Review: A Prairie Home Companion

UK release date: 5th January

The final film from one of Hollywood’s best-loved mavericks, the late Robert Altman, is a gentle, affectionate salute to Garrison Keillor’s equally gentle and affectionate radio show of the same name.

Keillor plays himself, the genial, unflustered host of a long-running live public radio show that is about to be closed down. Ruthless Texan millionaire Tommy Lee Jones has bought the theatre, and it will be demolished after the final performance. The film shows the action on and off stage, although not a lot actually happens and a sub-plot involving a mysterious woman (Virginia Madsen) is just daft.

However, the joy comes from the relaxed interplay between the show’s troupe of regulars and some great country music performances from the likes of Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin and John C Reilly. A fine way for Altman to bow out.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate PG
Running time 105mins

Review by John Ferguson

News: Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones, on good bad guy form in this week’s final film for tip-top director Robert Altman, A Prairie Home Companion, should be back on our screens at some point later this year in the Coen brothers’ next outing, No Country for Old Men. With a plot revolving around the discovery of some dead bodies, drugs and a big pile of cash, here’s hoping it’s a return to form for the duo, whose last couple of outings have been decidedly sub-par, considering the genius of their earlier films. After that, Jones will take the lead as a career military man trying to find out what’s happened to his son, AWOL after returning from Iraq, in the topical and potentially controversial In the Valley of Elah from Crash writer/director Paul Haggis.

News: Woody Harrelson

Despite still being a big name, Harrelson hasn’t had any especially high-profile roles for quite a while, generally appearing in relatively minor parts in relatively small films – with his turn in this week’s Altman ensemble piece A Prairie Home Companion and the recent A Scanner Darkly being his biggest for a fair few years. He has a fair few movies in the works, though, and must surely have enough money in the bank not to care any more, so it looks rather like he’s choosing his projects deliberately and carefully.

Amongst the numerous flicks in the pipeline are animated stoner comedy Free Jimmy, alongside British faves Simon Pegg, Phil Daniels, Samantha Morton, David Tennant and Emilia Fox, as well as Indy flick hero Kyle MacLachlan. Not yet set for release on either side of the Atlantic (perhaps because it involves the search for a junkie elephant, hardly good for the kids), it nonetheless has received favourable reviews on the festival circuit.

Also promising is his starring role as a middle-aged gigolo in The Walker from writer/director Paul Shrader – a thematic sequel to his 1980 Richard Gere-starring American Gigolo, as well as his turn in the Coen brother’s latest, No Country For Old Men (alongside his A Prairie Home Companion co-star Tommy Lee Jones).

Another flick likely to catapult Harrelson back into the limelight is the intriguing thriller Transsiberia where, alongside Emily Mortimer and ben Kingsley, he will play one half of an American couple caught up in comspiracy and murder while travelling the Trans-Siberian Railway through China and Russia – although the Will Ferrell baseball comedy Semi-Pro is most likely to earn him mega-bucks.

Nonetheless, he’s not avoiding the smaller and more controversial flicks, with the entirely improvised poker comedy The Grand doubtless an interesting experience (for the actors, at least), and an ideal film for someone so associated with his political activities in the real world, The Battle in Seattle – set around anti-World Trade organisation demonstrations that descend into riot and violence. Despite the lefty politics – still unpopular in the US, though likely to be coming to the fore a bit more by its December Stateside release with the excitement of the Presidential primaries – the likes of Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon and Ray Liotta on the poster could well see it do well.

News: Paul Haggis

The Oscar-winning writer/director behind the likes of Crash and Casino Royale has teamed up again with Clint Eastwood to script this week’s Flags of Our Fathers, following their previous award-winning success with Million Dollar Baby. He has two projects currently in the pipeline, both of which he will write and direct.

Set for release next year, In the Valley of Elah will tackle the difficulties faced by soldiers returning from service in Iraq, potentially reviving a genre that prompted numerous superb movies – everything from Rambo to Born on the Fourth of July – when the war veterans concerned were returning from Vietnam. Tommy Lee Jones will star as a career officer desperate to find out what has happened to his son, AWOL after serving in Iraq, aided by Charlize Theron’s detective.

After that will come Honeymoon With Harry, a “blackly comic drama” (apparently) about a man who, when his fiancee is killed two days before their wedding, decides to take her father on the honeymoon to scatter her ashes. Even though they hate each other. No actors have yet been attached – but don’t be too surprised if it ends up being renamed “Meet the Maker” and starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro as a slightly more morbid sequel to Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers…