A Prairie Home Companion

Grade: C+

Robert Altman strikes a folksy thud in this tale of an ole-fashioned radio show’s final performance.

No one can cast and photograph like Altman, and backstage dressing rooms come alive amidst the tarnished glamour and multiple make-up mirrors of a broadcast facing retirement and a theater facing dismantlement. A tight-knit and eccentric company of radio performers brings kooky yet ultimately tiring charm to the proceedings, on-air performances lackluster when juxtaposed against the real life nuttiness behind the curtain. While one never forgets the star kilowatts at play, sisters Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin delight in an overtalking frenzy of remembrances, riffing off one another with giddy abandon, and John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson are a salty pair of singing cowboys, grungy, foul and funny in equal measures. Kevin Kline is stuck in Mickey Spillane dialogue and klutzy pratfalls that quickly become irritatingly tedious, and Lindsay Lohan has the personality of peeling wallpaper next to such effortless veterans. Garrison Keillor, playing, well, Garrison Keillor, is so other-worldly strange one spends much of the movie wondering if he’s truly this weird in real life.

Once the initial charm wears thin, there ain’t all that much of an actual story to tell. Altman attempts to infuse the piece with a treatise on the nature of death, none of which gels with the frothier tale of a time gone by and friends about to be separated by unemployment. Virginia Madsen is somewhat appallingly misplaced as an “angel of death” figure who mysteriously skulks around the theater, touching people (physically and spiritually) and taking them away to the hereafter. Tommy Lee Jones is a cardboard cutout as the meannie station owner utterly devoid of sentimentality and stoically disinterested in preserving a lost era.

When the performers are jabbering good-naturedly backstage or singing goofy songs with carefree pleasure on stage, there is a sweet twinkle that whiles away the hours. But, as someone who usually loves the interlocking multi-dimensions of Altman’s work (his last two films both made my top ten lists) this is a mildly bemusing, lightly pretentious, somewhat unfinished and unfocused throwaway.

Like an oldie but a goodie radio show one remembers from yesteryear, the nostalgic expectation is far more powerful than the actual wattage of the transmission. Bidding a fond farewell doesn’t seem tragic so much as somewhat overdue.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0420087/

An Inconvenient Truth

Grade: B+

Hell, he’s got my vote again.

Flagrantly self-promoting yet simultaneously humble and humbling. Al Gore, the “man who used to be the next President of the United States” goes out on the road, crisscrossing the nation and multiple continents to deliver a slideshow presentation on global warming. Frightening, enlightening, irreverent yet deadly serious, disbelievers will be compelled to accept the indisputable truth – global warming is real, is devastating our planet, is our fault, and we’re not doing a damn thing to stop it. Yet even those of us who have known it all along have much to learn, and Gore provides the facts with startling starkness and dramatic intensity. Illuminating, surprisingly riveting and also percolating with charm, passion and self-deprecating humor, one learns as much about the person as about the environment. The commitment and intelligence of the man provides a small glimmer of hope when juxtaposed against the evil, ignorance and avarice of money-grubbing politicians and businessmen and the multi-generational apathy of earth’s citizens.

In an age where there is an ideological war of religion over science, where our elected officials have become masters of distortion, manipulation and triangulation, Gore holds our feet to the fire. Lucid, thoughtful, alarming yet somehow invigorating, this is not only a compelling film, it is an important one that everyone should feel obligated to see.

Roughly 1/3 of the documentary is biographical, and here one can’t help but feel we are watching a promotional video at the next Democratic National Convention (I half expected Gore to declare that he still believed in “a place called Hope”). While one may believe his dedication to the environment is related to a shift in life perspective caused by the near-death of his son and that he grew up on a farm where he had a difficult time separating “fun from work,” it all feels somewhat produced and disingenuous when set against the gripping integrity of his presentation. Only a segment involving his father’s tobacco crops and the loss of his beloved sister to lung cancer rings both real and relevant. Still, Gore now comes across as an elder statesmen, brimming with untainted wisdom, low-key and likable, refreshingly wonky. An antidote of sorts for cynical times.

And then the film ends, the screen begins flashing a list of things all Americans can do as individuals to make things better – and 95% of the audience runs for the exit signs. My cynicism returns.

See this movie, stay until the bitter end, and make a commitment to actually do something.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0497116/