The Last Picture show focusses on a bunch of high-school students coming-of-age in a northern Texas town in early 1950's America. As is to be expected in this kind of film we get to witness the usual pitfalls and disagreements that are to be expected with a bunch of youngsters approaching adulthood, but I'm sorry to say that I just didn't care all that much for it.
The Last Picture show has a metascore of 93 out of 100, but this average metascore should really be taken in context now that we are in the year 2021. For a start, those high scores and reviews would have been penned in the early 70's when a film like The Last Picture Show may have perhaps been seen as being unique and different. However, watching it today I got very little out of it; Jacy is the prom-queen type of girl who can have any guy she wants and gets bored very easily; the type of character Jacy portrays in this film has become tenapenny over the years, but even taking that factor out of the equation Jacy is hardly an interesting character. The same can be said for much of the supporting cast who either seem to play shallow/one-dimensional people or the stereotypical dumb hick types that a person may envisage lives in the southern US states. The only character of some interest in this film is Sonny, but even his story arc is rather weak and almost feels incomplete by the film's end.
Slight plus points with the film lie with some of the acting (particularly from the ever reliable Jeff Bridges). The black and white cinematography is good and Bogdanovich captures the era well. Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends as far as I'm concerned; I found the pacing of the film to be appalling, nearly all of the characters were either unlikeable or uninteresting and despite its 2 hour running time the film seemed to have very little to say for itself.
Like I say, back in 71 this film may have been unique and different enough to cut the mustard, but nowadays the glacial pacing, mostly one-dimensional uninteresting characters and the somewhat messy storytelling make the film feel like a relic of its time. Judging by the way the critics have gushed over it and its rather respectable current IMDB score of 8.0 out of 10 there is clearly still an audience for this type of film, but it's not for me I'm afraid.
The Last Picture show has a metascore of 93 out of 100, but this average metascore should really be taken in context now that we are in the year 2021. For a start, those high scores and reviews would have been penned in the early 70's when a film like The Last Picture Show may have perhaps been seen as being unique and different. However, watching it today I got very little out of it; Jacy is the prom-queen type of girl who can have any guy she wants and gets bored very easily; the type of character Jacy portrays in this film has become tenapenny over the years, but even taking that factor out of the equation Jacy is hardly an interesting character. The same can be said for much of the supporting cast who either seem to play shallow/one-dimensional people or the stereotypical dumb hick types that a person may envisage lives in the southern US states. The only character of some interest in this film is Sonny, but even his story arc is rather weak and almost feels incomplete by the film's end.
Slight plus points with the film lie with some of the acting (particularly from the ever reliable Jeff Bridges). The black and white cinematography is good and Bogdanovich captures the era well. Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends as far as I'm concerned; I found the pacing of the film to be appalling, nearly all of the characters were either unlikeable or uninteresting and despite its 2 hour running time the film seemed to have very little to say for itself.
Like I say, back in 71 this film may have been unique and different enough to cut the mustard, but nowadays the glacial pacing, mostly one-dimensional uninteresting characters and the somewhat messy storytelling make the film feel like a relic of its time. Judging by the way the critics have gushed over it and its rather respectable current IMDB score of 8.0 out of 10 there is clearly still an audience for this type of film, but it's not for me I'm afraid.