Customer Reviews:
What a joy.......2007-04-11
I too saw this film at the cinema and can't wait to get a copy on DVD. The film is uplifting and happy and left me (and I think the rest of the audience) with a real feelgood factor.
Immensely funny and original, but with a bitter-sweet feel that removes all sentimentality, it is an absolute must for Garrison Keillor fans. He is an amazing act on his own, and with the superlative cast around him, the film could not fail.
charming, off-beat, very funny - Altman's farewell.......2007-03-12
This was Robert Altman's last film, and has a certain poignancy as a result, particularly as a major theme is ageing and not always welcome change. But it is at least as much Garrison Keillor's film - it is based on his work in radio stations, he wrote the screenplay and he plays himself in it. 'The Prairie Home Companion', a kind of off-beat country-and-western Minnesota radio programme recorded live in a tatty old music hall, is on its last legs - this is the last show. We see a good deal of the show, performed with great verve by such as Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Keillor and Meryl Streep, who is a revelation in her role as one of the singing Johnson sisters - she is absolutely marvellous. We also go backstage (or, to be more accurate, below stage) to the dressing rooms. A Chandleresque private eye (but a very clumsy one, well played by Kevin Kline) tells the story, and the device of a kind of guardian angel (called Asphodel - Virginia Madsen) frames the whole thing. Some of the songs are sentimental, but performed with such verve and conviction that they really work anyway, but the film overall is not ; it ends bitter-sweetly, and the inevitability of change and closure, welcome or not, is very real. I saw it in a cinema, and it is often very funny - I haven't heard so many people laugh out loud for a long time. Keillor's droll radio adverts and Harrelson and Reilly (Dusty and Lefty, the trail-hardened cowboys) singing a sequence of blue jokes, some awful, some clever, are highlights. It's a film you can feel very warmly towards, and the most sheerly enjoyable film I have seen for a while.
Give it a try.......2007-01-19
Saw it this evening and highly recommend it. No previous knowledge of the director and definitely not a fan of Meryl Streep but a great show all round. Interesting on many levels and at the end of it all it brought on some overdue laughing. Not my usual choice of film but a welcome change indeed.
"Won't you say something - at least thank the people for listening?".......2006-10-12
I have to admit I've never really "got" Garrison Keillor; maybe you have to be a Minnesotan or even an American to get it. Is he supposed to be funny, or whimsical or perhaps even satirical? Written by Keillor himself and directed by the legendary Robert Altman, A Prairie Home Companion centers on the premise that everyone is about to say goodbye with the final broadcast of the actual old-time radio variety show taking place the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Various artists have come along for the ride: Yolanda Johnson (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin) are the last remaining members of a musical family whom Yolanda describes to her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) as "the Carter family, only not famous."
Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly also make an appearance as a duo of singing cowboys, and a hard-boiled private detective Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is the story's bumbling and ungainly narrator. While Guy is waiting for the new boss (Tommy Lee Jones) to make an appearance, Guy doesn't know what to make of the apparition in a white trench coat who shows up unannounced, especially when she looks like Virginia Madsen.
A Prairie Home Companion is beautifully shot and remarkably cozy and atmospheric, and it has many lovely and funny moments, but there's not a lot going on. Dramatically, it's melodious to the point of torpor. Obviously the film has a folksy and low-key appeal and will probably only really appeal to fans of the radio show.
But the film only really comes alive when the various artists sing - including a fabulous Meryl Streep. Of course, Altman uses his usual trademark of the wandering camera, strolling from character to character, pausing to watch and listen as they tease one another, natter on about trivia, reminisce about the old days, worry about the future and partake of flatulence.
Everything in this movie just comes across as so old fashioned, from the songs to the stories and - apart from Meryl - it's all a bit boring. Only the ribald jokes of Dusty and Lefty have a trace of novelty and bawdiness invested in them. Corny and quaint are two words that apply to this movie, but another two words tedious and lackluster could equally be applied. Mike Leonard October 06.
Customer Reviews:
What a joy.......2007-04-11
I too saw this film at the cinema and can't wait to get a copy on DVD. The film is uplifting and happy and left me (and I think the rest of the audience) with a real feelgood factor.
