A Prairie Home Companion @ the Charles Theatre this week

This is the last film in the Robert Altman series.


Showtimes:
Saturday, May 23 at noon
Monday, May 25 at 7 PM
Thursday, MAY 28 at 9PM

2006 Robert Altman. Screenplay by Garrison Keillor. Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, Virginia Madsen, Lily Tomlin. 105m.


In retrospect, it's difficult not to feel that Robert Altman knew A Prairie Home Companion would be his swan song. Forget the quibbles about whether it faithfully replicates the popular, long-running radio show (it doesn't) or about whether you need to be a PHC fan to appreciate it (you don't). Altman always tended to take over his collaborators' material and make it his own, and this quietly moving film about a fictional radio show's last broadcast is no exception. In this case, his purpose is clearly larger than merely paying homage to Garrison Keillor, the boomer generation's favorite storyteller. In truth, Altman's PHC is a bittersweet homage to all lost or endangered entertainments-from vaudeville to radio to, yes, even some forms of filmmaking-that have managed, however fleetingly, to elude the clutches of the corporate beast. This may be why the director took such pains to cast Lindsay Lohan in a key role as a promising but suicidal representative of the next generation; her convincing turn poignantly reminds us that the tabloid princess is a gifted actress. Despite some longueurs, there are other miracles here, among them the transcendent duets between Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep as the Johnson Sisters, a pair of C&W has-beens, and Peckinpah veteran L.Q. Jones as a crusty old-timer. Tin-eared critics have complained about the film's corniness, an odd complaint about a film that eschews every conventional plot constraint, whose casual, loosely knit structure is more radical than most anything on contemporary screens. Is it one of Altman's best? No. But in its mix of defiance, melancholy and sardonic laughter, it is treasurable and lasting and deeply Altmanesque. (Linda DeLibero)

Kansas City @ the Charles Theatre this week

The Charles' Robert Altman series is coming to a close. This week's offering is KANSAS CITY.


Showtimes:
Saturday, May 16 at Noon
Monday, May 18 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 21 at 9 PM

1996 Robert Altman. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, Michael Murphy, Dermot Mulroney, Steve Buscemi, Brooke Smith, Jane Adams, Don Byron, Nicholas Payton, Cyrus Chestnut, Ron Carter, Craig Handy, Joshua Redman. 116m.


Kansas City may well be the misunderstood classic of Robert Altman's late career. Reviled by audiences and critics alike on its release, the film is far truer to the director's rebel impulses than, say, the overpraised Gosford Park, and deserves a serious second look. A dark valentine to Altman's hometown during his childhood in the 1930s, the film counterpoints KC's corrupt Pendergast political machine and its gangsters with the city's great jazz heritage. At the heart of the story, a star-struck lost girl (Jennifer Jason Leigh in a controversial but daring performance) kidnaps the wife of a local politico (Miranda Richardson) in a cockeyed scheme to save her boyfriend, a small-time hood in trouble with the city's powerful African American mob. The result is a baleful, bleak but ultimately powerful meditation on identity and its illusions, punctuated by joyful bursts of exhilarating jazz (the film features an all-star roster of contemporary stars like Craig Handy and Joshua Redman playing giants like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young), and by the musings on race of Seldom Seen, Harry Belafonte in a powerful performance as the wise but terrifying head of the mob. All the hoary clichés of gangster films are here dismantled and made strange, a strategy that may not be crowd-pleasing but that bears the stamp of a true iconoclastic. (Linda DeLibero)

Trailer

Short Cuts @ Charles Theatre

Showtimes:
There is no Saturday show this week because of the MD Film Fest
Monday, May 11 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 14 at 9 PM

1993 Robert Altman. Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Lyle Lovett, etc.


Short Cuts may be based on the short stories of Raymond Carver, but Carver fans looking for a faithful adaptation of the writer's work won't find it here. Whereas Carver drew his grim but illuminating portraits of the working poor with a minimalist's precision, Altman is an uber-maximalist, painting on a broad canvas that limns the interconnections among a wide spectrum of Angelinos, casting a much colder eye on the proceedings and coming up with something close to nihilism. The complicated tapestry of ordinary lives is borrowed from Nashville, but Short Cuts lacks the original's (and Carver's) generous attitude towards its characters as well as its political bite; we're on the outside looking in, and the despair never seems quite real. What Short Cuts does have is the stuff that remained consistent throughout Altman's career: his ability to wrest brilliant performances from actors great and not-so-great, his genius at making his open but incredibly complex narratives look effortless and unforced, and his refusal to yield to sentiment. Compare the film to its many imitators-among them Magnolia, Crash, and Babel-and it's clear the Master re-doing himself still has a few tricks to teach the copycats. 187 m. (Linda DeLibero)

The Player @ the Charles Theatre this week

Showtimes:
Saturday, May 2 at noon
Monday, May 4 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 7 at 9 PM

1992 Robert Altman, Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Dean Stockwell, Richard E. Grant, Lyle Lovett, Gina Gershon, Steve Allen, Rene Auberjonois, Harry Belafonte, Karen Black, James Coburn, Peter Falk, John Cusack, Louise Fletcher, Elliott Gould, Buck Henry, Anjelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum, Jack Lemmon, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Lily Tomlin, Rod Steiger, etc. 124m.


