The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Coen Brothers Netflix series turned portmanteau movie

he was great

The more i think about this overall, the more I like it

I like the final segment a lot. It's funny and it's nice to have one that's all dialogue, since the others are filled with characters who either don't talk much or are having one-sided conversations.

this was a lot better than i had expected. still somewhat half-assed in execution and obviously "a minor work" as you'd expect for a netflix orig, but imo the episodic structure is a good venue for that. the violence was fun

I just read the Jack London story that the Tom Waits segment is based on. Nothing about a leprechaun in there (although we can't dismiss the possibility of the Coens taking some artistic license)

each segment should've ended in a freeze frame that morphs into a comic book page. then the crypt keeper comes on and makes some wacky macabre pun about the ordeal.

plus cackling

although we can't dismiss the possibility of the Coens taking some artistic license

That's my thinking. I mean, why wouldn't they?

I shared the leprechaun theory with a colleague at my department Christmas party last night, and he laughed for a solid minute.

I'ma die on this hill I guess.

the funny thing is it's the kind of detail that's open to interpretation (imo) and also totally inconsequential to the general tenor of the story

Yeah. It's in no way important to the story itself. It's completely a creation of the costume designer and maybe/maybe not the Coens being silly.

there is a supernatural air to this passage from the story tbf

He did not spring up nor look around. He did not move. He was considering the nature of the premonition he had received, trying to locate the source of the mysterious force that had warned him, striving to sense the imperative presence of the unseen thing that threatened him. There is an aura of things hostile, made manifest by messengers refined for the senses to know; and this aura he felt, but knew not how he felt it. His was the feeling as when a cloud passes over the sun. It seemed that between him and life had passed something dark and smothering and menacing; a gloom, as it were, that swallowed up life and made for death—his death.

Every force of his being impelled him to spring up and confront the unseen danger, but his soul dominated the panic, and he remained squatting on his heels, in his hands a chunk of gold. He did not dare to look around, but he knew by now that there was something behind him and above him. He made believe to be interested in the gold in his hand. He examined it critically, turned it over and over, and rubbed the dirt from it. And all the time he knew that something behind him was looking at the gold over his shoulder. Still feigning interest in the chunk of gold in his hand, he listened intently and he heard the breathing of the thing behind him. Possibly it was a leprechaun of some kind.

lol

impeccable timing

https://i.makeagif.com/media/2-24-2017/Q7r-nN.gif

HAHAHA

excellent

I need to rewatch, but I totally think it's possible the Coens saw the Leprechaun parallels and played into it a bit without literally trying to say the dude was a Leprechaun.

Leprechauns? That's where the Coens are Vikings!

Leprechaun Returns out today fyi

n 'All Gold Canyon,' the stranger/claim jumper who shot Tom Waits' prospector in the back was actually a leprechaun protecting his "pot o' gold," y/n?

He's wearing all green, he's appears out of nowhere, and he doesn't act with any urgency to collect the gold Waits found. He, instead, smokes a cigarette calmly and sits down like "got another one."

When I first read this, I thought you were literally saying that the character is a leprechaun and this is a salient part of the plot, which seemed far-fetched. If the idea is more that the costume designer was drawing on leprechaun-like archetypes in the character's outfit, as a sort of joke, without it necessarily making the character a leprechaun in any substantive way that would matter to the story, that does seem more plausible.

what if leprechauns were just a mythical representation of claim jumpers the whole time? always hoarding gold, just out of our reach

In the original Jack London story, the fact that the gold does NOT belong to the claim jumper is absolutely essential to the story. Even hinting that this was in some way a legitimate act, protecting the murderer's legitimate rights to the gold turns the entire story on its head.

But such a reversal of roles makes zero sense. The deeper moral outrage of the story is predicated on the idea that, not only does the stranger murder the prospector for the gold, but he purposely waits around before killing him, so the prospector would do all the hard physical work for him. He not just greedy and violent, he's lazy, too.

did anyone imply the claim jumper was ever in the right

I mean, it would be implied if he was a leprechaun...

so mythical beings have property rights now? pshaw

ersatz pshaw. I'm not buying it.

I need to rewatch, but I totally think it's possible the Coens saw the Leprechaun parallels and played into it a bit without literally trying to say the dude was a Leprechaun.

― circa1916, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:28 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you! Seriously...

Just what are the property rights of leprechauns, this needs to be sorted out

They own this shit over here, ok?

https://media.fromthegrapevine.com/assets/images/2017/2/rainbow-israel-0208.jpg.480x0_q71_crop-scale.jpg

Aimless otm

“claim jumper is a leprechaun” makes the whole story so on the nose as to be pointless. leave Johnny Fever to his lucky charms fanfic, i beg you all

hmmm, you eat lucky charms from a cereal bowl

I started watching this. First 2 segments are solid gold. 3rd is weird but kind of interesting. 4th is kinda boring so far.

I generally liked this! No outright bad episodes -- though the most promising, with Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck, is where I overdosed on the cruelty -- and several ace ones, including the Tom Waits prospector and "The Meal Ticket."

I am familiar with counting chickens in sideshows.

Yeah, “Meal Ticket” and “The Prospector” are def the two that have stayed with me the most, I still think about them a lot.

also where do you stand on ‘claimjumper is a leprechaun’

hadn't occurred to me, sure n' begorrah

I'm willing to accept the guy as a leprechaun because it's not the only, or even the most, unrealistic thing in the episode. The prospector gets shot in the back and just carries on like nbd? They're both supernatural beings!

I honestly thought that happens all the time in the US tbh.

"Hyper-resilient old prospector" makes more sense to me in the context of a Western homage than "gun-wielding, smoking, human-sized leprechaun stopping by from Celtic myths to protect a pocket of gold".

Tbf I never said he WAS a leprechaun, I said he LOOKED like a leprechaun

I need to rewatch, but I totally think it's possible the Coens saw the Leprechaun parallels and played into it a bit without literally trying to say the dude was a Leprechaun.

― circa1916, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:28 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I need to rewatch, but I totally think it's possible the Coens saw the Leprechaun parallels and played into it a bit without literally trying to say the dude was a Leprechaun.

― circa1916, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:28 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I need to rewatch, but I totally think it's possible the Coens saw the Leprechaun parallels and played into it a bit without literally trying to say the dude was a Leprechaun.

― circa1916, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:28 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Hyper-resilient old prospector" makes more sense to me in the context of a Western homage than "gun-wielding, smoking, human-sized leprechaun stopping by from Celtic myths to protect a pocket of gold".

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, December 20, 2018 9:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coen Brothers, meet Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Gaiman, meet the Coen Brothers.

The prospector gets shot in the back and just carries on like nbd?

IT DINT HIT NOTHIN' IMPORTANT

Johnny Fever originated the leprechaun theory, and as far as I can tell he did mean a literal leprechaun

yeah, well

btw Nelson, Kazan and Bill Heck did a Q&A after the screening at MoMA last night. Nelson said he first saw a script or treatment for his segment in 2002, I think?

Kazan said she prepared by re-reading Willa Cather. Not the history ("I'd done a shit-ton of research for Meek's Cutoff" -- which i'd forgotten she was in).

The digitalness of the imagery was distracting at times, like in the opening scene, where I doubt TB Nelson was anywhere near Monument Valley.

The whole YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY oregon trail bit I did tap out on tbrh

cholera, i'm pretty sure

this was def the hottest i've seen Franco looking in years... but Bill Heck tops him (heh heh)

I not only found Franco attractive in the film (which is rare) but I actually enjoyed his performance (which is even rarer).