A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman’s best film since the one-two punch of The Player and Short Cuts back in the early 1990s, might at first glance seem like a minor work, an ambling, congenial picture constructed as little more than an opportunity to corral several major talents and give them a chance to sing songs and tell jokes in a relaxed setting. That the film is inspired by Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show of the same name adds to that impression: Keillor, at least in his on-air persona, is the epitome of laid-back, down-home hospitality, and a sense of urgency is the last thing one intuits from either the radio program or the film version.
Altman’s Prairie can indeed be viewed in such a light, but there’s more going on here. For all its levity, the central theme focuses on the specter of Death — how it hovers around us, how it haunts us, and how it can inform our every move. It’s a logical concern for the 81-year-old Altman, who might be living on borrowed time (he revealed on this year’s Oscar telecast that he had received a heart transplant years ago). In fact, death has long been a concern for the maverick director (two choice quotes on IMDb.com: “Retirement? You’re talking about death, right?” and “What is an ending? There’s no such thing. Death is the only ending”), yet obviously it’s also on the mind of Keillor (who co-wrote the film with Ken LaZebnik). And we’re not just talking about human death but also the death of an institution, the death of a dream — indeed, the death of a way of life.
The movie chronicles the events that take place during the last broadcast of a popular radio show. The Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones), a corporate suit with no respect for history or tradition, has dropped by to make sure the closing goes according to plan. G.K. (Keillor), the program’s guiding light, takes it all in stride (“Every show is your last show; that’s my philosophy”), more concerned that all the talent is in place. And what talent! First, there are the singing sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin). Then there are the cowboys Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly), adept at crooning cowpoke tunes and telling so-bad-they’re-funny jokes. And then there’s the veteran singer Chuck Akers (the great character actor L.Q. Jones, a Sam Peckinpah favorite who’s still ambling along at the age of 78), who marks the show’s demise in the most literal manner imaginable.
Backstage, the characters are no less colorful. Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) handles security for the program, though his bumbling manner recalls Inspector Clouseau more than it does Sam Spade. Yolanda’s daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) mopes around in the dressing room while Mom performs. And then there’s the mysterious lady (Virginia Madsen) who appears out of nowhere and hangs around for the rest of the show. The credits list her as Dangerous Woman, though Femme Fatale would be equally enigmatic; at any rate, is she an angel of mercy or a trafficker in death?
Madsen’s character holds the key to the movie’s inherent interest in mortality, but the signs are everywhere. The Johnson sisters were once a singing quartet; now, there are only two left. Lola is obsessed with suicide and writes poems to that effect. At least two characters die during the course of the film. Even a harmless joke involving penguins plays into a person’s demise.
Yet the mood of A Prairie Home Companion isn’t depressing; it’s bittersweet. And that’s only part of the time: When the radio performers are front and center, the movie is nothing less than a joyous celebration of both Americana and the arts. Streep (who sang to equally good effect in Postcards from the Edge) and Tomlin make a formidable duet, while Harrelson and Reilly break through any lingering melancholy with their steady stream of quips (showcased in a terrific number called “Bad Jokes”).
The backstage actors also hold their own, with Kline a particular standout as Guy Noir. It’s easy to forget that in addition to his standing as a fine dramatic actor, he’s an exemplary physical comedian, and here he’s occasionally allowed to show off his limber moves. Even in the final sequence — a masterpiece of ambiguity — his hand gestures contribute to the scene’s exquisiteness, a somber, rueful moment that inexorably illustrates that, in death as in life, the show must go on.
WHILE IT MAY be too harsh (and depressing) to state that it’s human nature to want to see something successful eventually fail, it might be accurate to note that it’s human nature to expect something successful to finally take a tumble off the ladder. Admit it: Ever since Pixar Animation Studios began its incredible run with Toy Story back in 1995 (followed by five more toon blockbusters, the last being The Incredibles), haven’t most observers been wondering when the company would hit a critical and/or commercial roadblock and watch its latest effort crash and burn?
Newsflash: It hasn’t happened yet, and it ain’t happening with Cars.
At a time when most moviemakers and studios are prostituting the venerable genre of the animated feature film, the only constants in terms of quality have been Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Castle In the Sky), England’s Nick Park (the Wallace & Gromit adventures) and the United States’ John Lasseter. Lasseter, the creative wizard behind Pixar (and now Walt Disney Pictures as well) has repeatedly stated that the key to any good animated film is the story, and of course he’s absolutely right. But the success of Pixar rests with the fact that they go beyond good storytelling and beyond good visual schemes to provide their pictures with that extra oomph, whether it’s in the tiny details (for instance, the restaurant briefly seen in Monsters, Inc. is called Harryhausen, after FX wizard Ray Harryhausen) or in the always spot-on voice casting (Pixar doesn’t just go for the biggest A-listers but insists on finding the right person for each role).
The storyline for Cars actually seems a little hoary: A big-city slicker learns to slow down and smell the flowers — or, in this case, the diesel — in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Doc Hollywood, to name just one, has been there, done that. But the picture’s six scripters expand the parameters of this plot description to make an entertaining and even poignant tale about the lure of the open road and the passing of a quaint chapter in modern American history. So for all its high-gloss NASCAR trappings, Cars is ultimately a paean to Route 66.
The cars are the characters — no humans exist in this world — and the most prominent vehicle is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a rookie sensation on the NASCAR circuit (the name is doubtless an homage to Steve McQueen, a real-life racing enthusiast). Lightning is cocky, conceited and convinced that he needs nobody’s help to make it to the top. Clearly, Lightning is due for a comeuppance even more than he’s due for an oil and filter change.
