Filmspotting #106: A Prairie Home Companion / Top 5 Ensembles Preview
An 80 year-old director makes a movie about a 30 year-old public radio show. OK, so this isn't typical summer fare. That being said, the director is Hollywood maverick Robert Altman -- and if anyone (over the age of 70) can make public radio cool, it's Altman. The fictitious tale of the venerable radio program's final broadcast, "A Prairie Home Companion" was co-written by show host Garrison Keillor and features a huge cast of award-winning talent, including Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones and Altman regular Lily Tomlin. The movie will likely draw its target audience of NPR junkies, but Adam and Sam agree that it deserves a bigger audience than that. "Prairie Home" may seem a bit slight when compared with previous Altman films like its musical cousin "Nashville" or even 2001's Oscar nominated "Gosford Park," but what it lacks in ambition it more than makes up for in entertainment: Harrelson and Reilly's performance of "Bad Jokes" may be, simultaneously, the corniest and funniest thing you'll see all summer ... until, that is, Reilly returns in August in Will Ferrell's "Talladega Nights."
Also on the show: Listener Feedback, Massacre Theatre and a preview of this week's Top 5 ... Ensemble Movies.
Music by Jude from the album "No One Is Really Beautiful."
Vote to have "Gymkata" released on DVD here.
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Filmspotting #106
:27-14:42 - Review: "A Prairie Home Companion"
Music: Jude, "I'm Sorry Now"
15:52-21:16 - Peerflix Winner/New DVDs, Donations, Polls
21:17-25:47 - Notes, Free Gymkata!
25:48-32:36 - Major Filmspotting Announcements
Music: Jude, "Charlie Says"
33:30-36:40 - Massacre Theatre (Winner: Corey Atad)
36:41-42:24 - Listener Feedback (The Break-Up), SF Meetup
42:25-47:34 - Top 5 Preview: Ensemble Movies
47:35-49:17 - Next Show/Close
Have a comment or Top 5 list you'd like to share? Send an e-mail or short mp3 clip to feedback@filmspotting.net. Or give us a call at 206-203-CINE and leave a voice message.
6 Comments:
Congratulations on the move to NPR! One quality show a week is plenty. It is hard to believe, but there was once a time when I didn't listen to ANY shows a week. I will survive.
I was fortunate enough to have seen Garrison Keiller live at a screening of APHC in Westchester, NY last week. After the show, he was interviewed by NYT's Janet Maslin, and after was a Q&A section. I had the thrid Q. I told him that I listen to his Writers Almanac podcast every day, and wanted to know two things: 1. How has podcasting affected radio, and 2. What would he say about himself on the Writers Almanac. His answers were very interesting, of course. He said that he first got into radio to be taken to faraway places, like Little Rock. Then, when he was on the radio, he reached all of America, and now, thanks to "the internet" he gets emails from Iceland, Greenland, Russia, and more places. Congratulations on doing the reverse commute from GK--starting on the web and moving to the radio waves. This is going to be a great move for the two of you!
{...and, in a private note, Sam, we have a mutual friend I discovered in one Suzanna Cramer. I spent the weekend with her and her husband, and they were getting all goofy with "and... scene." I mentioned the podcast, with Adam and Sam, and she said, "Oh, you mean Sam Halgren?" It was one of those mindblowing situations. Anyway, she says hello and that you are a great actor.}
Sorry guys, but saying Harrelson and Reilly's performance of jokes was "funniest thing you'll see all summer" is really overselling it. I thought they were funny, but laughed much harder in "Over the Hedge". Steve Carell was truly hilarious.
Estlee,
OK fair enough, the "funniest thing you'll see all summer" comment was a bit of hyperbole. But it IS really funny -- particularly if you just find those guys amusing on their own. And I haven't seen "Over The Hedge," so I'll just have to take your word for it that Carell is funnier than Harrelson/Reilly.
And David:
Amazing coincidence. Suzanna directed me in the one-act "Sweet & Twenty" when I was a freshman at the University of New Hampshire. Probably the most fun I ever had in the theater. She and her husband Michael are about the two greatest people on the planet. Please say hello to them for me.
Man, I'm straight up depressed that there will be only ONE Filmspotting a week. It just throws my commuting and jogging groove off completely. Are you sure you guys have thought this all the way through? Think of the children.
ps, and yes Over the Hedge is worth the 8 bucks. surprisingly great flick.
I'd love to talk you guys into keeping two shows a week. Could you, in one recording session per week, after you've finished the radio content, continue recording and talk about the stuff you didn't have time for in the 'main' snow? -- more listener feedback, your top-five runners-up, etc.? Then post the bonus show on Friday? Post it in-the-raw, minimal editing required. We know you've got the content in you! You're the show I look forward to the most, and I'd hate to lose even a minute of your conversation. (Gush, gush.)
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