A Prairie Home Companion

I am very critical of movies and rate them on three components; good acting, a believable story, and a great ending. This movie pushed past the 'great' peg on the dial. I LOVED this movie, and watched it six times this weekend. Each performer was great. Each duet was great. Every time I see a Woody H. movie, I become more and more impressed with that man's talent. The ending where the angel of death shows up still has me wondering whom she came for. I have been married for 32 years and now have employment that has me working hundreds of miles from home. My wife and I have been seperated by this employment for 9 months. Every night we talk on the phone, and at it's end, I sing to her a song. From now on, I will sing to her, "Goodbye to Momma". I just wish I could speak to any of the performers to thank them for this pearl. Having read just now that there are two A.P Carter songs in this movie, I realized that this movie follows the Carter/Cash world somewhat. The PHC is folksy and lots of fun, and so were June and Johnny. Clearly there was lots of love in the court of Cash with many many performers and friends visiting the Carter/Cash home for friendship and mothering. There seems to be a lot of that with the actual PHC as depicted in the movie and the list of actors in the movie. The movie played two of Mother Maybelles songs. The PHC came to an ubrupt end. The home of June and Johnny burned to the ground just after it was sold to Mr. Gibbs. Thanks everyone. I bought the sound track and the movie DVD.

We loved this movie. We have watched many times and it doesn’t get old.

No one's films love actors more or studios less than Robert Altman's. His best films are so loosely scripted as to seem almost serendipitous. The latitude he gives actors risks anarchy and gets amazing performances (and occasional weird implosions). Narrative becomes superfluous. Demigods wander through the film with strange weight and inevitability as in ancient Greek drama. It is as though the actors are given a selection of lines for their use and, then allowed to use any of them whenever and wherever they might choose...or to do whatever they think fitting, whenever it seems right. The amazing thing is that this often works brilliantly. It also comes at the expense of narrative. Occasionally a good actor is overwhelmed and freezes up. Tom Skerritt seemed baffled by the freedom Altman gave in "M*A*S*H" and just couldn't use it to advantage; after that experience, though Skerritt became one of the better, more adaptable supporting actors in film as in "Steel Magnolias", "Top Gun", "A River Runs Through it" and other films. In contrast, Kieth Carradine used "Nashville" to reinvent himself as an actor - as did Lilly Tomlin. Altman's films are like wind-up toys. M*A*S*H is that brightly painted tin rocket that wheels around on the floor, careering, zooming, lights flashing to the accompaniment of whirring gear-noises and, then, just slows, and winds down to a stop, no lights, no noise, no motion...fade to black. Nashville is the Jack-in-the-Box, lots of music, no obvious plot to resolve and then Barbara Harris pops out of the box...fireworks and revelation. "The Player" is that little black box where you flip the switch and the box starts to shudder and make noise and shake a bit with increasing intensity until a little green hand opens the lid on the box, quickly turns the switch off and retreats back into the box. Altman has made casting decisions that the studios and most casting directors would never even think of and would reject if someone else offered them. The results Altman got are amazing, evanescent, other-worldly. Jeff Goldblum and Geraldine Chaplin as freelance journalists in "Nashville" seem to both compliment and deride "gonzo journalism". Fred Ward and Brion James made their careers portraying thuggish tough guys and enforcers but in "The Player" Altman makes them top studio executives, scheming, devious, secretly insecure but at the apex of power in the film industry. In "Prairie Home Companion" Virginia Madsen floats above us all, Lindsay Lohan gives a nuanced, intelligent and entertaining performance...who'da thunk it? Kevin Kline seems to channel Peter Sellers' Clouseau. If you were a PHC fan see this, if you weren't then definitely see this.

I loved this movie when it first came out and loved it upon a recent second viewing. I bought the DVD. It's a classic Prairie Home Companion show but with an added background mystery of people dying after being visited by Virginia Madsen (always wonderful) as the White Angel of Death. Added major bonuses are Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin singing harmony as a sister act. There is also Woody Harrellson looking very boyish and having fun as a singing cowboy. Kevin Cline plays the noir guy. You'll really enjoy it if you were a fan of the NRP Prairie Home Companion radio show.

I found this film absolutely charming. It's whimsical and fairly slow-moving, but so many delightful things happen along the way that it hardly matters. The music hall is due to be closed down - it has outlived its time - and we witness its last evening. Various acts perform : Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are the singing Johnson sisters (both excellent, and Streep a revelation as a Country-and-Western performer ; she is a real show-stopper), Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly a cowboy double-act with a penchant for blue jokes, very corny and very funny. Kevin Kline is Guy Noir, the security man, a third rate private eye, and Virginia Madsen appears mysteriously in a white coat - she represents the end, closure, death itself. Holding it all together is Garrison Keillor, himself a first-rate performer and very good in this film, and the film does have structure as the show awaits the arrival of Tommy Lee Jones, who will close it down ; the consequences are to some extent unexpected. It was Robert Altman's last film and bears many of his hallmarks, the camera meandering around the characters and observing their performances, their conversations, their private behaviour. It ends in a diner, an effectively bitter-sweet ending which leaves at least one question unanswered. I enjoyed every minute of the film, and it's nice to have it on DVD with quite a few extras - commentary by Kline and Altman, how the film was made, interviews and deleted scenes.

This is a wonderful, "down-home" story by super-talented author, Garrison Keillor. The actors obviously had a lot of fun with this film. Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and the rest of the cast are superb in their roles. You won't be disappointed!

quiet humour typical of the radio show, great characters, lovely instrumental and vocal interludes. The extras, most unusually, are especially entertaining.

Desde el principio hasta el final uno escucha buena música, de la que ya casi no se oye o por lo menos no en todos lados. Fue muy interesante ver el desarrollo de un programa de radio en vivió. Me gustó mucho.

this was a real treat , so much garbage on tv and theatres these days , enjoy with your family .