Best Texas Movie - Last Picture Show (San Antonio, Abilene: to rent, closing)

[SamKen]

Personally, I like Legend of Billy Jean, which was shot in Corpus Christi.

It was the feature movie debut of Christian Slater. The actress who provides the voice of Lisa Simpson was in the movie as well.

Its nowhere near the status of The Last Picture Show or The Searchers, but its holds a special place in my heart.

[TexasGirl@Heart]

OK...at the risk of getting flamed here...I'm going to state my opinion

I just finished watching The Last Picture Show and found it almost depressing. Can some of you explain WHY you liked this movie so much?

I will stand by my favs...
Lonesome Dove
2nd Hand Lions

[Cowboybootnut]

Originally Posted by Texanwannabe

OK...at the risk of getting flamed here...I'm going to state my opinion

I just finished watching The Last Picture Show and found it almost depressing. Can some of you explain WHY you liked this movie so much?

I will stand by my favs...
Lonesome Dove
2nd Hand Lions

Cybill Shepherd got nekkid!

[catman]

The Last Picture Show is rather depressing, but it's still a great movie.

[TexasGirl@Heart]

Originally Posted by catman

The Last Picture Show is rather depressing, but it's still a great movie.

Why is it a great movie in your mind?

[neotextist]

Originally Posted by loves2read

There are so many movies shot in TX that it does not seem just to have just one BEST movie so I started a list with several categories and films of my choice in each--and ech movie listed was shot at least partly IN Texas as well as being set in whole or part in Texas...except for a couplr of categories at the end...it was about TX but not shot there I did not include it...

BEST PERIOD TX MOVIE== Last Picture Show, Places in the Heart, Bonnie and Clyde, Raggedy Man, Great Debaters, Trip to Bountiful,;

BEST MODERN DAY TX MOVIE--No Country for Old Men, 3 Burials, Urban Cowboy, Alamo Bay, The King,

BEST Movie about TX history--The Alamo (2004) , The Alamo original,

BEST TX DRAMA—Hud; Giant; Apollo 13; Terms of Endearment; Paris, TX;

BEST TX CRIME/MYSTERY MOVIE--The Getaway (Steve McQueen version), Blood Simple, Lone Star, Flesh and Bone, The Border, From Dusk to Dawn

BEST TX WESTERN/COWBOY MOVIE== Lonesome Dove, All the Pretty Horses, Two Rode Together,

BEST MUSICAL TX MOVIE--Tender Mercies, Selena, Honeysuckle Rose, Best Little Whorehouse

BEST SMALL-TOWN TX MOVIE--Last Picture Show, Hope Floats, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,

BEST TX COMEDY--Sugarland Express, Viva Max, Slacker, Office Space, Second-Hand Lions, Necessary Roughness,

BEST TEEN MOVIE SET IN TX==Dazed and Confused, Dancer, TX, Fandango, Varsity Blues

BEST TX SPORTS FILM--Friday Night Lights, The Rookie, Glory Road, 8 Seconds (The Lane Frost Story), Tin Cup, North Dallas Forty,

BEST HORROR TX MOVIE although using BEST about this category can be ironic== Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Piranha, The Faculty,

BEST WHIMSICAL TX MOVIE, Brewster McCloud, Aurora Encounter, Cloak and Dagger

BEST TX LOVE STORY-- Jason's Lyric, Hope Floats, Waltz Across Texas,

BEST MOVIE FEATURING TX AS LOCATION SHOT—Michael, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Borat, JFK, Any Given Sunday, The Beautiful Country,

BEST MOVIE SHOT IN TX W/O CARING IT'S IN TX---Boys Don’t Cry, Rushmore, Silkwood, RoboCop, Logan's Run, War at Home, Powder,

BEST MOVIE SET IN TX BUT SHOT ELSEWHERE—Days of Heaven; Rocky Horror Picture Show (set outside Denton, TX believe it or not); Red River and The Searchers (sad to say but true); Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean; Love Field, The Good Girl; Happy, Texas; Home from the Hill (just 1 scene in TX); Buddy Holly Story (nothing shot in TX); San Antonio,

TACKIEST MOVIE SHOT IN TX—Return to Boggy Creek, Lone Star State of Mind, Man of the House, True Stories, Little Boy Blue

BEST DOCUMENTARY IN/ABOUT TX—Thin, Blue Line; Hands on a Hard Body, Last Man Standing (about politics in TX) Enron--the smartest guys in the room...

Good list. Don't forget Reality Bites.

[Lakewooder]

Growing up in Dallas I got to see parts of the filming of "State Fair", "Logan's Run" and "Phantom of Paradise".

Of course I was just a tiny child for "State Fair" but when you watch the carousel scene the kids on it were all older kids at Lakewood Elementary.

I remember everyone trying to get a glimpse of Ann-Margret and Pat Boone (surprisingly Bobby Darin didn't seem to rate much above Wally Cox). But my Daddy was looking for Alice Faye.

[JamesAbilene]

Originally Posted by Texanwannabe

Why is it a great movie in your mind?

It is a bitter sweet telling of a period of time in which I grew up in West Texas. I suppose the nostalgia factor more than anything else is why I like the movie. It also reminds me of the things that have been lost in many West Texas towns as population and growth moved east and the small towns died...and their picture shows closed up...along with everything else. Depressing? Yes. But honest.

[loves2read]

The Last Picture show is compelling, honest, compassionate, humorous, ironic and iconic.
McMurtry's writing has been almost seemlessly encapsulated into the virtual realm of 1950s of rural (was there any other) West Texas by Peter Bogdanovich with the strength of character and artistic genius to let McMurtry's words speak for themselves. Watching The Last Picture Show, you enter a time warp of major proportions--it is a small, very focused microcosm of what it was like to be in that place at that time...
whether you were or not---
We care about the characters--and yes, it is depressing because their lives have little reward and less hope....Billy's death is totally accidental but not without foreshadowning...Sonny's development and interactions with McMurtry's other characters over the course of the movie brings out the dilemma most people face between satisfying their own desires and doing what their conscience says is right --
life is not fair is McMurtry's mantra so you better get used to it and cowboy up...

[loves2read]

and I try to forget Reality Bites -- shot in Houston but just don't like the characters (and some of the actors)...Stiller has an over-inflated sense of his own ability as a director and actor and this is a hymn to self-absorption and bad acting