A Prairie Home Companion
Jun. 29th, 2006 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoWe went this afternoon to celebrate our 24th anniversary together by seeing A Prairie Home Companion. Had to drive 30 miles to find a theatre with a matinee showing, and we were two out of an audience of three. I suppose it will be out on DVD quickly.
That is not a reflection on the quality of the film, which is very high. It is rather a reflection on the potential audience. Those of us who have listened to the "News from Lake Wobegon" for the past 30+ years are sure to see and enjoy it. Alas, it is probably wasted on a younger audience, for the most part. You have to love the campy, folksy style and the mad improvisations that Garrison Keillor has made famous, and it helps to have a healthy dose of nostalgia about live radio entertainment (that isn't a sports event), old theaters, and the midwest in general. We both loved it.
Some have said it is a film about death that deals with the subject cheerfully. I would say instead that it is a film about optimism and living life philosophically that happens to touch on death, love, passion, depression, and soulless powerbrokers in about equal parts. Written by Keillor himself, it has all the character of his early novels, particularly WLT, the account of an early live radio station that operated out of the back of a lunch counter (the call letters stood for "with lettuce and tomato") and in fact, the radio station that originates the broadcast during the film is WLT.
We see the final performance of Keillor's live radio variety show, as the theater and radio station have been purchased by a Texas mega-corporation that has decided to demolish the theater and put a parking lot in its place. Stellar performances by Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, as the singing Johnson sisters, allow them to literally steal the show even though Keillor is brilliant playing himself and Kevin Kline is cast perfectly as Guy Noire, the forever short on cash private eye.
The film is worth seeing just for the music, which is all excellent and was in fact recorded live in the theatre, not dubbed in a studio. Radio fans will particularly enjoy the harried backstage managers and the hilarious performance by the sound effects man when he is called upon to back up a duct tape commercial in which Keillor adlibs continuously when the stage manager drops the script on the floor and fails to recover it in time. The familiar sponsors are almost all there: Guy's Shoes (made from genuine pigskin, they may squeak but they don't sweat), Powdermilk Biscuits (of course), Be-bop-a-re-ba frozen rhubarb and frozen rhubarb pies, and so forth. (I missed the Fearmonger Shop, though, and Bertha's Kitty Boutique.)
Missing? No monologue. But in a sense, the entire filmscript is one of Keillor's rambling monologues, with asides and digressions, reminiscences, tall tales, and philosophical remarks about life and living.
If you like Garrison Keillor's writing or his radio broadcasts, you should see this. As a matter of fact, if you can slow down and appreciate a film that isn't about blowing stuff up or shooting people, you should probably see it (even if you dislike Keillor.) Certainly, two of our friends who dislike the radio show were so taken with the interplay of characters and the humor of the film that they now hear the radio broadcast in a new light.
Rating: 4 of 5 possible apples
That is not a reflection on the quality of the film, which is very high. It is rather a reflection on the potential audience. Those of us who have listened to the "News from Lake Wobegon" for the past 30+ years are sure to see and enjoy it. Alas, it is probably wasted on a younger audience, for the most part. You have to love the campy, folksy style and the mad improvisations that Garrison Keillor has made famous, and it helps to have a healthy dose of nostalgia about live radio entertainment (that isn't a sports event), old theaters, and the midwest in general. We both loved it.
Some have said it is a film about death that deals with the subject cheerfully. I would say instead that it is a film about optimism and living life philosophically that happens to touch on death, love, passion, depression, and soulless powerbrokers in about equal parts. Written by Keillor himself, it has all the character of his early novels, particularly WLT, the account of an early live radio station that operated out of the back of a lunch counter (the call letters stood for "with lettuce and tomato") and in fact, the radio station that originates the broadcast during the film is WLT.
We see the final performance of Keillor's live radio variety show, as the theater and radio station have been purchased by a Texas mega-corporation that has decided to demolish the theater and put a parking lot in its place. Stellar performances by Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, as the singing Johnson sisters, allow them to literally steal the show even though Keillor is brilliant playing himself and Kevin Kline is cast perfectly as Guy Noire, the forever short on cash private eye.
The film is worth seeing just for the music, which is all excellent and was in fact recorded live in the theatre, not dubbed in a studio. Radio fans will particularly enjoy the harried backstage managers and the hilarious performance by the sound effects man when he is called upon to back up a duct tape commercial in which Keillor adlibs continuously when the stage manager drops the script on the floor and fails to recover it in time. The familiar sponsors are almost all there: Guy's Shoes (made from genuine pigskin, they may squeak but they don't sweat), Powdermilk Biscuits (of course), Be-bop-a-re-ba frozen rhubarb and frozen rhubarb pies, and so forth. (I missed the Fearmonger Shop, though, and Bertha's Kitty Boutique.)
Missing? No monologue. But in a sense, the entire filmscript is one of Keillor's rambling monologues, with asides and digressions, reminiscences, tall tales, and philosophical remarks about life and living.
If you like Garrison Keillor's writing or his radio broadcasts, you should see this. As a matter of fact, if you can slow down and appreciate a film that isn't about blowing stuff up or shooting people, you should probably see it (even if you dislike Keillor.) Certainly, two of our friends who dislike the radio show were so taken with the interplay of characters and the humor of the film that they now hear the radio broadcast in a new light.
Rating: 4 of 5 possible apples
