A Prairie Home Companion

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A Prairie Home Companion

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A Prairie Home Companion

Garrison Keillor, Jim Westcott, John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin

Director Robert Altman and writer Garrison Keillor join forces with an all-star cast to create a comic backstage fable, "A Prairie Home Companion," about a fictitious radio variety show that has manag...( read more  read more... )ed to survive in the age of television. On a rainy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minn., fans file into the Fitzgerald Theater to see "A Prairie Home Companion," a staple of radio station WLT, not knowing that WLT has been sold to a Texas conglomerate and that tonight's show will be the last. Shot entirely in the Fitzgerald, except for the opening and closing scenes which take place in a nearby diner, the picture combines Altman's cinematic style and intelligence and love of improvisation and Keillor's songs and storytelling to create a fictional counterpart to the actual "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show, which has heard on public radio stations coast to coast for the past quarter-century (and which, in real life, continues to broadcast). The result is a compact tale with a series of extraordinary acting turns.

Id: 10891445

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A Prairie Home Companion Recent Reviews
  • JeT0425
    June 13, 2009
    JeT0425
    This movie is so contagious. I was watching it not knowing what to expect and around a quarter way through the film I was sucked in. It's almost like this film becomes personal. You get to know these characters and their lives and what they do backstage... it's like you've known ...( read more)them for a long time.



    Robert Altman has always been a master when it came to characters and their dialogue. This film is absolutely top notch and it was all that I expected and more. These characters, including Mr. Keillor himself, are all very interesting. From Dusty and Lefty the duo that sings about risqué things to Yolanda and Rhonda the country siren sisters that sing touching songs about their late mother, they are all infectious. They make you want to know more about them and that's what I love about Altman's films. Streep, Kline and Tomlin give the best performances in this film. Kline was perfect for his role and made me laugh out loud non-stop.



    Unfortunately, this was Robert Altman's last film. Mr. Altman passed away November 20th of this year, but he will be remembered for his wonderful contributions to cinema and his masterful direction. Just like what I said about Stanley Kubrick I say about Robert Altman, "this is a terrific film to be remembered as your last".



    A great film with a great cast makes for a great experience. One of the best films of the year.
  • MovieGeek13
    March 19, 2009
    MovieGeek13
    A sweet and delicate ode to past times, memories, and moving on even after death.
  • EarthlyAlien
    July 13, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    "The show had been on the air since Jesus was in the 3rd grade."

    Gentle and unassuming, with the warmth and friendliness of an old friend, Garrison Keillor's iconic radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" has occupied a small niche of the American airwaves for nearly 30 yea...( read more)rs. Here now comes the film version of that public radio institution, done with a quiet inoffensive charm by master filmmaker Robert Altman (his farewell film), the result being a thoroughly enjoyable and faithful rendering of the show and a cinematic delight for, dare I say it, the entire family.

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    The film's story, such as it is, revolves around the recent sale of the radio station to some media conglomerate in Texas, who wants to turn the theatre into a parking lot, effectively putting the show out of business and making this the final show. Keillor, the show's leader and host, has little interest in making any sort of fuss over the impending end, despite the objections of several members of the cast. Meanwhile, private eye and head of security Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is busy tracking down a dangerous woman in a white trench-coat (Virginia Madsen) and trying to convince the Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) that to end the show would be a great disservice. All of this occurs during the show, broadcast live in front of an audience, but this being an Altman film, the plot has little to do with what the film is really about. Altman's main focus is instead the interplay between various members of his ensemble cast and the inter-workings of a radio show behind the scenes. The plot is merely a structure around which the characters can revolve.

    Keillor's script is structured like a radio play, with Guy Noir as the occasional narrator, mostly because if you're going to do an old radio play, you might as well have a private eye narrator, and partly because Guy Noir is one of Keillor's recurring characters. And if you're going to have Guy Noir as the narrator, then you have to have a dangerous woman. Keillor's master-stroke, though, is to make the dangerous woman an angel of death, a fitting metaphor for a radio show on its last run. She could be coming for the Axeman or any member of the cast or for the show itself or even for the aspect of Americana that the show invokes, but it isn't really important in the end, because she represents the passage of time that serves as the film's unstated antagonist.

    The bad guy isn't really the Axeman or his Texas corporation (although, it certainly isn't the hero), but the rapidly progressing world that makes such things possible. But no one handles such change better than Keillor, whose motto is that every show is the last show. In a great backstage scene, he sits quietly as the dangerous woman informs him that she is an angel of death, quietly eating an apple. I guess when you've been doing live radio for 30 years, not even death can startle you.

    Nor, I imagine, would it warrant much more than an "oh really?" from Yolanda Johnson (Meryl Streep), who along with Rhonda (Lily Tomlin) forms the singing Johnson sisters. Streep plays Yolanda as something of a typically American housewife prone to moments of hysteria. She flutters through the film, absent-minded and emotional. She shows up minutes before the show goes on the air, her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) in tow, and remarks that they have plenty of time. The entire radio cast, for that matter, shows a surprising lack of concern for the contents of the program. Other than figuring out what song they'll sing, no one seems to be giving much thought to the proceedings on-stage. Keillor seems more interested in telling numerous accounts of how he got into radio, Lefty (John C. Reilly) and Dusty (Woody Harrelson) are busy trying to impress Lola, and Guy Noir can be seen wandering amongst the band. They have an easy-going professionalism that appear deceptively simple, giving the audience the impression that it can't be all that hard, but this is a hard-won professionalism, perfected over 30 years. That it comes off as effortless is a testament to its power.

