Texasville

1990 "It's not a place... It's a state of mind."
Texasville
6| 2h3m| R| en| More Info
Released: 28 September 1990 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Summer, 1984: 30 years after Duane captained the high school football team and Jacy was homecoming queen, this Texas town near Wichita Falls prepares for its centennial. Oil prices are down, banks are failing, and Duane's $12 million in debt. His wife Karla drinks too much, his children are always in trouble, and he tom-cats around with the wives of friends. Jacy's back in town, after a mildly successful acting career, life in Italy, and the death of her son. Folks assume Duane and Jacy will resume their high school romance. And Sonny is "tired in his mind," causing worries for his safety. Can these friends find equilibrium in middle age?

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Scarecrow-88 Jacy Farrow(Cybill Shepherd)returns to Texasville where she was the homecoming queen for the town's celebrated Cintennial. Automatically old feelings are bound to return, though middle age has shaped Duane Jackson(Jeff Bridges)into a man who buries most of his feelings, yet he isn't prone to conflict. This film rarely has any outbursts despite the adulteries both Duane and his wife Karla(Annie Potts)are having on the side. Their marriage is one of many things focused on in this character study which can bring a multitude of emotions thanks in part to a cast who forms complex performances to the forefront. Returning from the original are Ruth Popper(Cloris Leachman)still very much in love with Sonny(Timothy Bottoms)who is slowly losing his grip on reality seeing things from the past which aren't there to anyone but him. Ruth is under the employ of Duane whose oil business is drowning in debt. Lester(Randy Quaid)is a banker now, Genevieve(Eileen Brennan)is still around as a gal Duane and others can chit chat with. Duane has a son, Dickie(William McNamara)who frequently dates various rich older women.Doesn't necessarily follow a plot narrative as much as the film is character-driven. We enter their lives at the Cintennial and watch as they go through the little quirky dramas. It isn't your usual drama and goes through various episodic dramas with Duane mostly at the center. What makes the film so odd is the way Duane and Karla remain together without ringing each others' necks. They know that each other jumps in and out of bed with others yet still maintain their family. Even weirder is how Jacy comes right into their lives, possibly a threat towards the marriage, yet she becomes quite good pals with Karla. Nothing operates the way you expect..I like this. I don't believe life follows a narrative thread. We all have our episodic dramas. There isn't always an exact end until we're under the grave. While the cast is very good, Annie Potts is just splendid while Bottoms as the tragic, troubled Sonny gains great sympathy for his mental plight. I just love to watch Bridges, especially when he won't reveal everything, yet when he does speak it often just makes simple sense. If you like heightened melodramas where characters scream and yell(..or, better yet, are directly confrontational), this film isn't for you.
smatysia Some worthwhile performances here. The film does suffer from comparisons to "The Last Picture Show". That film was astonishing in its originality and has become iconic. "Texasville" neither aims so high, nor lands so hard. Nonetheless, the whole atmosphere of sadness calls to mind TLPS, as does the lack of a musical score, the only background being radios or whatever that the characters also hear. The adult characters, who were teen-agers in TLPS never seem to have grown up. At all. As Ebert said, I wonder what Sam the Lion would think of all these people. I seem to have missed all the sex going on in the '50's (OK wasn't born yet) and missed it again in the 80's. Maybe I'll catch that train SOMEDAY.Jeff Bridges put in a great performance here, just as he always does. He never seems to play a character you don't believe. This in films as disparate as this one, "The Fabulous Baker Boys", and, say, "The Big Lebowski". Cybill Shepherd was very good and very beautiful. It probably took some amount of courage for a former model/beauty queen to take this role, that explicitly compares her middle-aged looks to her youthful pulchritude. I thought she still looked great. (But then, I'm middle-aged) Cloris Leachman showed her dramatic talent to wonderful effect. But, saving the best for last, I thought Annie Potts basically stole the show. She was gorgeous, and she so totally nailed her character. Acting doesn't get much better than this.Anyone who liked TLPS (and that's almost everyone) should see this sequel. But don't carry into it unrealistic expectations.
whpratt1 After reading a book written by Cybill Shepherd entitled,"Cybill Disobedience", where she describes in detail a great deal of the behind the scenes in the making of this picture and also "The Last Picture Show". Cybill also mentions the director of this picture, Peter Bogdanovich, a very long time warm and affectionate friend. Cybill played the role as (Jacy Farrow),"The Last Picture Show",'71,along with Jeff Bridges (Duane Jackson). These two were teenage's in high school and did more than skinny dip in the lake. Jacy was a movie star who returned to her hometown after very tragic events in her life and needed the comfort from all her home town friends, especially Duane and his family, including mostly his wife. Cloris Leachman(Ruth Popper),"Never Too Late",'97, gave a great supporting role along with Eileen Brennan(Geneuieve Morgan),"Private Benjamin",'80. Peter Boganovich tried to make this picture into a masterpiece like his award winning "The Last Picture Show" and also "Targets", starring Boris Karloff, but this picture did not quite measure up to his high standards of Directing! Cybill Shepherd & Jeff Bridges great acting skills made this film worth WATCHING!
esteban1747 Interesting film, it seems that is a real life where everybody does more or less what he/she wants. Jeff Bridges is a rich man, but near to bankruptcy due to many debts, married to a very nice lady (Annie Potts, whom it would have been much better to keep her than to look at others less beautiful than her)with several sons and daughters, living in a large house where everybody did what he/she wanted and were all somewhat hysteric. Bridges tried to escape and to behave like a bee smelling each flower he finds around, some of them wives of his supposed friends. Suddenly a former classmate of Bridges, the actress Jacy Farrow, arrives in the town and starts looking at Bridges asking him for love and sex. It is difficult to understand how his wife (Annie Potts) accepted all this relationship. She could have been the most smartly developed woman of the world, but to accept his husband playing with another woman candidate, it is only seen in films. The end of the film does not give any solution to the problem, but puts the things how really are in the modern society.