just prior to the hero leaving for Korea and the closing of the town's movie theater. Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: R Release Date: 13-FEB-2007 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com essential video: Like Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, and The Graduate, The Last Picture Show is one of the signature films of the "New Hollywood" that emerged in the late 1960s and early '70s. Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry and lovingly directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who cowrote the script with McMurtry), this 1971 drama has been interpreted as an affectionate tribute to classic Hollywood filmmaking and the great directors (such as John Ford) that Bogdanovich so deeply admired. It's also a eulogy for lost innocence and small-town life, so accurately rendered that critic Roger Ebert called it "the best film of 1951," referring to the movie's one-year time frame, its black-and-white cinematography (by Robert Surtees), and its sparse but evocative visual style. The story is set in the tiny, dying town of Anarene, Texas, where the main-street movie house is about to close for good, and where a pair of high-school football players are coming of age and struggling to define their uncertain futures. There's little to do in Anarene, and while Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) engages in a passionless fling with his football coach's wife (Cloris Leachman), his best friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) enlists for service in the Korean War. Both boys fall for a manipulative high-school beauty (Cybill Shepherd) who's well aware of her sexual allure. But it's not so much what happens in The Last Picture show as how it happens--and how Bogdanovich and his excellent cast so effectively capture the melancholy mood of a ghost town in the making. As Hank Williams sings on the film's evocative soundtrack, The Last Picture Show looks, feels, and sounds like a sad but unforgettably precious moment out of time. --Jeff Shannon
The Peyton Place of the South Anyone who buys the Mayberry image of Southern small town life will be greatly shocked after watching this movie. Anarene is definitely no Puritan utopia. The town's residents include adulterers, sex-obsessed teenagers, and even a pedophile, who happens to be the minister's son. This film just goes to show that you cannot always believe what's on the surface. Few films expose small town hypocrisy better than this one, while at the same time treating the characters with respect. This difference is what sets this film about from the typical teenage sex comedies, which are not worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as this cinematic classic.
The performances are all outstanding, but the performances of Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman are especially noteworthy. It is not difficult to figure out why both won Oscars for their roles. No one but Ben Johnson could have played Sam the Lion. Even John Wayne couldn't have pulled it off. Cloris Leachman's dramatic scenes made you forget that she was a regular on the Mary Tyler Moore show.
One of the Great Films This is just an amazing movie. I saw it at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester, NY about 10 years ago and was just blown away. Maybe it was dust and wind blowing up the small town Texas streets. Two young men graduate from high school and struggle with becoming adults as they learn more about the adults in the community and their lives. Larry McMurtry never wrote a better novel than this one nor had a book turned into a better film. (Well, Hud is just as great I think.) Peter Bogdanavich directed a classic film and Cybill Shepherd make a great debut as an actress. Let's not forget Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges too. The older actors are given roles of a lifetime - Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman, Randy Quaid, Don Johnson and others. A near perfect film of a wonderful novel.
Face the emptiness of a small town. The Last Picture Show is considered to be a black and white classic but this film just left me depressed. Cloris Leachman is the best thing in this downer, her performance is so heartbreaking (she won an Oscar for best supporting actress). Cybill Shepherd lives up to her own stereotype, pretty blonde who sleeps with everyone in town, her character is so unlikeable. I just thought this movie was just ok, decide for yourself.
An American Classic Loosely based on gossip and scandal that surrounded various residents of Larry McMurtry's hometown of Archer City, Texas, the novel THE LAST PICTURE SHOW was much admired by critics--but didn't really explode into public conciousness until adapted to the screen, when it became one of the cinematic touchstones of the generation that had shed 1950s mores in favor of less restrictive attitudes.
The film has no plot per se: it is simply a portrait of those who live in and around Anarene, Texas--a tiny town in the middle of nowhere that is slowly but surely dying. It most particularly focuses on three high school students and their various travails. Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) are best friends, play on the high school foot ball team, and both lust after the same girl--the very rich and extremely superficial Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd.) Like most teenagers, they are all eager to climb into the back seat of car... but their hormones have unexpected consequences.
The cast of characters spiral out from these three. Through Sonny and Duane we meet Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), who owns the local cafe, pool hall, and picture show, and his sexy waitress and cook Genevieve (Eileen Brennan); through Jayce we meet her embittered and flamboyant mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn); and then there is the coach's wife, the painfully lonely and unhappy Ruth (Cloris Leachman.) Although sex is a major catalyst in their various collisons, the real tragedy of their lives is the town, which is essentially a microsm of American hypocrisy, ennui, and failure.
At the time, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW's frankess about sex was considered nothing short of scandalous; today it is merely so-so. But the overall portrait of the characters as the struggle against the emptiness of their lives and their community remains as powerful as ever, and few films have delivered such a powerful ensemble cast. The film essentially made the careers of everyone associated with it, brought Academy awards to Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman, and was nominated for virtually every award going. It also put director Peter Bogdonavich on the map in a very major way.
The DVD offers several bonuses, most particularly a "making of" piece in which Bogdonavich and such stars as Leachman, Brennan, and Burstyn recall the intensity of the shoot. The transfer is very nice, beautifully preserving the memorable black and white cinematography by Robert Surtees and production design by Polly Platt. Strongly recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The Best Last Picture Show A black and white portrait of a dying Texas town complete with tired businessman, bored wife, all the problems of adolescence in a place where nothing goes on. The spectrum of life from young man/woman hood to adults trying to make meaning of life (and concluding that adultery is the only way), to a whole used-up life expiring, is brilliantly portrayed with obliterating dust, emptiness, banging screen doors. The lack of color is as it should be. The only "color" in their lives is a saucy waitress who dishes out the sustenance of life, on plates and verbally. Superb direction, fresh acting, perfect casting. The entire action is summed up by a mute teenager who is "taken care of" by the town. This boy "sweeps up" the town as his way of returning care. He, too, is eliminated, by lack of understanding, by lack of sensitivity. Brilliant, memorable film.
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