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A Prairie Home Companion
I went into this film with some trepidation. After all, I don't really like the radio show very much, so why would I go see the movie? Well, because my friends wanted to go and I didn't have any better ideas. It also fit in well with a weird Minnesota theme that had been running through the day, but the key plank in that operation is off the record so I shan't say more. The obvious turns out to be correct here -- if you don't like the show, you'll find the film kind of dull. My vague hope that because The Player is awesome, Robert Altman would pull something magical out of his ass and transform a radio show I don't like into a genius film was dashed. It was all very well made, but it was still a movie that fundamentally spends a lot of time just portraying a radio that I don't care for. Dullsville. I should say, though, that considering my basic loathing of folk music it actually contained some good tunes.
Garrison Keillor's writing, meanwhile, I often enjoy especially, as Emily reminds me, his demolition of American Vertigo.
June 22, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
that considering my basic loathing of folk music
No wonder I dislike you.
Posted by: Clark | Jun 22, 2006 8:25:03 AM
"my basic loathing of folk music"
Actually, you seem like a pretty good guy to me. You really do need to expand your musical horizons, though. There's a whole wide world of music and you seem to limit yourself to the narrow channel of 20-something indie music. Boring way to live.
Posted by: ostap | Jun 22, 2006 8:43:20 AM
narrow channel of 20-something indie music
And bad 20-something indie music at that.
Posted by: Homer | Jun 22, 2006 9:07:38 AM
my basic loathing of folk music
Nah, you've just been exposed to the wrong stuff and have some misaprehensions about what the genre includes. Get together a whole bunch of Jeff Buckley, Lucinda Williams, and Victoria Williams stuff (including the Sweet Relief cover album), and see if you still feel the same way.
It also fit in well with a weird Minnesota theme that had been running through the day, but the key plank in that operation is off the record so I shan't say more.
wtf? Well, I'll just hope you're planning to visit MN sometime soon. God knows you need to see more of the U.S., and Minnesota would be a good place for you to start. I spent a summer living in Minneapolis in college and highly recommend it.
btw, this Emily chick? Mentioning her a lot, and she's cute. Are you gonna go breaking my heart now?
Posted by: flippantangel | Jun 22, 2006 10:29:56 AM
Skip Jeff Buckley et al., that's only half a step away from 20-something indie music. Get the Smithsonian box set. If you don't like that, you can say you tried.
Posted by: huh | Jun 22, 2006 10:40:44 AM
I spent years, years, looking for redeeming irony in Prairie Home Companion. If it's there, it is of a warm & affectionate variety, which I loathe.
Devendra Barnhart is in my folk folder, but he lacks an adequate amount of sitar to suit me. Need to sit ya down to the complete Gordon Lightfoot, so you would get over your Canada obsession, and move to the proper foreign policy toward our Northern neigbour, which is pre-emptive nuclear war.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jun 22, 2006 11:05:28 AM
A Prairie Home Companion jumped the shark about 20 years ago. But hey, this is a show that is on from 6 to 8 on Saturday night. It is not meant for young guys like you. You don't want your parents to like whatever it is you kids are listening to these days, do you?
Posted by: JR | Jun 22, 2006 11:12:39 AM
PS- The Player is not awesome. It's predictable and smug. You want awesome, try McCabe and Mrs Miller.
Posted by: JR | Jun 22, 2006 11:14:03 AM
Or, hell, Bob Dylan's first record. If you don't like that ... hm. I doubt anyone will be listening to the Arcade Fire 40-some years from now.
Posted by: huh | Jun 22, 2006 11:35:56 AM
PS- The Player is not awesome. It's predictable and smug. You want awesome, try McCabe and Mrs Miller.
"McCabe and Mrs Miller" is, in fact, absurdly great, although I could do without all the Leonard Cohen. I think it's the best movie of Altman's long and, uhh, extremely variable career.
Posted by: Steve | Jun 22, 2006 11:41:50 AM
"McCabe and Mrs Miller" is, in fact, absurdly great, although I could do without all the Leonard Cohen.
What the hell are you talking about? Leonard Cohen made "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". I second JR's thoughts on "The Player", but "Nashville" is great.
Posted by: Homer | Jun 22, 2006 1:00:31 PM
Three Women is the Altman masterpiece.
How did we get here, anyway?
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jun 22, 2006 1:23:23 PM
How did we get here, anyway?
Because of a post on a Robert Altman movie?
Posted by: Homer | Jun 22, 2006 1:25:15 PM
Leonard Cohen made "McCabe and Mrs. Miller".
Far be it for me to disagree with Springfield's finest epic poet, but Vilmos Zsigmond made "McCabe" (with due respect to Julie Christie). Leonard Cohen is a fine songwriter, but I could do without great heaping doses of "So Long, Maryanne" in my revisionist Western.
Posted by: Steve | Jun 22, 2006 1:34:31 PM
I sat through the movie like I sat through the radio show as a child (when my father would barrage me with all things Keillor, Springsteen, and NPR): with twitchy boredom and the smug superiority of cynical youth. Now that I'm in my mid-20's, I can appreciate the "humor" more (i.e., mildly amusing, contrived anecdotes, corny sound effects, tweed-jacket lefty pastoral nostalgiorama), but 99% of the music makes me yawn (I did like those "blue" cowboys! Pass the J, Woody!)
