Review of The Last Picture Show (1971) by Wayne K — 08 May 2017

A tale of endless tedium and unbearable length, The Last Picture Show is a painfully overrated 'Classic' that I want to say has aged badly, but looks so awful that it was probably outdated all the way back in 1971.

A supposed coming of age tale, where everybody acts like idiots and we're supposed to sympathise them because they're 'young and wild'. It's hard to tell what's worse here. The story, which is virtually non-existent; the acting, which is awful; or the pacing, which is sluggish to the point that it never feels like it's moving at all.

Ben Johnson & Cloris Leachman, both of whom won acting Oscars, are barely in the film at all, and honestly don't deserve the awards for what they contribute to the film. The lead actor, Sam Bottoms, a man with one facial expression: Suffering from mild toothache, is a bad lead, and neither he nor any of the other principle characters ever become engaging, and in a movie which is over 2 hours long that makes for seriously dull viewing.

It feels like it actually tries to be boring, as if wasting the audiences time is its sole reason for existing. There's so much dead air in the movie, with so little sound being used, even in scenes where there should at least be environmental noise like wind or the lapping of water against the shore.

I often thought that the sound guy kept forgetting to come to work and score the film. Having watched a couple of scenes he probably decided it would be better to stay away from it all together, advice I sincerely wish I had followed.