Category: Comedies - Feature Film-comedy - Movie - Musical Features - Musicals (Theatrical)
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DVD A Prairie Home Companion
Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor combine reality and fantasy in this smooth, ebullient take on the long-running Prairie Home Companion radio show. Set during the show's fictitious last broadcast--the host station has been bought--the film has plenty of elements from the real PHC radiocasts, including a live audience and the sensational Shoe band. The onstage program is mostly music numbers, a beguiling mix of standards and old-style country. However, the show's usual comedy sketches are never presented, save for the commercial parodies--this may be a PHC show, but Lake Wobegone is never mentioned. Instead, the sketches are played out as backstage banter that feautres the Johnson Sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), a harried stage hand (Maya Rudolph), a former listener turned angel (Virginia Madsen), and Keillor himself (a crusty alter-ego named simply G.K.). A few characters from the real PHC are given life: the singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty and gumshoe Guy Noir are embodied by Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, and Kevin Kline, respectively. Old flames are fanned, stories are spun, new talents are found (Lindsay Lohan has a chance to shine as Streep's daughter) and everyone wonders if G.K. will do something to ebb the tide of cancellation (personified by Tommy Lee Jones as the corporate Axeman). All of the actors do right as singers, and seem to be having the time of their life. Keillor's screenplay is perfect fodder for Altman's usual brand of storytelling, as characters babble on with the camera picking them up often in mid-thought. The film appeared a few months after Altman received an honorary Oscar, and the director is still at the top of his game, creating this smile-inducing, song-filled time, ending with an ethereal last musical number. --Doug Thomas
Keilor's religious preoccupations, always just beneath the surface of the radio show broadcasts, are at the center of this film, much darker and sadder than the radio program, flawed in many ways big and small (the angel of death does not really "work" and the last scene is heavy-handed and unsuccessful), yet a good film about things that really do matter.
Keilor is no Shakepeare and his absolutely best writing moment is as the author of the bad-jokes turn near the end. His screenplay does get us through the film and mixes humor, self-deprecation, irony, and a tragic, elgaic sense -- much the same elements that makes the radio shows so successful, but with a different blend here.
Of course it all takes on an extra resonance now that we have learned that Altman knew he had cancer during the making of the film. So how much of Altman's own self awareness is present in the sombre lighting? In any case it is a very touching valedictory for the great director.
The ensemble acting is excellent, I think Altman is in fine form, and as with the sometimes-excellent, sometines-cloying radio show the core strengths and weaknesses come from Keilor himself.
A beautiful film
This film was perfectly composed, without a false note. Moving, funny, with a wonderful cast and good feeling between them all. And my God, I had no idea Meryl Streep was such a wonderful singer. (Great music in this movie also). I can't understand how some of the previous reviewers could give this film one or two stars. If you like Prairie Home Companion you can't miss on this film. If you've never heard Prairie Home Companion, this is a fine introduction.
Hmmmm, I don't understand the love for this one...
The late Robert Altman, a director praised up and down for his successes in writing and directing, has left us (or at least me) in a bit of a shock. `A Prairie Home Companion', which deserved me due to its countless rave reviews, failed to illicit even the slightest vein of interest in me. In all actuality if it weren't for Meryl's spectacular acting ability I would have most likely turned the film off before the credits began to role. There is no denying that Meryl Streep is a brilliantly gifted actress, and if she receives an Oscar nod for this film I will completely understand for her ditzy Yolanda was the best part of this borefest. Not only was this film boring but it becomes increasingly ridiculous with its side plots of angels of death that just further prove my distaste for this movie. The acting was surprisingly good, all except for Kevin Kline and Virginia Madsen who just come off bland and completely uninterested with their roles, and thus we, the viewer, become less and less interested. I just can't muster up much of anything to say about this movie that won't border negativity unless it's concerning Meryl so I'll end this review with:
"So many love this, I don't understand why, I couldn't bare to watch it again, so average movie watcher beware, this film is not all it's raved up to be."
As the saying goes, Aaron Eckhart was born to play Nick Naylor, the 30-something "voice of Big Tobacco" in this brazen satire of corporate profits and what lobbyists will do to protect them. Right from the opening, Eckhart is in spin mode, turning the tables on a popular talk show when he states health officials want a young teen stricken by cancer to die more than big tobacco does, since the boy would be a martyr to them, but only a single lost customer to the industry. Audiences gasp, panelists guffaw, and the kid happily shakes Nick's hand. The Academy of Tobacco Studies has a colorful array of folks surrounding Nick, including his cantankerous boss (J.K. Simmons) and the Colonel (Robert Duvall), tobacco's undisputed leader. His closet friends are lobbyists for guns (David Koechner)... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jason Reitman DVD Release Date: Released the 03 October 2006 Usually ships in 6 to 11 days
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Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold, and The Da Vinci Code has clearly made the leap from pop-culture hit to a certifiable franchise. The leap for any story making the move from book to big screen, however, is always more perilous. In the case of The Da Vinci Code, the plot is concocted of such a preposterous formula of elements that you wouldn’t envy screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, the man tasked with making this story filmable. The script follows Dan Brown’s book as closely as possible while incorporating a few needed changes, including a better ending. And if you’re like most of the world, by now you’ve... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ron Howard DVD Release Date: Released the 14 November 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With the fate of our planet arguably hanging in the balance, An Inconvenient Truth may prove to be one of the most important and prescient documentaries of all time. As he jokingly refers to himself, "former President-elect" Al Gore felt an urgent personal calling to draw attention--as he had been doing throughout his political career--to the increasingly desperate crisis of global warming, and this riveting documentary is basically a filmed version (by respected TV director Davis Guggenheim) of the PowerPoint lecture that Gore has presented (by his own estimate, well over 1,000 times) to attentive audiences all over the world. Considering Gore's amiable, low-key approach to charts, graphs, statistics, and photographs that leave no room for doubt regarding the reality (not... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Davis Guggenheim DVD Release Date: Released the 21 November 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock pair up again in what could be described as the anti-Speed: The Lake House, a sweet, relaxed-paced, whimsical romance. When Alex Wyler (Reeves, The Matrix) moves into an unusual glass house on stilts over a lake, he discovers a note from the previous tenant in the mailbox--but no one's lived in the house for years. He replies and soon discovers that he's corresponding with a doctor named Kate Forster (Bullock, Miss Congeniality) who's writing from two years in the future. Their correspondence turns romantic and their paths cross in unexpected ways, but when they try to truly connect, danger looms. Though the plot of The Lake House sounds potentially static, the movie is skillfully structured and, despite some truly awful... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Alejandro Agresti DVD Release Date: Released the 26 September 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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