Friday, June 23, 2006

 

Friday Movie Review

Went to see A Prairie Home Companion with Sheila. I was less than impressed with the trailer, but against my better judgment, I went--it's a Robert Altman film after all. Before I get to the review, here is an illustrative story. I've never listened to more than a few seconds of the NPR show of the same name, so this story comes from TV, HBO to be precise and the wonderful police series there, The Wire, about to start its fourth season. The genius of The Wire is that it can make you like and care for the ignorant young drug dealers, as much as you like and care for the cops. One of Avon's crew who has survived so far is going in a car up to Philadelphia to accept and transport a large shipment of heroin. He tells the older drug dealer, driving the car, that he has never been outside of Baltimore (and he says it properly, with no 't') and has therefore never listened to a radio station other than Baltimore stations his entire (though short) life. He turns on the radio to tune in to a Philadelphia station and he's very excited. But it's NPR and A Prairie Home Companion and after about 6 seconds listening, the excitement has drained away, he looks pretty disgusted, and he says: 'These stations in Philadelphia suck!' (or words to that effect). It's an apropos story.

The movie version sucks. I mean it's bad from the very beginning and not funny once until Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly start telling jokes. It's also pretty pointless-- 105 minutes of my life I'll never get back. What is the private eye (Roy Noir--my how droll) stuff at the start? It leads nowhere--and Klein, for all his talents, is not a gifted comic actor, particularly not a gifted physical comic actor (and apparently A Fish Called Wanda was a fluke--no pun intended). And what's with the Angel? Silly, pointless, stupid and not funny. And I'm being way kind.

Altman is known to abuse marijuana and sometimes his movies click and sometimes they look like they might have seemed funny to someone really stoned but just seem silly, pointless, stupid and not funny to us non-smokers. He's known just to let the actors go to it with no real script--just the most basic of outlines. He tried that here. Nothing clicked. Particularly, painfully bad was the ad lib portion about peacocks and dogs and chain saws and duct tape--all with sound effects. I'm never using duct tape again just to punish someone for that abomination. He's been known to hide clues to arcane and eldritch connections between the characters. He tried that too. Like anyone cared. In Nashville, the actors sang the Country songs and some of them wrote some. Ditto. There's the overlapping dialogue. There's the intercom announcements like in MASH. Silly, pointless, stupid and not funny. In short, he tries to be quintessential Altman and nothing, and I mean nothing, works.

When Jerry Springer played himself in his dog's breakfast of a movie, Ringmaster, the critics said he was such a bad actor that he could not play himself convincingly. Garrison Keillor can play himself convincingly, but who would want to?

It was good to see that L.Q. Jones is alive and well (but pretty old). A Boy and His Dog, which he directed, remains the best science fiction film between 2001 and Star Wars (I know that's only 8 years, but still..)

The median age for the audience was post-retirement. Now I know who's listening to NPR on Saturday evening. It's funny, only Streep, who's looking pretty matronly, sounded like she was from Minnesoootah. And did Lilly Tomlin have those breasts when she was on Laugh In? I don't think so. And who the hell is Maya Rudolph? And what exactly was her job at the radio show?

Do not waste your money on this. I'm serious. Don't even watch it when it comes on TV.

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