The only enjoyable thing in The Last Picture Show is watching 22-year-old Jeff Bridges and noticing how he hasn't changed. Other than that, the entire movie is filled with teenage angst and manipulation, not to mention everyone is sleeping with everyone. The football coach's wife is sleeping with one of his athletes, mother and daughter have affairs with the same person, and apparently this "coming-of-age" story involves the teenage girl exploring the trials of "love" by losing her virginity to the most accessible person in order to find a worthy husband(?), her only goal in life..... To say the least she really could have used a beating over the head with The Feminine Mystique.
Basically, this movie lost me pretty much from the beginning. The only thing that made sense was the use of black and white film and choice of a drab location to match the tone of the story: boring. If it hadn't been for this challenge I probably would have turned the movie off. Instead of trying to portray small-town Texas in the 50's, the movie seems as though it was actually filmed in the early 50's (not 1971) due to its extreme lack of inventiveness and color, on many levels.
Definitely would not recommend this movie unless you are a serious movie buff. One positive review I read about this film stated that the 'choppy, awkward transitions and stream of consciousness-like scripting' was supposed to reflect reality, but if this is what reality was actually like in small-town Texas during the 1950s, I would have contemplated the closest thing to suicide.
My Rating:
Visual - 4
Acting - 4
Script/Story - 4
Attention - 1
Emotion - 1
Total = 14/50 (bottom of the bottom)
