Texasville

Larry McMurtry's novel was a sequel to The Last Picture Show, picking up with the same characters in the 1980s, after the Texas oil boom had gone bust. Peter Bogdanovich, down on his luck, was tapped to direct and managed to reassemble much of the original cast: Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, and Randy Quaid. Where Picture Show focused on Bottoms's character, this episode centers on Bridges. Fending off creditors, dealing badly with middle age, and drinking too much, he reconnects with Shepherd when she returns to town. But there's not a lot of plot; rather, this is a meditation on the disappointments life can hand out. Bridges, as always, is solid; Bottoms, something of a lost soul in his acting career, seems typecast as the achiever who never recovered from the shell shock of the Korean War. Still, an interesting companion piece to the first film. --Marshall Fine