Tag: Carter Burwell

REVIEW: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Brendon Gleeson and Colin Farrell’s characters at the pub in Martin McDonagh’s latest hit THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN — PHOTO: Searchlight Pictures.

Directed by Martin McDonagh — Screenplay by Martin McDonagh.

By now, Martin McDonagh, a long-time celebrated British-Irish playwright, has established himself as a brilliant writer-director with a home in the dark comedy genre. His Oscar-winning short Six Shooter, as well as his equally excellent first two features In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, set up his name as one to keep an eye on as a filmmaker. With Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, McDonagh had a genuine awards frontrunner, and that extra spotlight, or magnifying glass, revealed a far more divisive and controversial film than the 7 Oscar nominations (and excellent Rotten Tomatoes score) may have made general audiences suspect. I’ve enjoyed all of McDonagh’s films, including Six Shooter, but Three Billboards didn’t land as well for me as In Bruges or Seven Psychopaths had. Therefore it makes me happy to say that The Banshees of Inisherin, his latest film, is a return to form and arguably as good as, if not better than, In Bruges. 

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REVIEW: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs — Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Netflix has come a long way since its first original film in the western genre, 2015’s The Ridiculous Six, which was so poorly received that it still now, at the time of writing, has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes‘ Tomatometer. Not a single Rotten Tomatoes approved critic liked the film that I called “possibly the worst film of 2015.”

Now here we are in November of 2018, and now Netflix has a new western original film to champion. Netflix has teamed up with the widely celebrated Coen Brothers to release a collection of American western stories presented as an anthology film and not as a series, as it was previously reported as. The Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is hysterical, sad, and morbid, and it is one of my favorite films of the year thus far.  Continue reading “REVIEW: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)” →