THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Peter Bogdanovich
Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybil Shepherd,
Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn,
Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, Sam Bottoms,
Randy Quaid, Sharon Taggart, Kimberly Hyde
Lives going nowhere in a dead-end town, based on the novel by Larry McMurtry and brought to the screen with sepia-tone mastery by Peter Bogdanovich. The year is 1951. The place is a desolate, dot-on-the-map crossroads in West Texas. There's not much to do there, and way too much time to do it in, but when you're a high-school senior, you'll find a way to fill in the gaps. (And when you're on the football team that just lost Friday night's game 121-14, you can expect a certain amount of abuse.) Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybil Shepherd are the young leads. Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Academy Awards, and the entire ensemble is solid, but if I was going to pick somebody to keep an eye on, that'd be Eileen Brennan as a cafe waitress who's seen it all and can freeze you with a look. The spirit is mournful, but sometimes so is life.
