Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: The Last Picture Show (1971)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives tonight. It's focused on Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show. You still have time to participate! Here's Cláudio's entry.

Bogdanovich drops the audience inside a cold domestic scene early in The Last Picture Show. In the Farrow household, resentments and disappointments permeate the air, each individual stuck in their little bubble of dissatisfied placidity. Together yet alone, the Farrows' silence is a nervous thing, like a fly's wilting buzz as it suffocates in insecticide. Perchance to disrupt the muted disquiet, the matriarch enters her daughter's room and sparks a conversation. She tries to advise the younger woman, so she doesn't make the same mistakes her mother did. Mistakes like staying in their small Texan town, dying from boredom like the fly dies from bug spray.

"Everything's flat and empty here. There's nothing to do." – says Ellen Burstyn's Lois, her words reverberating through the film's most potent images…

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Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022)

by Eric Blume

Oscar-nominated director Peter Bogdanovich has died at age 82.  Famous primarily for directing three classic films consecutively early in his career, he was a true lover of the medium and a key influence on fostering in a new energy in American cinema during the 1970s. 

Bogdanovich's early career was as a film programmer for New Yorks' Museum of Modern Art.  He watched over 400 films a year and kept reviews for each one of them.  His passion for and understanding of film got him a gig as assistant to Roger Corman, who helped him direct his first film, Targets, in 1968.  This led to the three-film master stretch for which Bogdanovich is most remembered and treasured...

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Almost There: Cher in "Mask"

by Cláudio Alves

To commemorate Cher's 75th birthday, I'm dedicating this week's "Almost There" to a celebration of the superstar. For someone who gained fame as a singer and TV personality, Cher's an acting powerhouse. Over the years, she has amassed a small but impressive filmography. In 1985, after proving her dramatic abilities in supporting roles, directed by Robert Altman and Mike Nichols, Cher got her first leading part in Peter Bogdanovich's Mask. She wowed critics, filmgoers, and festival juries worldwide, and many predicted her for a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Even Cher herself seemed to believe she deserved the honor. Unfortunately, AMPAS disagreed…

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Almost There: Madeline Kahn in "What's Up, Doc?"

by Cláudio Alves

There's a generalized belief that the Oscars are allergic to comedy. While that's not completely accurate, there's a kernel of truth in the statement. The Academy tends to prefer weighty dramas that signal their importance instead of light comedy. Considering the inherent subjectivity of humor and the way people tend to rile against any comedic Oscar champion (Birdman, The Artist, Shakespeare in Love, etc.), it's easy to understand why so few funny pictures get the most desired golden statuettes in Hollywood. Even this very series has been guilty of overlooking great comedic performances and focusing mostly on heavyweight drama, preferring tears to guffaws.

Well, it's time to change that and there's no better way to do it than by examining the hilarity of one of cinema's funniest women in one of New Hollywood's greatest farces. We're talking about the inimitable Madeline Kahn in What's Up, Doc?…

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Bogdanovich on Filmstruck

by Eric Blume

This month, Filmstruck offers up the one-two-three early 1970s punch of director Peter Bogdanovich.  Can you think of any other filmmaker who made three such incredible pictures within a three-year period, only to fade into a disastrous career afterwards?

1971’s The Last Picture Show holds up incredibly well, and ranks as one of the decade’s finest pictures. This film about various lonely souls who have no clue how to connect still resonates powerfully, partially because Bodganovich is unapologetically “adult” in his handling of these story strands. Nothing feels watered-down or soft, and all the characters have edges that make them specific and interesting. Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman deservedly won supporting Oscars that year for their fine performances, but everyone in the cast delivers beautiful work. There’s a simplicity to the acting, in the best sense: everybody just “is”. Bodganovich has confidence with the material, and he’s passionate about the storytelling. There’s a lingering sadness about the picture that feels distinct in tone, matched perfectly to Larry McMurtry’s original prose and to the characters.

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