Cheap The Last Picture Show (Definitive Director's Cut) (Special Edition) (DVD) (Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd) (Peter Bogdanovich) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Last Picture Show (Definitive Director's Cut) (Special Edition)

A plotless mood piece, but very well done
To call a movie plotless sounds negative, but in the case of The Last Picture Show, there's so very little plot that it's barely worth speaking about. The film revolves around a number of characters, most notably two high school seniors. Duane is dating the "only beautiful girl in town" and Sonny is carrying on an affair with a married woman. Several other characters move in and out of view, notably the beauty's mother and the owner of the pool hall. The film carefully develops its dozen or so main characters and simply watches them as they move about the bleak-looking desert town. Further adding to the immersion is the fact that the soundtrack consists solely of early-50's country music heard through tinny radios in the background.

This film was quite controversial at the time of its release for its frank (and unglamorised) depictions of sex. Jacy sums up the attitude of sex for the teens when she tells her mother "I would never do that, it's a sin before marriage," but later tells a college boy "I'm a virgin, but I don't want to be." In a small town with little to do, sex is just a form of entertainment, while 1951 morals required that it be hidden from view.

This is a film that cares about its characters and allows them to inhabit the setting. The dialogue and events occur naturally, and at the end of the film, the only things that have really happened are Jacy losing her virginity, a funeral, and the high school football team gets some better linebackers. But because you care about the characters (and the performances are universally fantastic), you care about these events that are objectively small, but which are important to the characters.

This DVD is not of high quality. This may be deliberate - the film is supposed to have a hard-edged, bleak feel that might not be as effective if the film had been cleaned up for the DVD. There is an hour-long reminiscence on the making of the film, which is interesting to watch once. Director Bogdanovich gets the lion's share of time, but many cast members have their say as well. Overall, it's a decent DVD, but the VHS will contain the important part, which is the film itself, and likely of the same quality.

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The Show Isn't Over Yet
The Last Picture Show is one of the best films that I have ever seen. When it first premired in 1971, it garnered both praise and critism, mainly because of the sexual content in it's stories. But don't stress about that, it's really nothing bad at all, especially for today's standards(nothing close to Monster's Ball), remember The Graduate caused an explosion too in 1967.
Adapted from the Novel by Larry McMurty(Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment)and directed to PERFECTION by Peter Bogdanovich, the takes place in fall 1951-fall 1952 in the dying, small town of Anarene, Texas. It includes some of the best characters in a film ever, and the acting by all is simply EXQUISITE. The film mainly follows two best friends, Sonny(Timothy Bottoms) and Duane(Jeff Bridges-in a supporting actor academy award nominated role),in their senior year in high school. Both are begining to get to a time of change and crossroads in their lives. Duane's girlfriend Jacy(Cybill Shepherd-in her wonderful film debut) is the girl who both boys have their eyes on. While Jacy is taken, Sonny starts an affair with the coach's wife(Cloris Leachman-Best Supporting Actress Academy Award), this gets the story rolling. The three women in this film are simply magnificent. Ellen Burstyn was, in a word, wonderful & she was my favorite character, and garnered a Supporting Actress Nomination(she won Best Actress in 1974). Cloris Leachman beat her out for the Oscar that year. Her character changes so much from being meek and quite, to being filled with joy, to being full of anger & in the final moment's of the movie she shows why she has that Oscar. Eileen Brennam is superb as Genevieve the waitress, she serves as a mother-figure for Sonny, and is tough-talking but sincere. One of the Most Memorable roles in the Film is that of Sam the Lion(Ben Johnson),the all-knowing wise man, who owns the picture show. THe scene by the Lake is Classic. THis role won him the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.
The film is shot in black-and-white, which adds to the feeling of depression and gives the lonely dying feeling that the town evokes. The music is true to the time, and is also part of the movie. It only comes from a radio or record player, no background music.
People with "country" roots will especially like this one as will those who like to study films, this one is one of the most importants of all time. It was also nominated for Best Picture, director, and Adapted-screen play too(8 nominations in all).
Check it out, it's important and entertaining.

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plaudits for cinematography
This flick is overrated. But you've got to give the filmmakers credit for going with black- and- white, for shooting it in Texas (where the story takes place) and for not trying to squeeze in too many characters into the "plot."
The Chase, starring Marlon Brando, that also takes place in Texas, might have received all the praise heaped on the Last Picture Show flick had they gone the black -and- white route and stayed away from the Universal back lot.

Hud, also shot in Texas, was a better film than this. It seems to me, a good rule of thumb to doing pictures in Texas is to go with black-and-white photography. Don't know why, could be the automatic, built-in authenticity factor one gets with B & W. Color very often means Hollywood glitz, and doesn't seem to work well with this type of tale.

Anyway, it's not the worst flick ever made. Ben Johnson does a nice job, so does Ellen Burstyn. The latter two deserve four stars for their work here. Sybil Shephard was drop-dead gorgeous at the time.