He's such a unique storyteller and stylist that even the arrival of a minor Robert Altman film is reason to rejoice.
When Altman made M*A*S*H in 1970 he'd been honing his directing skills for 20 years in television and never lost his ability to tell stories in intriguing fits and starts.
Since M*A*S*H, Altman has given us such classics as Nashville, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, 3 Women, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, A Wedding, The Player, Short Cuts and Gosford Park.
Sure, he's also slipped in a Popeye, Pret-a-Porter and Dr. T and the Women along the way, but they still bear the stamp of his frenetic style.
In an Altman film, scenes and storylines overlap as merrily as the actors, dialogue.
Altman's A Prairie Home Companion features some outstanding performances and a winning mix of melancholy and fantasy.
What it lacks is a strong script and compelling characters.
That's more screenwriter Garrison Keillor's fault than Altman's but it shows that the better the script, the more magic Altman can create.
Keillor's real weekly live radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, has been going strong for more than 30 years and shows few signs of slowing down.
For the purpose of the film, the show has met its demise.
A nasty tycoon has sent Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) his hatchet man to sign the papers that will fire everyone associated with the show and have their venerable theatre torn down.
Axeman is not the only one on the termination trail.
There's a beautiful angel known as Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen) whose come to collect a soul or two.
We get to watch the performers rally on stage for their swan songs while they struggle to keep from falling apart backstage.
As GK, the congenial host and producer of the show Keillor is wonderfully languid and entirely passive.
Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are hilarious as a pair of singing cowpokes with a bawdy sense of humour.
Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are the last two of the original singing Johnson clan, while Lindsay Lohan is Streep's death-obsessed daughter.
The actors hold nothing back, especially Streep, who gets to chide Keillor, a former lover, for cheating with blues diva Jearlyn Steele and to lament the loss of her glory days.
Lohan holds her own in some impressive company.
Kevin Kline gets all the slapstick moments in the film as Guy Noir, the show's security officer who sees himself as a movie gumshoe.
A Prairie Home Companion glides along effortlessly offering some sweet sentiment, loads of gentle laughs and some great little musical moments.
It's a bit too lightweight to have a lasting impact but it's fun while it spins out its simple tale.
(This film is rated PG)
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