For me it was
1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2. The Gal Who Got Rattled
3. All Gold Canyon
4. Near Algodones
5. The Mortal Remains
6. Meal Ticket.
The only one that really sucked was Meal Ticket.
1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2. The Mortal Remains
3. The Gal Who Got Rattled
4. All Gold Canyon
5. Near Algodones
6. Meal Ticket
1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2. The Gal Who Got Rattled
3. All Gold Canyon
4. Meal Ticket.
5. The Mortal Remains (great dialogue)
6. Near Algodones (if it had more Stephen Root in it, could have ranked higher)
1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. It was like Bugs Bunny playing Roy Rogers in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. One of the most original and funny westerns I have ever seen. It was so new and fresh, yet so perfect you wonder how it had never been done before. I want a full length Buster movie!
2. Tie: The Gal Who Got Rattled and Meal Ticket. The two saddest stories. The Gal was truly tragic for everyone involved except the wagon master(who influenced the Gal to shoot herself and thereby unwittingly retained his partner) and had amazing visuals and action. I loved the Indian battle! Meal Ticket was so grim and dark and raised many intriguing questions about the characters and provoked more thought than any other story. I would love to read a novel based on this story. A lot about Meal Ticket reminded me of Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, right down to the ugly fat prostitutes, the sleazy wild west entertainer angle and Liam Neeson's derby hat and fur coat.
3. Another tie: All Gold Canyon and Near Algodones. Near Algodones came out a tiny bit ahead due to the crazy bank teller and the Indian fight, but All Gold Canyon had a refreshing happy ending, beautiful scenery, and was closest to a traditional western story.
4. The Mortal Remains. Nothing at all to enjoy here. Five hateful people I cared nothing about in a claustrophobic setting, enacting a tired out 'dead souls on the road to the afterlife' scenario that we've all seen many times before. The dialogue sounded like something from a movie Quentin Tarantino would have made if he was a philosophy major in his youth instead of a pot-smoking, burger-eating video store clerk. I'm glad this one came last, because I would have stopped watching the movie if it were first or second.
1. All Gold Canyon
2. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
3. Near Algodones
4. Meal Ticket.
5. The Mortal Remains
6. The Gal Who Got Rattled
The Gal had a great Indian attack scene, but much else was mere filler that went over my head.
Mortal was very dire and quite deep, and deserves a higher spot, but alas was beaten by the others.
Meal had such a tough conclusion, with parallels to our own modern lives, it almost hurt. Slow buildup, a bit too slow but in the end, it worked.
Algodones, entertained from.start to finish. Could have watched this as a stretched-out movie.
Ballad was pretty. much like any cowboy movie was imagined by my 10-year self. Had gladly watched the whole movie like this.
Gold had this je ne sais quoi over it, that just worked. And Tom Waits was freaking amazing.
1 The Gal Who Got Rattled
2 Meal Ticket
3 All Gold Canyon
4 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
5 The Mortal Remains
6 Near Algodones
The Gal Who Got Rattled
All Gold Canyon
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Meal Ticket
The Mortal Remains
Near Algodones
1. The Gal Who Got Rattled
2. All Gold Canyon
3. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
4. Meal Ticket
5. Near Algodones
6. The Mortal Remains