VISUAL ARTS

A bittersweet Valentine to cinema’s continuing existence even as it dies, Searchers 2.0 brings together several of Cox’s cinematic preoccupations: the landscape of the West, the road movie, a delight in colorful and unique performers and, as the title indicates, the Hollywood Western. The plot concerns the reuniting of two actors who are tracking down the tyrannical screenwriter who had terrorized them years before on a film shoot. The two have never become stars, but they continue to work as extras and character actors in a continual stream of low-budget genre films. They remain film lovers and pass the time on their road trip talking about movies. As they zero in on their prey, we see the West of Monument Valley but also a place full of SUVs and memorials to soldiers dead in Iraq or Afghanistan.