The line between television and cinema continues to blur. Conceived, written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” was originally intended to be a multipart limited series. Instead, it was completed as an anthology within a single movie and screened at the Venice Film Festival at the end of the summer, where it won a best screenplay award.
Now streaming on Netflix, it stars Tim Blake Nelson (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) in the title segment. Other stories feature James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits and Tyne Daly. Like a lot of Coen brothers’ efforts, “Scruggs” plays with a film genre, in this case the Western, and sends it up in their unique knowing way.
