Rest in Peace, Robert Altman

There's a good possibility Robert Altman's eulogy will be spoken by more than one person at the same time. Altman liked to have actors overlapping their lines because that's what it's like in real life. In a crowded restaurant, no one ever shuts up and lets a small group of people converse.

However, it was also veiwed as a distraction. Altman was never meant to be a highly successful director. Critics were quick to write scathing reviews of some of his movies, such as Dr. T and the Women, Ready to Wear, Popeye just as they loved his other movies, Gosford Park, M*A*S*H, The Player, Nashville. Warren Beatty has said he wanted to kill him on the set of McCabe and Miller. Studios didn't like him because he wanted to cast Elliott Gould in roles Elliott Gould never gets. However, The Long Goodbye, a modern, well 1970's update of the popular book starring Elliott Gould is worth watching once, if not again.

A lot of Altman's movie were worth watching once, but I wouldn't recommend them again. Movies like Short Cuts, based on the works of Raymond Carver. It's a nice movie, but at times, some of the stories don't work. I liked The Gingerbread Man too, but afterwards, I thought it was a nice try at southern film noir.

As a matter of fact, Altman seemed to take all genres and turn them on the edge. M*A*S*H, his most successful movie came about when he was in his 40's. It was also the biggest fuck you to Nixon and Vietnam. No mention of Korea is made in the movie, I think. It's a shame the football game at the end doesn't sit well with the rest of the movie. Nashville was a nice look at the new South as well as providing actual good country western music, written by the actors in the movies themselves. Popeye was a big disappointment, even though it's a nice kids musical. The Player is probably the biggest fuck you to the same Hollywood that forever shunned him.

His lifetime Oscar this past year was merely a sympathy vote. Altman deserved an Oscar about 20 years ago. He deserved the Nobel prize for Tanner '88, quite possibily the best satire about a political election, especially since it was filmed on actual campaign trails. If Pat Robertson and I ever end up in the same afterlife, I want to ask him bluntly, did he really believe Kevin J. O'Conner was a real reporter or knew he was an actor when he gave that canned response.

Seeing Altman and David Lynch chatting at the Oscars in 2002 was quite possibly the strangest thing ever telecasted on TV, but like Lynch, Altman didn't pander to the critics or the mainstream audience. He made movies. Some were good. Some were terrible. Some were inbetween. But he never gave up, even when he was diagnosed with cancer. A lot of actors, not stars, love him for it.

Rest in Peace, Robert Altman

Movies of Altman's I recommened
- The Player
- M*A*S*H
- Nashville
- The Gingerbread Man
- Cookie's Fortune
- Tanner '88
- Popeye (You got to give the man props for casting actors who remind you of the characters from the comic, especially Paul Smith as Bluto, Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl and Paul Dooley as Wimpy.)
- Short Cuts
- The Long Goodbye