The Coen Brothers' best? Netflix's THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS soars, even as it knocks you for a long, dark, funny loop

The brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (shown below, with Ethan on the left) may be better known for their directing efforts, but in actuality the pair possesses more credits in writing than it does in directing. And while TrustMovies has long thought the brothers to be among our finest current film writers, it took their latest movie, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, available now via Netflix streaming, to make me realize just how goddamned good they really are.

The level of dialog here -- the intelligence, wit and in particular the "period" authenticity -- from all the characters in each of the six tales told seems so incredibly perfect (often utterly juicy) that one can only listen in rapt attention and marvel throughout.

The tales themselves are terrific -- one as different from the next as you could want -- yet possessing the consistent Coen theme of a dark universe, full of irony and humor, in which almost no one comes to a good end. (And really now, no one ever does, right? There are good and vastly varied middles maybe, but the end is always the same.) Yet most (well, some) of the folk we meet here are fine people deserving of as much good as they can muster.

The movie begins with its most light-hearted and even silly story, starring that wonderful actor Tim Blake Nelson (above) as a singing gunfighter who is just a tad too besotted with his own aura and reputation. The episode is as hilarious and goofy as anything the Coens have given us.

We then move to the tale of a doofus would-be bank-robber (played by a wonderful James Franco, above) in, again, a tale as dark and funny as you'll find. Mr. Franco gets the movie's most hilarious line, "This your first time?", and trust me, context is all here.

The third episode is one of the darkest I've yet seen, in which actual original dialog goes all but missing and we are treated to perhaps the oddest recitations of great writing -- from Shakespeare to Shelley and back -- you'll have ever seen/heard. Liam Neeson, Harry Melling (above) and a gifted chicken weave a story as bleak as any recorded, and the Coens tell it in a manner that proves almost as beautiful as it is deadly.

Tom Waits stars as a lone gold panner/prospector in the fourth segment, which takes place in the movie's most lushly beautiful scenery and comes closest to a happy conclusion as we're likely to get -- even if the getting there is pretty dry and dark.

The penultimate tale is the longest, richest and most moving, as Zoe Kazan and Jefferson Mays play brother and sister who head west as part of a wagon train led by a couple of very interesting men (Bill Heck and Grainger Hines). Luck, more often of the bad sort, plagues the people here. Each tale leads off and ends with an illustration, as from an old western-themed tome. The one used in this particular segment, along with its accompanying snippet of words, seems somewhat ordinary when we first hear it at the episode's beginning. As heard and seen again at the conclusion, it packs an extraordinary punch.

The final segment involves a stagecoach ride with a quintet of thrown-together passengers -- Jonjo O'Neill, (above, left), Brendan Gleason (above, right), Tyne Daly, Saul Rubinek and Chelcie Ross -- who communicate smugly, angrily and humorously as they head for a rather unusual destination. The dialog here grows as philosophical as it is funny and smart.

So right and so original in so many ways, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs may seem to you as it does to me, one of, perhaps the Coens' best work to date. It's mordant as hell and a lot funnier, too. In an earlier post this week, I referred to Billy Wilder and The Apartment as an example of compassionate cynicism. The Coens bring that odd juxtaposition to equally amazing life with this splendid film.

From Netflix, after one of that behemoth's typically highly limited theatrical runs and now streaming at your pleasure, the movie is certainly one of 2018's very best.

Home video debut for Michael Dunaway and Chris White's slick, surprising and commendable SIX L.A. LOVE STORIES

Just how much quality entertainment can be packed into a sextet of unconnected stories lasting only 77 minutes is demonstrated quite vividly in the just-released-to-home-video indie movie, SIX L.A. LOVE STORIES.

This proved to be one of those films TrustMovies agreed to watch, thinking that at least he'd be doing the publicist a favor, that turned out to be a delightful surprise he would not have wanted to miss.

A sterling example of what decent direction (Michael Dunaway)

and editing (Sean Valla), smart writing (from Mr. Dunaway and Chris White) and most especially the kind of terrific acting that some of tinsel town's finest supporting and ensemble actors can deliver, this little movie actually makes good on what many other vastly more storied and expensive projects fail at: an intelligent, funny, occasionally even moving and always entertaining piece of movie-making.

That cast includes Dunaway, shown at left, who plays (and very well) a big, cuddly teddy bear of an ex-husband to Alicia Witt's ex-wife, meeting ostensibly to discuss the proper school for their young daughter, but delving into other, much more personal things. Ms Witt (below) provides the dramatic high point here, as she navigates near-perfectly a most difficult and confusing few moments of self-revelation.

The writing includes a marvelous riff on Kurt Cobain's pancreas, delivered with in deliciously dry fashion by one of my favorite actors, Ross Partridge (below, whose film Lamb you really ought to see),

playing a "guest" at a rather typical L.A. pool party who has a yen for another guest, an angry young woman essayed with zest and finesse by Ashley Williams, below.

More delightful dialog comes as a recently cuckolded husband (a fine Matthew Lillard, below), confronts his abashed wife with a raft of questions: "Did he use a condom?  Was it one of mine?  Out of my sock drawer!?"

