Tanner '88 was amazing! As was another made-for-cable piece done the same year as Tanner - The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. Altan brought a special touch to that production.
Hell, I’m one of the two or three people who actually liked Popeye! I’ll really miss Altman.
Altman made some great movies, including one that trashed my hometown, but I loved it anyway. Somehow the Academy was able to pass on Director oscars to hacks like James Cameron and Ron Howard but never Altman, who was far more inovative and interesting. Stupid Oscars.
I’m sure gonna miss Altman. Nashville is high on my list of best movies of all time. Lawzy, how I love that movie.
Another one that I really like a lot is A Wedding. Altman sure had a knack for managing large casts of characters and weaving intricate plots with them.
I’m not thread-shitting. I didn’t say anything disrespectful until you told me to “have some respect”.
A thread at a message board about a person who died is not conversation at the person’s funeral.
It’s a thread about the person – and his accomplishments – and saying, “he made some boring ass shit” is a perfectly valid comment. We discuss TV, movies, food, and celebrities here. We don’t eulogize them.
It’s as close as any of us will get to being at the funeral.
Oh, such sad news! I have so much admiration for his talent and his work. Like Struan said, Altman looked a little ill when he accepted his honorary Oscar a few years ago – I had never thought of him as old until then.
I don’t think Trunk was being a jerk at all. I am sad about Robert Altman, but it is his work that I know, not the person. Talking about his body of work, and its range, seems very appropriate when remembering his career. From what I do know about Altman as an individual, he would have been the first person to point out that he tried to accomplish many different things with his various projects, and that not every movie connected with every viewer. Heck, if they had, Altman would have been disappointed that he wasn’t pushing the envelope hard enough.
Perhaps, vibrotronica, but you can’t force the discussion to go exactly the way you want. Not everyone has to worship the ground he walked upon - after all. Paul Verhoeven[sup]1[/sup] he’s not . Whenever a celebrity shuffles off this mortal coil, his career, both good and bad, are fair game to criticism.
[sup]1[/sup]I’m sorry lissener, please don’t hit me too hard
Wow, Robert Altman directed Gosford Park? I love that movie. What a different assortment of films he participated in, to be sure.
It’s a shame he’s gone.
Exactly! That’s why I’d say negative things here, and not there.
If you’re concerned that there’s bad “mojo” talking about a guy after his death, or that he’s “looking down” on us. . .well, sorry, but I don’t buy that brand of crazy.
So it’s OK to be boorish and insensitive as long as your not at a funeral?
No.
A comment that could be taken as being boorish and insenstive at a funeral is really no such thing when you’re not at a funeral, such as “I never liked Robert’s films”.
You know what? I’m sorry I said anything. I don’t want to make this thread about Trunk.
When I think about Altman, I think about that opening sequence in The Player, the shot of Christopher Penn standing over the girl he had just murdered in Short Cuts, and the dog coming to sit with everyone else to watch the women’s shower prank in M.A.S.H. It’s those little moments when chaos resolves into perfection that sort of define his magic for me. It’s really influenced the way I look at the world. Or, more accurately, Altman made me realize that’s how life looks from the inside.
I agree with vibrotronica about the 8-minute shot in The Player, and I’d like to add the Last Supper scene in MASH. A google image search on “mash last supper” yields a gorgeous still of this as the first result. On the other hand I’d say that Pret-a-porter is likely the worst film I’ve ever paid to see. I only stayed so that I’d be able to “discuss knowledgeably” the final scene.
*Nashville *was one of those Helen Keller moments for me; when I suddenly saw that there was art in movies. And I love Popeye; it’s a sublime exercise in surrealism. It’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller on acid.
I saw Nashville as a kid (perhaps when it came out; I would have been 7) but it’s high time I see it again to actually appreciate it! Off to amazon!
I read the funeral home will have viewings at 1:00, 4:15, 7:30 & 10:25.
btw, The Player, 3 Women, McCabe & Mrs Miller, Thieves Like Us & That Cold Day in the Park are five of my all-time favorites.
Altman’s Nashville and Coppola’s first two Godfathers were the best American movies of the 1970s.
P.S. The title of the novel and movie was MASH; the TV series was MASH*.
Such a shame. I’ve enjoyed every movie of his that I’ve seen. I’d like to see Prairie Home Companion as well.
I’d put those three in the top 20 or so Walloon, but don’t know if they are the top 3. That was a pretty good decade for movies. There’s Apocalypse Now to consider, and Annie Hall, and Mean Streets. Hell, even Rocky. Stallone never matched it, but it’s still the standard by which other sports movies are measured.