On his way to California to prepare for a race against a grizzled veteran known as the King (Richard Petty) and a loudmouth called Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton), Lightning unexpectedly winds up in Radiator Springs, a once-bustling Route 66 burg whose status rapidly collapsed once the interstate insured that all cross-country traffic would be diverted away from the town. Lightning is anxious to escape from this one-horsepower town, but circumstances force him to cool his wheels for a while. So in the meantime, he becomes acquainted with the locals, including Sally (Bonnie Hunt), a former big-city lawyer who prefers the simple life; Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), a “good ole boy” tow truck whose idea of a swell time is tipping the sleeping tractors; and Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), a sage automobile who might be able to teach the young hothead a few things about winning — not only on the track but also in life and in love.
That Lightning will find redemption is never in doubt, but like the best storytellers, Lasseter and his co-writers make the journey to self-discovery as interesting as possible. Because the Pixar geniuses are able to convince us that these cars are sentient beings rather than hunks of metal, we become fully invested in their situations, and that adds surprising currency to the movie’s wistful look at Route 66 and its historic worth as an umbilical cord that stretched out across the American terrain, bringing life to the generations of families that traversed it.
Regular readers know that I’m generally not a fan of computer animation, but Pixar is exempt from my scorn: These practitioners of the form operate at a level far beyond everyone else in Hollywood. The soulless quality that permeates most CGI toons is missing in this studio’s output, and Cars nearly rivals the Toy Story twofer in creating life where none should exist. Yes, Pixar may indeed produce a flop one of these years, but for now, the future seems limitless, stretched out like an open road before it disappears into the sun-soaked horizon.
See next week’s CL for interviews with Cars cast members.
THERE’S A FINE MOVIE trapped inside The Break-Up, and it’s a shame that it couldn’t break free. As it stands, here’s a picture whose many fine ingredients are never able to compensate for the staggering miscalculation that cripples the piece almost immediately.
Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston play Gary and Brooke, whose initial courtship is dealt with during the opening credits. From there, an argument over a dinner party becomes the catalyst for the pair deciding to call it quits. Secretly, Brooke doesn’t want to break up — she only wants Gary to appreciate her more — but as time crawls along, the hostility between the pair increases, and it becomes apparent that there’s no saving this relationship.
But should it be saved? Well, sure, if we’re to have any rooting interest in the movie and its protagonists. But from the start, Gary is painted as a self-centered, insensitive man-child whose greatest passions are video games and baseball; the only reason audiences like this character at all is because he’s played by the charismatic Vaughn, whose motormouth wit is always good for a few laughs. Brooke, meanwhile, is intelligent, classy, mature, patient, and on and on and on. He’s a prick; she’s a saint. Um, why exactly would we have a vested interest in whether these two remain together?
Simple answer: We don’t. And since we don’t care about the central plot thrust, we’re left to find the odd pleasure here and there: the sharp supporting turn by Judy Davis as a haughty art gallery owner; the startling vulgarities uttered by Gary’s sleazeball brother (Cole Hauser); and, best of all, the scenes between Vaughn and his Swingers co-star Jon Favreau, here cast as Gary’s intriguing friend Johnny O.
Vaughn is a guy’s-guy kind of actor — his characters are more comfortable shooting pool or knocking back beers than getting romantic on the couch — so it’s no surprise that the chemistry he generates is with Favreau rather than Aniston (this fraternal rapport is also why he and Owen Wilson clicked so beautifully in Wedding Crashers). However, Vaughn and Aniston do a nice job of creating genuine tension whenever their characters find themselves immersed in yet another nasty argument — these aren’t sitcom-fake spats that resolve themselves before the next commercial break but real body-blow confrontations that sting with real-life familiarity. Now what this says about the pair’s future as a real-life couple, I’ll leave for the tabloids to dissect.
THE 1976 VERSION of The Omen still holds up after 30 years. That’s reason enough to Netflix that baby and skip the new version that’s currently haunting multiplexes.
Granted, director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) remaking The Omen isn’t as sacrilegious as Gus Van Sant remaking Psycho, but it still comes across as an unnecessary effort, as if the primary motivation was to be able to release a picture called The Omen on 6/6/06 (hence the movie’s odd opening on a Tuesday). That lack of a sound reason affects the picture itself, which is competent though curiously flat. The devil taking over the world is a terrifying concept, yet here there’s so little urgency to the proceedings that you’d think his master plan extended only to prank phone calls to the Vatican and TPing ministers’ houses.
The new film is mostly faithful to its predecessor: An American ambassador (Gregory Peck in the original, Liev Schreiber here) and his wife (Julia Stiles replacing Lee Remick) learn too late that their adopted son is the Antichrist. Individual shock scenes — the hanging, the gutting, the beheading, etc. — mimic those from the original, and the British vets in the cast (David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon) make the best impressions and match the efforts of those who earlier essayed their roles.
The changes from the ’76 model are for the most part minor and insignificant. In an effort to inject topicality, a Biblical passage warning of the approaching Armageddon is accompanied by images of real-life horrors: A mention of collapsing mountains leads to a glimpse of the falling Twin Towers; a line about the oceans swallowing up people prompts the use of Katrina footage; and a verse about how the Antichrist will emerge from the world of politics is followed by photographs of George W. Bush. (OK, just kidding about the Dubya shots, but it would hardly be out of line, would it?) Moore also tosses in a few dream sequences, but they produce titters rather than scares. In fact, several aspects of this remake inspired scattered snickers at a preview screening, implying that if the movie fails as a horror yarn (and it does), it might yet find its niche as a camp outing.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.
