Today, a few of us saw A Prairie Home Companion, which was an absolutely awesome film. (I've been doing very well with movies lately---between seeing this and Cars in the theatre and seeing Blues Brothers, which I still need to review, on DVD.) You absolutely must go see this.
First, let me predict right now that this movie will include several Oscar nominations and quite possibly some wins. Kevin Kline, as the eponymous Guy Noir, was brilliant, and the others actors weren't lollygagging through their roles either. The cast was incredible. There are a lot of well-known people in the movie, and they pretty much all did an excellent job.
The movie concerns the last broadcast of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" (a real show; does the show still exist in real life?), and we see show performances intermingled with the stuff going on behind stage. Some of the on-show performances were excellent---I am thinking of the "bad joke" song in particular. ("That's cute, but can you breath through it?") The sound-effects guy was also cool to see. (I have heard old radio broadcasts where sound effects were used by baseball announcers who broadcast games from scorecards and had to fill in the sounds of crowds, etc. The funniest one ever was for the guy who really had to pee and just couldn't wait for a commercial, so he told the listeners that it was starting to rain and used a bucket that happened to be in the studio... I laughed so hard when I heard this recording.)
While the movie wasn't a comedy, and some aspects contained highly nontrivial sadness, there was a ton of repartee, which is among my favorite things in this or any other world.
Anyway, even if you're not the type of person who normally goes to films that are only released in "artsy" theatres, you need to go see this one. You won't be disappointed. It's not my film of the year, but it's on the short short list for best films this year. There are definitely some Oscars coming its way...
Spoiler alert:
The one quibble that comes to mind was that the foreshadowing of a certain character's death was far less subtle than it should have been. (I saw it coming a mile away. They really ought not to have been so blatant when they showed him stumbling during his song. I knew right there that they were going to kill him off.)
I agree with your quibble a little bit, though it didn't really bother me as much. If anything, I would have made "Dangerous Lady"'s part a bit more... subtle. Maybe. Then again, I also liked it as it was.
ReplyDeleteOne piece of trivia I discovered after making my own blog post about this--you remember Al, the stage manager? The one who asks Lefty and Dusty to tone down the vulgarity of their act? IRL, apparently, he plays one of said cowboys--the more gruff one, in fact. (The other cowboy is done by GK himself) From Wikipedia.
Yeah, Dangerous Lady could have been a bit more subtle as well. The quibble didn't bother me too much---I'm just harping on the negative, as is my nature. The film was wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThat's an amusing piece of trivia.
I'll take a look at your entry. I hadn't seen a new entry on your blog in a while. I assume you're still doing it on slashdot.
Eh, I didn't see the death coming, so clearly my subtleometer is set higher than yalls.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, PHC is still doing shows every week on NPR. As suggested in the movie, they often travel across the US (like many NPR shows, actually) and perform live in all sorts of places.