In the early '90s, it looked as if Robert Altman's career had gone into a terminal tailspin; the film industry had basically written him off as yet another '70s maverick who'd crashed and burned. That backstory has made The Player's runaway success one of the sweetest, most satisfying comeback narratives in the history of American film. A whip-smart and wickedly hilarious satire of Hollywood's mad methods, The Player is as relevant today as it was 17 years ago, a testament to either Altman's perspicacity or Hollywood's ongoing ossification, probably both. The nonstop flurry of star cameos and insider's insider references will keep film junkies high, but beneath the slick merriment there's a center as bone-chilling as ice queen June Gudmundsdottir's (Greta Scaatchi) cold-blooded art. The Player has been touted as Altman's love/hate tribute to the system that had both embraced and scorned him, but in the end, it's pretty difficult to feel the love here. If you look closely, it's hard not to see that even America's beloved “sweetheart,” Julia Roberts, comes off as smug and self-satisfied; this portrait of a culture wallowing in narcissism and greed lets no one off the hook, maybe even the viewer. (Linda DeLibero)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians @ the Charles Theatre this week

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, APRIL at 25 NOON
MONDAY, APRIL 27 at 7 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 30 at 9 PM

1976 Robert Altman. Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Burt Lancaster, Shelley Duvall, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel, Allan F. Nicholls, Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine, Robert DoQui, Bert Remsen. 123m.


Paul Newman's larger-than-life performance is the surprise at the center of Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, another of his provocative and largely undiscovered black comedies. Altman's clever casting of the revered actor as the eponymous Wild West charlatan turned the part into a scathing meditation on contemporary celebrity, and Newman gamely played along. Eschewing his card-calling likeability, Newman portrays William Cody as a faker, a racist, and a charming but vainglorious fool in some of the most honest and underrated work of his career. The film is packed with great performances, among them a rueful Burt Lancaster as Ned Buntline, dime novelist and chief engineer of Cody's legend, and a hilariously meek Harvey Keitel. Long before Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven mined the same territory, Buffalo Bill cast a cold eye on the lies history tells about the great frontier.

Nashville @ the Charles Theatre this week

Don't forget that the Saturday screening starts early.


Showtimes:
Saturday, April 18 at 11 AM
Monday, April 20 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 23 at 9 PM

1975 Robert Altman. Ned Beatty, Karen Black, David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Keenan Wynn, Vassar Clements, Elliott Gould, Julie Christie. 159m.


In 1975, legendary film critic Pauline Kael dubbed Nashville “an orgy for movie-lovers” in a worshipful review that seemed more than a little over the top at the time, especially when the film flopped at the box office. Audiences, used to predictable generic conventions (was it a musical, a political satire, a docudrama?) didn't get Altman's sprawling, multi-layered bicentennial epic and stayed away in droves. When the director was asked why it failed, he wryly replied, “Because we didn't have King Kong or a shark.” More than three decades later, it's clear that Kael's judgment has triumphed over the taste of the times. Today Nashville is acknowledged as everything Altman's outsized vision demanded: it's a seminal film and a great one, and it changed the definition of what movies could be. Challenging, to be sure. Seamlessly juggling the stories of more than two dozen characters over five days in Music City, USA, Nashville refuses to tell us where to look or how to respond. But give yourself over to the spectacle and you can't help but be moved by the miracle of it, by the sheer audacity of its scope and depth. If any film ever demanded to be seen more than once, this is it-maybe 24 times would be apt, once for each character. It's guaranteed that each viewing will yield up a multitude of new pleasures and insights. Enjoy the orgy. (Linda DeLibero)

California Split @ the Charles Theatre this week

A new print of Robert Altman's CALIFORNIA SPLIT screens three times this week at the Charles Theatre.


Showtimes:
SATURDAY, April 11 at noon
MONDAY, April 13 at 7pm
THURSDAY, April 16 at 9pm

1974 Robert Altman. George Segal, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss, Gwen Welles, Edward Walsh, Joseph Walsh, Bert Remsen, Jeff Goldblum. 108m.


