A Prairie Home Companion
A film by Robert Altman
(Picturehouse)
There's a reason radio isn't televised. It's the ideal medium to shove to the background while driving or working, and hasn't been designed to be a primary stimulus since F.D.R. chatted by the fireside. This shift in the radio medium is part of the problem with Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Adapted from Garrison Keillor's NPR show, the film is entirely too much like listening to a scratchy AM station. In a dark room. With nothing else to do. And no escape.
Making up the cast as Prairie Home regulars are Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep as singing sisters Rhonda and Yolanda, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, Lindsay Lohan as Yolanda's suicide-poem-writing daughter, and Kevin Kline as Guy Noir. All but Lohan deliver their expectedly masterful performances; Lohan is all right when alone in the frame, but seems visibly uncomfortable around the far superior skills of her costars.
Despite its mostly stellar cast, however, Prairie Home's story is about as exciting as a sedative. Orbiting around staid Keillor, the folksy eccentrics put on a show, charmingly anachronistic in an old Minneapolis theater. They sing, they tell anecdotes - and they don't do much else. The backstage action is a continuation of the on-air patter, with the only addition being a corny side-plot which boils down to the maxim that death is inevitable. It's as though Streep and company's Midwestern accents are supposed to be fascinating enough to hold our attention for the approximately two hours' running time.
A Prairie Home Companion is a "let's put on a show" style flick that stays entirely too true to its roots. Keillor disciples will love it - at the showing I went to, one older audience member was compelled to shout with glee as each new character wandered by ("Look, it's Dusty! And Lefty!"). But for us non-devotees, Prairie Home Companion is just an overlong waste of talent.
Official Site
IMDb Listing
See Also: pretty much everything about A Prairie Home Companion you'd ever want to know
(Picturehouse)
There's a reason radio isn't televised. It's the ideal medium to shove to the background while driving or working, and hasn't been designed to be a primary stimulus since F.D.R. chatted by the fireside. This shift in the radio medium is part of the problem with Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Adapted from Garrison Keillor's NPR show, the film is entirely too much like listening to a scratchy AM station. In a dark room. With nothing else to do. And no escape.Making up the cast as Prairie Home regulars are Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep as singing sisters Rhonda and Yolanda, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, Lindsay Lohan as Yolanda's suicide-poem-writing daughter, and Kevin Kline as Guy Noir. All but Lohan deliver their expectedly masterful performances; Lohan is all right when alone in the frame, but seems visibly uncomfortable around the far superior skills of her costars.
Despite its mostly stellar cast, however, Prairie Home's story is about as exciting as a sedative. Orbiting around staid Keillor, the folksy eccentrics put on a show, charmingly anachronistic in an old Minneapolis theater. They sing, they tell anecdotes - and they don't do much else. The backstage action is a continuation of the on-air patter, with the only addition being a corny side-plot which boils down to the maxim that death is inevitable. It's as though Streep and company's Midwestern accents are supposed to be fascinating enough to hold our attention for the approximately two hours' running time.
A Prairie Home Companion is a "let's put on a show" style flick that stays entirely too true to its roots. Keillor disciples will love it - at the showing I went to, one older audience member was compelled to shout with glee as each new character wandered by ("Look, it's Dusty! And Lefty!"). But for us non-devotees, Prairie Home Companion is just an overlong waste of talent.
Official Site
IMDb Listing
See Also: pretty much everything about A Prairie Home Companion you'd ever want to know
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