So, first I will say, we took a bit of a break there in between movies. Which is inevitable this time of year with all the fall TV starting and catching up on our TV on DVD. Plus this is an election year, and I am an active member of my political party, which means even less time for movie watching. So, we finally got through our backlog of TV shows and the election is almost here, so I only have a few days of campaign volunteering left, which means it's time to get back to our list. But let's not pretend that we are going to get through these movies quickly. I'll be happy if we can get through all 100+ movies by the end of 2017. By which point, there will probably be a new list to add in, and we will have to add some movies to the list. This is not a short term project...
But, enough babble, let's talk about the movie at hand. When we saw this movie on the list, neither of us had any idea what it was, since it was made before we were both born. If I had to guess, I would maybe have said it was probably about Hollywood or the entertainment industry. I also had never heard of the book it is based on, by Larry McMurtry. Which shouldn't surprise anyone since, even though I'm pretty well read, I don't like westerns and my primary experience with Larry McMurtry is Lonesome Dove. This particular story is not a western, though. It is instead a story about a small Texas town during the 1950s. It was shot entirely in black and white, apparently on the advice of Orson Welles (fascinating, right!). And it involves a surprising amount of full frontal nudity. But there's a reason for that. The movie industry had recently decided to abandon the Hayes Code and move to a ratings system (which we still have). Which meant that there was a lot of nudity going on in the movies around that time.
This is also the movie that launched the careers of Cybill Shepherd and Randy Quaid. It also resulted in acting Oscars for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman and a bunch of other Oscar nominations. So, cleary, the film industry loved this movie. Did we love this movie? Not really. We didn't hate it either. But I just wonder if it has really stood the test of time. I didn't really identify with any of the characters and I thought that the plot was sort of boring. But the movie was watchable and the acting was good. So, other than the nudity and the Wow! look how young Jeff Bridges is! moments, it was just kind of okay. So, we decided to place this at the current #4 on our list, which currently looks like this:
1. Do The Right Thing (1989)
2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
3. Blade Runner (1982)
4. The Last Picture Show (1971)
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
6. Toy Story (1995)
7. Ben-Hur (1959)
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