Immensely funny and original, but with a bitter-sweet feel that removes all sentimentality, it is an absolute must for Garrison Keillor fans. He is an amazing act on his own, and with the superlative cast around him, the film could not fail.
charming, off-beat, very funny - Altman's farewell.......2007-03-12
This was Robert Altman's last film, and has a certain poignancy as a result, particularly as a major theme is ageing and not always welcome change. But it is at least as much Garrison Keillor's film - it is based on his work in radio stations, he wrote the screenplay and he plays himself in it. 'The Prairie Home Companion', a kind of off-beat country-and-western Minnesota radio programme recorded live in a tatty old music hall, is on its last legs - this is the last show. We see a good deal of the show, performed with great verve by such as Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Keillor and Meryl Streep, who is a revelation in her role as one of the singing Johnson sisters - she is absolutely marvellous. We also go backstage (or, to be more accurate, below stage) to the dressing rooms. A Chandleresque private eye (but a very clumsy one, well played by Kevin Kline) tells the story, and the device of a kind of guardian angel (called Asphodel - Virginia Madsen) frames the whole thing. Some of the songs are sentimental, but performed with such verve and conviction that they really work anyway, but the film overall is not ; it ends bitter-sweetly, and the inevitability of change and closure, welcome or not, is very real. I saw it in a cinema, and it is often very funny - I haven't heard so many people laugh out loud for a long time. Keillor's droll radio adverts and Harrelson and Reilly (Dusty and Lefty, the trail-hardened cowboys) singing a sequence of blue jokes, some awful, some clever, are highlights. It's a film you can feel very warmly towards, and the most sheerly enjoyable film I have seen for a while.
Give it a try.......2007-01-19
Saw it this evening and highly recommend it. No previous knowledge of the director and definitely not a fan of Meryl Streep but a great show all round. Interesting on many levels and at the end of it all it brought on some overdue laughing. Not my usual choice of film but a welcome change indeed.
"Won't you say something - at least thank the people for listening?".......2006-10-12
I have to admit I've never really "got" Garrison Keillor; maybe you have to be a Minnesotan or even an American to get it. Is he supposed to be funny, or whimsical or perhaps even satirical? Written by Keillor himself and directed by the legendary Robert Altman, A Prairie Home Companion centers on the premise that everyone is about to say goodbye with the final broadcast of the actual old-time radio variety show taking place the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Various artists have come along for the ride: Yolanda Johnson (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin) are the last remaining members of a musical family whom Yolanda describes to her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) as "the Carter family, only not famous."
Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly also make an appearance as a duo of singing cowboys, and a hard-boiled private detective Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is the story's bumbling and ungainly narrator. While Guy is waiting for the new boss (Tommy Lee Jones) to make an appearance, Guy doesn't know what to make of the apparition in a white trench coat who shows up unannounced, especially when she looks like Virginia Madsen.
A Prairie Home Companion is beautifully shot and remarkably cozy and atmospheric, and it has many lovely and funny moments, but there's not a lot going on. Dramatically, it's melodious to the point of torpor. Obviously the film has a folksy and low-key appeal and will probably only really appeal to fans of the radio show.
But the film only really comes alive when the various artists sing - including a fabulous Meryl Streep. Of course, Altman uses his usual trademark of the wandering camera, strolling from character to character, pausing to watch and listen as they tease one another, natter on about trivia, reminisce about the old days, worry about the future and partake of flatulence.
Everything in this movie just comes across as so old fashioned, from the songs to the stories and - apart from Meryl - it's all a bit boring. Only the ribald jokes of Dusty and Lefty have a trace of novelty and bawdiness invested in them. Corny and quaint are two words that apply to this movie, but another two words tedious and lackluster could equally be applied. Mike Leonard October 06.
DVD Review:
- Atomic Kitten - Greatest Hits - Live At Wembley
- Barry Manilow: Songs from the Seventies [2008] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Barry Manilow - Ultimate
- Bill And Gloria Gaither - A Campfire Homecoming [2006]
- Bjork - Live DVD Archive [2007]
- Blackmore's Night - Castles And Dreams [2005]
- Black Sabbath - The Last Supper [1999]
- Brian Eno - 14 Video Paintings [2005]
- Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire: Live at the Greek Theatre [2004]
- Chris Barber - The Big Chris Barber Band
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