Review of The Last Picture Show (1971) by Kenneth S — 09 Feb 2010

"The more things change, the more things stay the same.".

I live in small-town America (a town of 500 people) and I can say that my local school might meet the chopping block in the next few years, and this film only cements that attitude. If anything, The Last Picture Show is the picture of what every small town in the USA will look like when the local people finally die out. Everybody is bored and the only way they can feel release is by boozing it up, sleeping around and cruising up and down the same streets that never change. Even in the day of modern digital technology, I still see the teens now acting as the teens of only a generation ago. They are either condemned to die here or to escape to a bigger haven that may not be much better, far better or even far worse. This film is an elegant expression of America's dying rural youth, and I love it so.