    The same can be said for Altman's direction, which can easily be confused with a complete lack of direction. His camera floats through the proceedings, moving from the stage to the wings to backstage with little distinction. To Altman, the proceedings backstage are as important as what's being broadcast over the radio - sometimes even more important - and quite often he's right. The fact that Keillor ignores the singing on-stage in favour of telling a story or that he calmly eats an apple while talking to an angel during the break, says a lot for the mentality both of Keillor and his cronies and Altman himself. It's a common theme in Altman's work that allows A Prairie Home Companion to be a perfect fit into his filmography.

    It is a film that perhaps only Altman could have made. It's not, by any stretch of imagination, a great film, for much like the radio show it depicts, it has no such ambitions and would be embarrassed to be considered as such. But, it is a whimsical delight, the likes of which is rare, too good-natured to be thought of with anything but fondness. In the end, A Prairie Home Companion is one of those films destined to settle into the corner of a great number of DVD collections (including mine), waiting for a rainy day or a cold winter night when it might warm the soul, cinematic comfort food to delight the senses. A lovely, lovely film.
  • crackingdanio
    February 2, 2008
    crackingdanio
    underrated by moviegoers, undeservebly so
  • brooklynspo
    December 2, 2007
    brooklynspo
    Found some of it funny and charming but given the talents involved I might have hoped for more. Some of the improvs seemed clumsy and I just didn't buy some of the characters. A little too much music?
  • marylanenalyram
    November 7, 2009
    marylanenalyram
    La ultima película de Altman is a cube of greatness with many sides to it. Regardless of the misleading poster this film is not just a whimsical (in terms of story not style which is whimsical) party for all the characters. Ultimately, this film is in some aspects about death. Th...( read more)e death of people and the show, which might make it Altman's most personal film since with his bare all attitude knew he was approaching his own meeting with the blond lady.
  • anastasia57001
    October 26, 2009
    anastasia57001
    Altman's last film is a testament to the soul of entertainment- and what it means for the people who wear the costumes...when the curtain's about to close. It's a story that has a heart and you should appreciate it's warmth. RIP...!
  • magnolia12883
    September 23, 2009
    magnolia12883
    Robert Altman's film (which turned out to be his last) is a lively entertainment, a sweet ode to the simple pleasures to be had listening to the radio, and a lovely film about (appropriately) death. Altman employs a typically large ensemble cast for ostensibly the last broadcast ...( read more)of "A Prairie Home Companion," a St. Paul, Minnesota-based radio variety show, "the kind that died 50 years ago." Not particularly upset about the fact he's soon to be out of a job, the leader of this ragtag group is GK (Garrison Keillor), the narrator and head writer of the show. He is joined on stage by the Johnson Girls, Rhonda (Lily Tomlin from "Nashville") and Yolanda (Meryl Streep), and Yolanda brings along her talented misfit teenage daughter Lola (a stellar Lindsay Lohan). There's also the trail-hands Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), whose specialty includes the uproarious musical tribut to ribald humor, "Bad Jokes." In typical Altman fashion, we also get a glimpse behind the scenes of the last show, with an anxiety-ridden stage manager named Molly ("Saturday Night Live" alum Maya Rudolph), who is several months pregnant (Rudolph's baby's actual father is stand-by director Paul Thomas Anderson, who was heavily influenced by Altman). Then, in the center of it all, is Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), a bumbling private-eye type who runs security for the program and has his eyes on all the variables that could make this night memorable in the worst possible ways. Seems the company was bought by a Texas conglomerate and they've sent their "axeman" (a humorless Tommy Lee Jones) to shut the whole thing down. Can the mysterious, white-trenchcoated "Dangerous Woman," (Virginia Madsen), an apparent angel, save them? Altman's film has a modest 105-minute running time and I wanted it to go on forever. The comedy is warm and teasing, the cast is delightful, and the soundtrack is filled with wall-to-wall music of the sort that Midwestern types love - songs which reflect a spirit, and arguably a sense of spirituality, which even the most hardened cynic can't resist. From Keillor's early solo "Slow Days of Summer" to Streep and Tomlin's showstopper "My Minnesota Home," from "Gold Watch and Chain," to the cast's big finale of "Red River Valley," this film is loaded with wonderful music. I dare you not to tear up and get a shiver down your spine as Chuck (L.Q. Jones), a sick old performer, takes to the stage to sing "You Have Been a Friend to Me," and towards the end appears to be gasping for air mid-lyric, eyes red, face pale, and just the slightest hint of tears forming. Robert Altman was 81 when he died in November 2006, having finally won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement earlier that year and having completed this wonderfully fitting final work (he had two more films in pre-production at the time). He had a way of making his film sets like a party, and he loved actors, inviting them to bring what they could to make the party more festive. His camera (manned here by Ed Lachmann) was always moving, roving around to see whatever could be seen; it never appeared planned. He made judicious use of the zoom lense; he often liked to peek into the cracks and crevices behind the main action to see and show what most directors wouldn't bother with. The backgrounds of his films were never empty; he was as interested in the "side-stories" as he was in the "main plot." Yet his films never had a plot, per say; they were open to the many possibilities of everyday life. He gathered his massive casts for wonderful works, first garnering attention and acclaim with "MASH" (1970) and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971), and continued his style, developing a special sound system for recording his actors, which came in handy on such masterpieces as "Nashville" (1975), "The Player" (1992), "Short Cuts" (1993), and "Gosford Park" (2001) among many others. These were the work of a true artist, and he remains sorely missed.
  • GarL1121
    September 10, 2009
    GarL1121
    Very great movie about the radio variety networks. i just loved it. VERY good movie about great memories, radio, and the South...

    One of my absolute favorites I can watch over and over without ever stop loving it.
  • himroxxx22
    September 8, 2009
    himroxxx22
    I liked this film a lot! I loved how it showed how the classic radio show was behind the scenes! I also loved Meryl Streep in this; she always plays original characters and does an amazing job at it! :]]
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