Episode 41: MIDNIGHT COWBOY
We've made it into the twenties on our Best Picture countdown and get to chew over John Schlesinger's polarizing 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy. This is our third episode on a Dustin Hoffman film, following Rain Man and Kramer vs. Kramer. Hoffman plays Ratso Rizzo, a lowlife con man, and Jon Voigt shares the lead as Joe Buck, a naive Texas whose dreams are dashed in the Big Apple.
A sordid tale of a couple of men on the lowest rung of society, is it a humanistic masterpiece or just a slog? Turn in to find out our takes on Midnight Cowboy.
Itranks at number 29 on our Best Picture Countdown,* so it can't be all bad, right? Join us next week for The Sound of Music, which is pretty much the same movie.
Spoiler Alert: We talk about the movie in its entirety, so if you haven't yet seen it, check it out. Or not. That ball is in your court.
*What is this list?
We explain it in more detail in our Trailer and its Description, but as a high-level answer: we aggregated several different lists that rank the ninety-four winners of the Best Picture Academy Award in a rough attempt to get a consensus. It is not intended to be rigorous or definitive. It's just a framework to guide our journey through cinema history.