A hilarious, scathing, and relentlessly playful romp, California Split conjures the essence of gambling with its improvisatory, overlapping dialogue (featuring Altman's debut of his revolutionary 8-track mixer) and loosey-goosey narrative. This wouldn't be an Altman film without the requisite hard core of cynicism, but watching the bromance develop between Split's pair of losers on a winning streak is too exhilarating to be a downer. As we watch Charlie and Bill (Elliot Gould and George Segal at their shaggy best) roll their way through the night world of poker parlors, casinos and grungy bars, the parallels between their high-stakes game of chance and Altman's high-wire act of filmmaking multiply; it's no accident that Altman himself was a risk-taker both behind the camera and at the gaming table. Among the film's glories is a cast of finely drawn supporting characters, including a pair of sweet and goofy hookers played by the divine Gwen Welles and Ann Prentice. Long unavailable for viewing save for the occasional film festival screening, California Split is just beginning to receive the attention it deserves. See it on the big screen for the big payoff. 108 m. (Linda DeLibero)

The Long Goodbye @ the Charles Theatre this week

Showtimes:
Saturday, March 28 at Noon
Monday, March 30 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 2 9 PM

1973 Dir. Robert Altman. Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, David Arkin, Jim Bouton. 112m. 'Scope.

Robert Altman's second exercise in genre revision is a gem that has only lately received its due. The Long Goodbye takes on not only that master of detective fiction, Raymond Chandler, but his greatest creation, Philip Marlowe, famously incarnated in 1946 by beloved Bogie in The Big Sleep. As played by the counterculture's favorite anti-hero, Elliot Gould, this Marlowe is anything but the tough, savvy gumshoe of noir lore. He's a shambling, clueless mess of a man, and Gould's endearingly maddening portrayal of an impotent shamus infuriated traditionalists, as did the film's ending, altered from the novel on one shocking key point. But as Gould bumbles his way through a glittering, sun-bleached contemporary LA, it becomes apparent that Altman has created a Marlowe more deeply true to the original than his film predecessors. As its relentless camera slowly zooms, tracks and arcs its way around a culture built on quicksand, the film uncovers a rich, unyielding view of Hollywood and the price we pay for being in its thrall. 112 m. (Linda DeLibero)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller @ the Charles Theatre this week

Showtimes:
Saturday, March 21 at Noon
Monday, March 23 at 7 PM
Thursday, March 26 at 9 PM

(1971 Robert Altman) Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, Keith Carradine. 120m.

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER 1971 Among the flurry of revisionist Westerns crowding screens in the late '60s and early '70s, few were destined to transcend their status as cultural artifacts-try sitting through Little Big Man today if you don't believe me. But when Altman applied his touch to this protean genre, he redefined the redefinitions. McCabe and Mrs. Miller has not only come to be regarded as a masterpiece; it's an essential reference point for nearly every Western made since. Channeling classics as diverse as My Darling Clementine and High Noon, McCabe is both an earthbound critique of the myths that fueled those movies and a fever dream of otherworldly beauty. Beatty and Christie as the title characters are heartbreaking, Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography is evanescent, Leonard Cohen's songs cast an unforgettable spell of melancholy and loss. McCabe is Altman's most affecting film, and yes, probably his best. 120 m. (Linda DeLibero)


Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Roger Ebert)

Brewster Mccloud @ Charles Theatre this week

An 11-film Robert Altman series begins this Saturday at the Charles Theatre. This series offers the best of the miraculous streak of films that made his reputation in the 1970s, along with a selection of his later work, beginning with The Player, that marked the final, fruitful phase of his long career.

This week: Bud Cort and Shelley Duvall in BREWSTER MCCLOUD.


Showtimes:
Saturday, March 14 at Noon
Monday, March 16 at 7 PM
Thursday, March 19 at 9 PM

(1970 Robert Altman) Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, Shelley Duvall, Stacy Keach, Margaret Hamilton. 105m. 'Scope.

Fresh off the commercial success of M*A*S*H, Robert Altman had carte blanche when he made Brewster McCloud, and his unfettered freedom shows in every frame. It's a rarely seen cult delight that's by turns fascinating, whacky, frustrating, and charming. A fractured fairytale about an adolescent Icarus (played by the pre-Harold and Maude Bud Cort) living in the bowels of the Houston Astrodome, the film is stuffed with every off-the-wall idea the director could throw into it, from Margaret Hamilton (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) leading an all-black marching band in a cracked version of “The Star Spangled Banner” to a Bullitt-inspired car chase staged by Bob Harris, designer of the original. Beneath the whimsy there's a hard core of political satire; Brewster, like so many of Altman's '70s films, is haunted by the dark reign of Richard Nixon, and its humor, however giddy, is decidedly black, it's musings on freedom determinedly bleak. Overall, though, Brewster is a wild ride, and few films capture the glory days of '70s filmmaking better than this one.(Linda DeLibero)