ALTMAN POLL

Realizing that, although I own the lot, Gingerbread Man is the only Altman I've seen from that run between Short Cuts and Dr. T. Really need to get on that and see what all the vociferous hype for Prêt-à-Porter is about already. So much hype!

Looking at the website for the Popeye village in Malta posted upthread , really tickled by this paragraph:

Later, be part of a cast and become movie stars for one day by staring in an actual movie. From plotting the scenes, to rehearsals, to costume-picking and the actual filming, you and your friends will have a blast and taste the life of your Hollywood idols. At the end of the stay, you will visit our cinema to experience the Premier of your very own movie. Copies of this epic thriller can be purchased after the preview! Please be aware that ample chuckles and numerous shots are a guarantee

Sounds like making an Altman movie.

Been a long time, and I was probably still going to them with "new Altman film!" in mind, but I don't remember liking any of Dr. T, Prêt-à-Porter, or Cookie's Fortune. Gingerbread Man was better, I think.

Kansas City?

I feel like I've never heard anything more laudatory about that stretch of films than 'it was okay'. Gingerbread Man was okay. Dr. T has the rare distinction of featuring a close-up scene of childbirth in a mainstream movie, so that's something.

I remember Cookie's Fortune being okay

hahaha everyone I've talked to about Dr. T and the Women totally hated it, I'm more curious now, I might rent both tmrw

watched Kansas City recently and was pretty bored, I think maybe even Images is better

I don't remember hating Dr. T. In point of fact, I don't remember much of anything about Dr. T.

But it's okay, everything he did after was very good-to-great so he went out on a high note, at least.

A Perfect Couple is the obvious template for PTA's Punch-Drunk Love, better in some ways, still half-baked

Quintet... ugh

The band Marta Heflin's a part of in APC is such a peculiar invention.

I have fond-adjacent memories of Quintet the one time I screened it. And of knowing even then I never had to watch it again.

Jack Tanner returns in Scorsese's new Dylan doc!

I was into the first ~half hour of Quintet, but it lost me when the wife was blown up. Before that I thought well, the problem is the ridiculous costumes, too baroque and fantasy inspired compared to the stark sets. Newman's outfit makes sense. But then once the game got going I was totally out of it and confused. The staging reminded me of his play films, not in a good way, it feels totally artificial. And the sets are cool, I feel like if he didn't use so many wide shots the atmosphere wouldn't have evaporated.

I liked seeing the comedic but also somewhat realistic medical emergencies in M*A*S*H and its acknowledgement of the performers over the loudspeaker at the end, but it was such a straight guy film

It kind of invented the Gross-Out Comedy.

Really? I think of it more as a slacker comedy

seems much more cynical than that to me

It’s a good thing you have a nice body otherwise we would get rid of you quick

Don’t stick me

Keep it clean

I can tie that for you

Ok let’s have the big stitches for closing up the chest

Larger needle, knocko

does anybody know if this is an officer or an enlisted man?

he’s an enlisted man

make the stitches big

oh come off it major! You put me right off my fresh fried lobster, do:you realize that?

Really? I think of it more as a slacker comedy

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Saturday, April 25, 2020 11:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Actually you're right. I was mixing up Gross-Out and Slob Comedy, the latter of which eventually became Slacker Comedy. The Gross-Out elements of M*A*S*H are there, but not exactly played for laughs.

I've probably brought this up a ton of times here, but it's really interesting watching the first several episodes of the TV series, because they were really biting the Altman's style--lots of underlit scenes, tracking zooms, overlapping dialog, I think they were doing more location stuff too--before finding their own groove.

M*A*S*H isn't even Altman's best film of 1970.

Correct

Since we're all quarantined and Brewster McCloud has come up, might I interest you in the insane story of the guy who played the fat security guard in said film?: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/houston-babylon-dean-goss-houstons-jackie-gleason-houstons-bluebeard-or-both-6743586

saw McCabe & Mrs. Miller again, one of my favorite films ever, it still seems perfect to me, a beautiful recreation of frontier life

I liked the way it intertwined the events of the story with the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen songs

Julie Christie was acknowledged as great in it, but Warren Beatty was too. he plays an overconfident, wily, sweet doofus really well

The Long Goodbye is good and it is one of those films I think will like better after contemplating and watching again

I could watch it forever.

on first viewing I don't think it is as beautifully imagined visually as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and its interpretation of Marlowe is more cynical and less interesting to me than Chandler’s, but it has the same interest in milieu and casual approach to filmed conversation as Altman’s previous films, which I really like

Get thee to a California Split if you haven't already.

after decades since seeing them I'm watching his films again in order (as much as I can)

California Split's on Amazon Prime, and it's friskier than I remembered.

was planning on watching Thieves Like Us next, although I think maybe I shouldn't bother but should just skip to California Split

Thieves Like Us is good!

ok, I will go ahead and watch it!

California Split is barely a movie. I mean this mostly as a compliment

The Theatrical Cut of California Split was recently added to Prime.

^whoa. is it cropped? the one on iTunes is not in 2:35:1

California Split is barely a movie. I mean this mostly as a compliment

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

it's a movie of grace notes and small moments. George Segal's character is fascinating, half in half out, the way he gets in bed with that girl and jumps up when her roommate comes home, or when he leaves the craps table after that girl comes up and says "it's my birthday!!"... and that all comes to a head in that final scene, and in that one long slow zoom of Segal sitting far away after winning everything. Gambling is a much easier addiction to externalize than most drugs and California Split leans more into AA/NA (or Synanon) territory, compared to something like The Hustler.

This Says It Is in 2.35:1 https://theplaylist.net/california-split-robert-altman-amazon-prime-20200512/

Rumor mill says this is in advance of Indictor releasing an uncut R2 BluRay.

INDICATOR

I will be giving California Split another shot someday.

whats the deal with the different cuts of California Split? Any drastic differences?

Watched California Split, loved it

"It didn't mean a fucking thing, did it?"

XP Some Altman Stans consider the shorter DVD cut a mutilation. Having seen both edits, I don't feel the same way. Altman had to re-edit out and around some live music (most of the film's soundtrack is standards performed by a lounge singer off & on-screen). Since, as Flappy notes, the film is all grace notes and small moments, this wasn't the same as, say, losing all the flashbacks in The Wild Bunch, and some other legendary edit difference. The flavor of the film remains.

However, it's exciting that the original is out there again in the OAR.

"...or some other..."

CS reminds me of that line hurled at Peter Fonda in The Limey: "You're more like a vibe than a person."

Thieves Like Us is the better film, yeah. I bought the DVD upon its release in the late '00s.

I should just do a full-blown Altman rewatch while I'm stuck at home. I have pretty much the whole kit and caboodle (save some of the minor '80s stuff and my copy of Quintet which seems to have evaporated into the ether).

I’ve been doing it and it’s great. McCabe? Overrated !

I kind of hate Nashville.

I got through 20 minutes of Quintet once.