This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry
Short Cuts
I'd seen two other Altman movies before this. I loved The Player but M*A*S*H was not quite as great as I was hoping. I knew I was taking a risk on a movie nearly 3 hours long, but luckily it was fantastic.
While they are definitely two different approaches, the movie uses it's huge cast with unusual connections successfully in the same way as Magnolia. I think that Magnolia is the improvement, but in a way you should not compare them. I'd never read any of Raymond Carver's writings, but would be interested after this.
As a movie fan though I think the most initially overwhelming and impressive thing about this movie is the cast list. As you are watching the opening titles and the names just keep coming at you like an unstoppable barrage you aren't quite sure what to think. A lot of movies with a huge cast of celebrities like this often bomb. But usually those types of movies are average length comedies where each actor basically gets a cameo and some goofy joke line. In this situation each actor gets plenty of time over the 3 hours to really bring every fully formed character to life.
Each story is wonderful and it's hard to pick a favorite. It would have been great to watch even if the different Carver stories had all been completely separate. But the most overwhelming and impressive thing about the movie subsequent to watching it is thinking about all the different connections. I'm such a geek that I wrote down every character and drew lines to the other characters to see how many different characters had interactions with or were related to other characters. It's pretty impressive. But the movie is so long and there are so many characters it rarely feels forced.
Altman is an interesting guy. I'm curious to see some more facets of his work, even though sometimes some of his politics of things annoy me. Mostly I'm interested.
Rating: 9/10