A Prairie Home Companion

Typical Robert Altman with his equally typical method of a broken mirror, the hundreds of shards of which ideally can be assembled into an interesting and attractive mosaic. Sometimes, however, it fails to happen and in such cases, the absence of a strong story and a central hero is strongly evident. The director outlines the atmosphere of the whole film in the opening words of the narrator, who describes the theater and its performances transmitted into the ether, which had already lost its charm fifty years ago with the advent of television and is now only held together by nostalgia and unwillingness to admit to the passing of time and changes in the society around it. I had issues with the pace of Altman's film and if I have issues with the pace, most likely the majority of viewers will have them too. Altman does not rush and lets his heroes enjoy the last performance in the theater, which, by the decision of higher powers, is ending and will be replaced by a giant parking lot. He allows the actors and singers to sing the entire songs and those who do not like the country genre will most likely suffer genuinely. On the other hand, a strong point of the film is the very balanced and strong cast of actors, which is not often seen even in American cinema, and their presence is also noticeable on the screen. The mysterious character of an angel played by the charming Virginia Madsen felt somewhat forcibly inserted to me and I managed quite well without her. Although I was somewhat bored throughout the duration, in hindsight after several days, I must say that  A Prairie Home Companion left me with a strange feeling of nostalgia, and compared to numerous other films that one forgets after a few days, I will definitely cherish this mood in the future. Overall impression: 55%. (23.05.2010)

To like the movie "Zítra nehrajeme!" you have to like country. I really think that this is a very fundamental condition. If you don't like country, you won't love the film too much. It's actually about country. Not only about country, but there are really a lot of songs here. "A Prairie Home Companion" is a live radio show that showcases artists from the country genre and has been on the air for quite some time. Garrison Keillor founded the show in 1974 and it has been running continuously since then. Keillor is also the one who performs and introduces the guests and their individual songs and performances. We follow a certain story here, the story of how the show ends and the individual artists say goodbye, but we are not really interested in their future. Some may be interesting (Lindsay Lohan's character), others are more like caricatures, which are nice for individual scenes, but don't really work as real characters (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly). The character of Virginia Madsen, although beautiful, also seems a bit unnecessary to me, as if she doesn't really fit into the whole story. However, the actors deliver performances that make the film easy to watch, but again, I must add - it is easy to watch if you like country. The film is slow, but that's how country can be, expressing emotions, just like the music it presents. It's all in a spirit that doesn't suit everyone, and Robert Altman proves that he was never a creator of fast-paced edits. However, I don't think it's a disadvantage, it just has to resonate with you. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/10/zitra-nehrajeme-lovci-dinosauru.html (01.03.2013)