The Ballad of Buster Scruggs trailer: Coen brothers fans get six tales of the Old West for the price of one

Coen brothers fans get six movies for the price of one in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology of Western stories starring, among others, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tyne Daly and Tom Waits. The trailer for the film was released by Netflix on Wednesday. The movie, by the team that pulled off an acclaimed remake of the John Wayne-western True Grit in 2010, had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it was one of three Netflix movies competing for the Golden Lion, which eventually went to  Alfonso Cuarón's _Roma_ . [caption id=“attachment_5179551” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] James Franco in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs trailer. YouTube screengrab[/caption] Critics gave a cautious thumbs up to the film. “If you were going to be cynical about it, you might say The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is still a Netflix series — it’s just one that the Coens are forcing you to binge-watch,” said Variety’s Owen Gleiberman. “The movie runs 135 minutes, and since the episodes are uneven in quality (though the best of them seize and hold you), you may feel, at moments, that it’s too much of a just-okay thing.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called The Ballad of Buster Scruggs “a hilarious, beautifully made, very enjoyable and rather disturbing anthology … vignettes that switch with stunning force from picturesque sentimentality to grisly violence.” The cast includes Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Harry Melling, Jonjo O’Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, Clancy Brown, Jefferson Mays, Stephen Root and Willie Watson. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will be available for streaming on Netflix and release in select US theaters on 16 November. Watch the trailer here:

(With inputs from Reuters)