That poor wife (the always wonderful Carrie Preston, below), here as hang-dog as you are likely to have seen her, can only sit and hope and cope.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, a sort of mini-Ted-Talks-marathon is taking place, staged managed by Jennifer Lafleur (below, left), at which one of the guest speakers turns out to be her ex-lover (Ogy Durham, below, right), whose very appearance here has been stage-managed, too.

What L.A. movie would be complete without some "movie industry" fodder? This is provided by the tale of a ditzy would-be screenwriter (Marshall Allman, below) who seems to pride himself on insulting the very folk who try to help him,

and his ex-girlfriend (Jamie Anne Allman, below), who, despite his idiocy and maybe due to how f-ing adorable the kid is, continues to carry a torch.

The funniest story involves the historic home of the famous Will Rogers, and a tour guide/docent at that home (the fabulously funny Beth Grant, below) and her encounter with an academic writer who is not a fan of this Mr. Rogers but who has flown out from New York to visit the house.

The writer is played by that ubiquitous supporting actor Stephen Tobolowsky, and he and Ms Grant make quite the match. These tales, fortunately, are women together so that we spend two, three, maximum four minutes with one and then move to another and another before arriving back to the original again. The pacing proves just about perfect so that we never lose touch with the each plot nor its humor and drama, even though there is no connection between the characters or tales.

The movie has a nice, improvisational quality that carries through all the tales, and it helps immensely that each situation and each set of characters are different enough, one from another, that neither repetition nor similarity ever sets in. What is maybe most surprising here is how very involved we get in these short little stories -- thanks to the very high grade of acting, writing, directing and editing on view. Good job, all! (That's Peter Bogdonovich, below, who makes a guest appearance in the film as one of those Ted-ish-Talks speakers.)

From Random Media and running just 77 minutes, Six L.A. Love Stories made its debut on digital, DVD and VOD this past Tuesday, May 8. It's definitely worth a watch, especially for those who appreciate the movie equivalent of some good "short stories."

VOD debut for Michael J. Saul's short film collection, THE DAYDREAMER'S NOTEBOOK

The name Michael J. Saul was new to me, or so I imagined, when I sat down to view THE DAYDREAMER'S NOTEBOOK, a collection of short films that span a time frame of 36 years of movie-making. Turns out, however, that TrustMovies has indeed reviewed a film by Mr. Saul: his 2015 low-key pot-boiler, The Surface. I didn't much like that film, so I'm pleased to report that viewing a larger chunk of Mr. Saul's work proved a more interesting venture.

This filmmaker, shown at right, seems a good deal better with short films, and perhaps, the shorter the better. If that sounds like a "dig," I don't mean it to be, for what we see here in short form often proves rather lovely, suggestive and elusive. In one of his shortest, Nightcrawler, Saul recalls via narration and visuals, preparation for a fishing trip with his dad, which he evidently hated. The movie shows us why. Two others, Idol and Boat 14, return us to the image of a young man who was perhaps muse to Ms. Saul, David Allan Payne (below), seen in several of the films in this Notebook.

Saul uses slo-mo often, and often beautifully, especially in Euphoria (below and further below), an ode to longing and incipient sexuality that features three beautiful teens engaged in sexual behavior and fantasy, all in glowing black-and-white cinematography that incorporates dance, movement and even some special effects.

The filmmaker's introduction to this collections provides a bit of his history, along with school report cards that feature teachers' comments. We get but a glimpse of who he is/was, as he explains how important daydreaming became to his creative process.

Much of what we see here -- Cons, Idol, Boat 14 -- is archival, and some of the film decay we view may put you (unintentionally) in mind of the work of Bill Morrison, though the two filmmakers have not much else in common, I should think.

The Daydreamer's Notebook, though not overtly homosexual (The Surface gives you plenty of this), is certainly homoerotic. Yet perhaps the best of these shorts is something called Subterranea (above and below), in which Saul combines glorious nature images with sci-fi tropes to form something quite lovely and original. This one doubles as a memorial video to the late Steven M. Miller, who was Saul's collaborator and composer for 30 years, and whose music fills most of this Notebook.

The longest of the films included here -- The Cipher and the Boar (below and at bottom)-- proves the least interesting, though the most time is spent on it and in it (we even get look at the making of this one, together with  a visit to the "premiere" it had back in 1981). Shot on 16-mm, the would-be thriller/horror short tracks two boys (one of them the young Mr. Payne) who stumble upon the house of a very nasty taxidermist.

A kind of dark fairy tale of the Gingerbread House/Hansel & Gretel variety, the movie, told without dialog, is full of fraught, would-be terrifying images that eventually grow repetitive and tiresome. We get what's happening, but it takes too long to arrive. This is also Saul's lengthiest and most "narrative" short in the bunch, so, given my reaction to this one, as well as to his recent narrative film The Surface, I'd call the briefer, elliptical and more experimental work his stronger suit.

Already available for viewing via Amazon Instant Video, the collection arrived on VOD yesterday, August 29, on TLA Video, and will make its debut on Dekkoo, the new all-gay streaming site, sometime this fall.