Load of rubbish!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Brilliant and touching

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

When something goes wrong on live radio, Prairie Home Companion, both the radio show performed in the film and the movie itself come alive. It's like two men fishing placidly in the middle of a calm lake until one gets hold of a mighty rebellious fish and both men jump to instant action. One of the few and far between moments that jump Prairie Home Companion to activity include a duct-tape gag which Garrison Keillor, the voice of the popular variety show both in reality and in this film, and other performers improvise after Molly, the assistant stage manager, who's usually the only one insisting on maintaining order and decorum, flubs the cue sheets. The three-to-four minute gag thoroughly entertains you as Garrison and the Johnson sisters (played by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) cook up wackiest uses for a duct-tape while the sound-effects guy (Tom Keith) gives complementary dog howls, helicopter noise etc until Molly (who's played by SNL regular Maya Rudolph) finds the right sheet. It doesn't just end there: Yolanda Johnson (Streep) also manages to convey her dejection towards Garrison's failed romance with her during the gag. The problem with Robert Altman's 'Prairie home Companion' is that it stays only marginally memorable; everyone in the film is too comfortable and laid-back, listlessly chattering and bantering with each other and the audience is expected to be all ears for these strangers' plain talk. Until the duct-tape moment, you begin to grow impatient for there is nothing much to keep you really interested. We learn in the beginning that Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), the radio show's security director who takes his work too seriously, is in search of a mysterious woman in white (Virginia Madsen) who's been lurking in the theater. It's the final day for the esteemed radio show and its regulars which include Johnson sisters and two singing cowboys (played by Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) perform for one last time before the theater is demolished to build a parking lot. The mysterious woman in white is revealed to be Asphodel, an angel who visits the show to comfort its people and escort one to afterlife. Another visitor includes a businessman called 'The Axeman' (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who's the one responsible for pulling the plug on the show. The fate of these people is touching but it never touches you, for these people turn out as nothing more than broad caricatures whose lives are hardly used or explored in the plot. Streep's Yolanda is a chirpy, twittery, humble, good-natured and caring woman who can sing really well and Streep shows us such a woman during the film but there's nothing else she can do. Her character has little more to do than to define how such a character talks, moves, acts and sings and watching Streep do so much for a role with minimal character development makes us a little exhausted with her Yolanda. Her sister Rhonda (Tomlin) is less girly and bubbly and while Tomlin doesn't overdo her performance like Streep, she doesn't stay memorable both onstage and backstage. Yolanda's daughter Lola is played by perennially-suffering Lindsey Lohan, whose character likes penning depressing suicide poems but is very much delicate at heart and empathetic towards everybody. Lindsey isn't distracting until the last scene where she tries (badly) playing a busy workaholic with plenty of things on her mind. The two cowboys played by Woody Harrelson and John Reilly are the humorously irreverent sidekicks who bring in the laughs with their risqué humor and bad jokes (rather jokes in poor taste), another high point in the film. But again these aren't two cowboys we've been following through the years and so they're like new-kids-on-the-block for us when they appear in the film. The lack of exposition in Prairie Home Companion makes every character and every situation seem superficial and wispy. Either the film is for fans only (yet many of the characters except Garrison and Guy Noir weren't part of the radio show either) or the film lacks vitality. Was Asphodel the angel really needed in the film? Or did Altman see her as a greater symbol not just for the film but also for himself? One thing we know is that Altman got all the comfort from her soon after filming. Bad joke, huh?

Garrison Keillor should get the Mark Twain Prize for humor, the National Medal of the Arts, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio if he hasn't already. He really is a comedic American genius from St. Paul, Minnesota. This film is a must see for those who have listened to the radio show which was taped live at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota for years and decades. The show reminded me of my visit and experience at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The radio show included advertisements, music, humor, and story-telling in an American style. This film will put a smile on your face even if you don't like country music or easy going American style. Of course, the film's star is Garrison Keillor, an American living legend of humor. His style is approachable, realistic, and practical. The humor doesn't need to be offensive and it isn't on the Prairie home Companion. I love the cast which included Lindsay Lohan before her personal problems; Meryl Streep; Lily Tomlin; John C. Reilly; Woody Harrelson; Kevin Kline; Virginia Madsen; and Maya Rudolph among the regular players who perform on the actual radio show. This film, the radio show, and the story is as American as American pie.

Was fantastic watching it. The music was great great great! Meryl Streep was awesome. GK was GK. Woody Harrelson has a surprisingly good role and the songs he played were both funny and lovely to hear. Meryl Streep probably cast a big shadow on the film, but surprisingly and to good effect most major actors played limited but significant roles and were well cast. It was like most Nordic films, though this has nothing to do with anything other than the PHC radio show. It had a feeling of celebration, music and joy, but it has an underlying tone of destruction and death to it. One softens the other naturally.

Upon receiving an honorary Oscar at the 2006 Academy Awards, Altman revealed that he had been the recipient of a heart transplant approximately 10 years prior, and hadn't gone public out of fear that it would hinder his ability to get work. A few months later he passed away. Seen in that light, his swansong, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, acquires a bit of a special weight.You wouldn't know it was a movie done by an ailing 80 year old director if you looked at it. It feels as fresh and vibrant as Altman ever was - done with the sweetness and nostalgia of a director who knows his final curtain call is near. This is the kind of autumnal 'last film' I love to see from directors in their old age. It just clicks with me in just the right way. Even when the results are not as satisfying (John Huston's THE DEAD), I think people blessed with the means to express themselves in a creative manner ought to give us a little glimpse of the other side, share the lessons a lifetime of experience taught them with us one last time. If every movie is a case of the director telling us "I believe the world is like this", then how much more so with his last films.The final show of a radio company playing live in an old theater, before they're bought by a Texas corporation who wants to build a parking lot where the theater stands, is only the beginning. All the hallmarks of an Altman film are present. The loose plotting used by the director as a skeleton to hang his own real-life observations on, the overlapping dialogue, the camera canvassing the frame picking up little details as it goes on, an ensemble of first-rate actors (four Oscar winners among them) acting their hearts out like actors have always done for Altman. Meryl Streep once again shines with her brilliance; Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson are right there with her every step of the way.Altman could have tugged on the heartstrings really hard if he was so inclined. It's a coming-of-age story of life and death after all. Old country singers dying in dressing rooms, young girls getting their first crack at the stage. But Altman goes sweet and gentle and funny, sometimes too silly and whimsical for his own good, like old men know how to be, but to his credit he sticks with it. The movie begins with Kevin Kline playing manager Guy Noir (what's in a name, right?) giving us the lowdown in a very campy narration. Lots of running gags too; Reily and Harrelson as the duo of cowboys singing ribald songs. A long gag where the radio show host, singers and audio SFX man improvise live on-stage buying the script girl time to find the next ad - the show must go on. And the movie goes on in the same tragicomic vein.When Tommy Lee Jones as the cynic, coldhearted executive of the Texas corp. shows up in the Fitzgerald Theater to judge if the show should be cancelled, Altman is already piling up the winking-at-the-audience thick and fast. When he leaves in the end to meet a dubious end, Altman has absolved himself from all responsibilities to a story rooted in reality; instead he gives us a schematic condemnation of a dog-eat-dog world neither he or his characters have much place or use for. A sweet, heartfelt movie filled with songs about green pastures, ads about Powdermilk Biscuits, and strange women in white trenchcoats that may or may not be angels, A Prairie Home Companion is as good a last bow from a great American director as we're likely to get.