Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

BUCK (2011)

With his painful past as an abused child performer and his peaceful present as an acclaimed ‘horse whisperer,’ it’s easy to see the documentary potential in the life & ‘aw-shucks’ cowboy philosophy of Buck Brannaman. But as he travels around America’s photogenic landscapes, sometimes accompanied by his charming wife, daughter & feisty foster Mother, giving his 4-day horse clinics, the obvious draw of the man & his profession gets scuppered by inept execution in this debut from producer/director Cindy Meehl. She, and her crew, seem to miss every shot, then fill in with backlit vistas or oddly framed personal interviews. We never do get much of a feeling for whatever it is Buck does, and the traveling format doesn’t give us much time to get ‘personal’ with any of the horses. And when she does cull one from the herd, the horse turns out to be an unteachable scary mental case. Surely, there's a better film hiding somewhere in Meehl’s mass of footage.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: With its heart in the right place, its nice protagonists and even a cameo from that fictional horse whisperer, Robert Redford, BUCK won an Audience Choice Award @ Sundance. Tells you more about Sundance than the film tells you about Buck.

No comments: