Review of The Last Picture Show (1971) by Zachary S — 22 Jan 2009

This was a pretty interesting film. I heard about it when Peter Bogdanovich came to speak at my school as a keynote for our film festival. My dad subsequently checked it out and said it was a good movie, and after finding it in my schools library, figured I'd check it out myself.

The film is a very personal coming of age tale. Many of the characters are able to be related to, even though the film was made in the 70s. It also houses a very very young Jeff Bridges, who I recently discovered how many films I've seen him in and not even known it.

The character development is also pretty good. The camera work itself didn't house much special, but the choice to use black and white instead of color was a good choice. It made the bleak town the story takes place that much more desolate and empty.

One of the more humorous aspects of the film was it's inclusion of "Blue Velvet," the song that the Lynch film is named after--which I just watched a few days ago.

All in all this is a classic coming of age story that is timeless extraordinarily entertaining. This should definitely be checked out. Great film.