Movie Review: Last Picture Show (1971)

Bogdanovich’s big score w/ McMurtry gold __ 10/10

Last Picture ShowJacy Farrow: Why can’t I go to college here in Wichita Falls?
Lois Farrow: Because everything is flat and empty here…
nothing to do.

When this movie came out in 1971—well before the advent of Siskel and Ebert—it was highly celebrated in the artistic community, and it seemed all the commentary feted the young director Bogdanovich as the next great genius in moviedom. I remember watching this one at a semi-art theaters in Birmingham, Michigan. And being a 22-year-old firebrand Randian libertarian at the time, I blithely pigeonholed the movie as “naturalistic,” which was close to “behaviorism” in Rand’s basement of epithets.[1] Continue reading