As one of the younger readers of this 'blargh, I feel it incumbent upon me to defend 20 something indie music: it's the most exciting shit out there today. Say what you want about Devendra, JoAnna Newsom et. al, they are indie musicos first, folkster-poseurs second. We own it, fogeys! So blare your Lomax and your Donovan, flog your Dylan and your Seeger, music has moved on without you. Hopefully once we overthrow the Repubocracy we can fasttrack Euthanasia and hook you codgers up to the KoolAid. Hoo ahh!
PS: Lindsey Lohan is not youth culture. She is what old out-of-touch artificial-hip types like Keillor *think* youth culture is. WRONG! Casting her demoted this movie from two grudging thumbs up to one thumb up, the other hand busy making throw-up in the Butter Bar bathroom after a meal of Cristal and breathmints.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 22, 2006 2:12:51 PM
Greg,
I don't have anything against anyone listening to 20-something indie music. I like some of it, although generally it's not my cup of tea (why can't any of those people sing? And must they drone so?). I'm appalled when that's all someone listens to.
There's all sorts of wonderful blues, salsa, gypsy, big band, rockabilly, cajun, 50s, 70s, classical, bluegrass, and Irish, to name just a few, and all Mr. Matt listens to is SOS. It's weird. It would be like eating only tomatoes and rye bread. They're both good foods, but there's so much more.
Posted by: ostap | Jun 22, 2006 2:31:52 PM
There are two types of music: good music and bad music. On the principle that 90% of everything is crap, what survives of the older stuff is likely to be good while the dreck disappears. (The first album I bought was by a band named Ultimate Spinach. Never heard of them? Not surprised.) I don't get most of the new stuff, but that's a statement about what I don't get, not about what's good and what isn't. Maybe we could have a cultural exchange.
Posted by: C.J.Colucci | Jun 22, 2006 2:40:27 PM
The wonderful thing about Robert Altman is that almost everyone agrees that he made a few great movies and a lot of terrible ones. And nobody agrees on what goes into either pot. My favorites are McCable and Mrs. Miller, the films he made with Elliot Gould, Popeye, and Secret Honor. I can't stand several of his movies that good friends and esteemed critics admire a lot, and they return the favor.
Contrary to the proclamations above, Robert Altman directed McCabe and Mrs. Miller and is primarily responsible for its success.
Posted by: Jeffrey Davis | Jun 22, 2006 3:26:44 PM
ostap, I agree with you. I just cringe at the reactionary condemnation of vital new music by more mature folks who are set in their musical ways, committed to a musical "eclecticism" that relies too heavily on the "90% of everything is crap, what survives of the older stuff is likely to be good while the dreck disappears" mentality. This thinking can lead to the dreaded "mainstream music geek" syndrome that I'll explain later. (see: Eric Alterman, et. al)
Great new music is being made constantly; true connoisseurs must work to keep their ear "young," meaning open to new sounds and risky innovation. That's why retro sounding bands like the Strokes and White Stripes do so well, and only truly great bands like the Pixies break through new-musical-idea resistance. Usually it's one band synthesizing a blend of innovation with tried-and-true rock motifs that can expand the collective taste. Devendra's folk roots help ease more mature listeners into his philosophical/spiritual experimentation. It also gets young indie heads like myself into some older folk shit. We respond favorably to the style of a Jeff Mangum, Banhardt, or Colin Meloy, and seek out the influences, like Donovan, the Velvets, Nick Drake etc. It's a giant transgenerational music orgy!
The most important thing for ALL involved-- and I must remind myself of this constantly-- is to keep an open mind, and open ears.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 22, 2006 3:29:09 PM
Yeah, but anybody that don't like Hank Williams, you can kiss my ass.
Posted by: "Kris K" | Jun 22, 2006 4:18:16 PM
which hank williams? they're are like 8 of 'em if you count Lucinda.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 22, 2006 4:34:24 PM
Yeah, I meant the original Hank, the one Kristofferson was talking about when he wrote the song. I actually like me some Hank Jr (the late 70s, early 80s stuff), but liking Hank Jr. is not a prerequisite to avoid the invitation to kiss my ass, as liking Hank Sr. is.
I almost forgot Part II of my two-pronged Theory of Everything in Music: rock n roll peaked in 1987 with the release of "Appetite for Destruction."
Posted by: too many steves | Jun 22, 2006 4:44:12 PM
welcome to my bunghole, stevedore.
rock and roll peaked in 1988 with "River Euphrates" and the release of Surfer Rosa. RIDE THE TIGRE!
PS: HANKIII rewlz!!
Posted by: Greg a.k.a "Spunky" | Jun 22, 2006 5:16:17 PM
"The first album I bought was by a band named Ultimate Spinach. Never heard of them? Not surprised."
Boston band. Three albums, all pretty bad. But a little fun. I collect old psych, a lot more than what I ever listened to way back when, and am pretty indifferent to quality.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jun 23, 2006 1:37:25 AM
"Three Women is the Altman masterpiece."
Three Women is indeed wonderful. But Nashville is rightfully his consensus masterpiece. And The Long Goodbye is actually his best movie.
Posted by: Petey | Jun 23, 2006 2:48:56 AM
