Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor are my current pinup boys.
I’ve tracked this movie since it was still in the talking stage, with Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett penciled in as Dusty & Lefty. Last summer, fans in Minnesota posted photos on the IMDb, catching the actors at the Fitzgerald Theater. It was fun to see the candid shots, and to catch the Oscar show in February as Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep used Altman’s famous ‘overlapping dialogue’ to demonstrate what a great sister act they’d be in the movie.
Several months ago I printed a poster from the official site for Prairie Home Companion/the Movie and stuck it on the refrigerator. Last week, the June 3rd radio edition of the Prairie Home Companion featured John C. Reilly, Virginia Madsen, and Meryl Streep, who loved making the movie & didn’t want the experience to end.
The PHC songs may be corny, but they can overpower the rational part of your brain, demanding either guffaws or tears. I was glad Meryl Streep sang me to tears with one particular song last week, rather than hearing for the first time yesterday in the theater. The Johnson Sisters’ song about lost Uncles and Aunts could have been devastating, but luckily I’d been ‘hardened off’. [Does that term make this a garden entry instead of a movie post?]
I loved the movie, hope to see it again before it leaves the big screen and have already set aside the money for the eventual DVD. Our hearts stayed in St. Paul although we’d left the theater – at 5 PM the latest episode was broadcast live from right here in Austin, Texas – performed on stage at the Bass Concert Hall on the University of Texas Campus.
Well, it’s time to get that hotdish cookin’, yoo becha, and bake a cahfee-cayke… I’m feelin’ kinda Minnesotan.
[It's now November, and Robert Altman died on the 20th. So A Prairie Home Companion will be the last Robert Altman movie, and I'm feeling very sad about that - but grateful that his works are just a DVD away. Farewell, with love from a longtime fan. Annie]
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