. . . but if I met them at a party I'm sure we wouldn't have much to talk about.
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Well, the same guy wrote both, so you might be on to something.
Personally, I think Downton Abbey is better than Gosford Park.
No. People who dislike this movie are bad.
shareI figure that by the time someone arrives at Robert Altman, they're arriving just at the right time.
I don't think someone seeks out a film of his unless they've been watching movies that start to veer off the path from the usual paint-by-numbers plots we're accustomed to seeing and that are advertised at us the most.
Altman is that wonderful hybrid of independence coupled with accessibility.
Everybody has their own entrance into his career. For me it was incidental. I had watched "The Shawshank Redemption" in the fall of 1994 and thought Tim Robbins was great. All I knew was that he was that guy from "Bull Durham", "Cadillac Man" and "Jacob's Ladder".
When I looked up Robbins, I saw that I had overlooked his own directing debut "Bob Roberts", as well as "The Player" and "Short Cuts".
So I went and rented all three that one weekend at my local video shop, where the deal on older releases was 3 movies/4 nights/5 dollars. That was a great weekend. Then I looked up Altman and found that I had already seen "MASH", "Brewster McCloud" and "Popeye", all of which I liked.
It was an Altman fest that whole winter with "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "California Split" and the vastly underrated "3 Women" becoming my new favorite things in the world.
It becomes liberating to enter his world. There is so much activity and snippets of dialogue and behavior. You never feel like there's some plot machination clunking along. Just interesting, complicated characters who all have their own schemes and plans and intentions, and we get to be up-close people watchers for all of it.
Once you've seen your fill of all the regular, unleaded crap that's out there, when you run into a director like Altman, it's just a breath of fresh air.
So if there's any hate out there, I imagine it comes from a place where people think something's wrong with the fact that he doesn't tell stories in the same old way. But that criticism has nothing to do with Altman and everything to do with the people making the charge, who are conditioned to believe that expositional dialogue is all there is.
I really like your commentary, MJ. The only thing I differ on is that I have found "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" to be difficult to connect with on 3 attempts, thus far. What the hell is wrong with me?
shareYou also might enjoy the films of Alan Rudlolph, who started as an assistant director on NASHVILLE.
My favorites are CHOOSE ME (1984) and AFTERGLOW (1997).
He also did the under-appreciated MORTAL THOUGHTS (1991), which has at its center an astonishing thing...a very taut and accomplished performance by that tough waxwork Demi Moore, of all people!
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I love Altman -- MASH and McCabe are two of my all-time favorites. But this one, which uses some of the same techniques, misses, and badly
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