Nashville

Rating:
Summary: the best american film
Review: Robert Altman brings Americana to life in a way that is not only brilliantly scripted, but also wrenching to the heart. One by one we fall in love with each of the 24 characters in this film. It's the best american film ever made. Nashville stars Henry Gibson, as a terrible singer who thinks he's famous when he's not. The late Gwen Welles as another singer who cannot sing, but strips in order to sing with her idol Barbara Jean. Ronee Blakley
stars as Barbara Jean, the famous country singer who has a nervous breakdown and meets with tragedy at the end of this film, she earned an Oscar nomination for this role. Lily Tomlin, who's the best thing about this film, stars in one of her rare dramatic roles as a gospel singing mom of two deaf children and who has an affair with a singer. Lily was nominated, and should have won the Oscar. This Oscar winning film is a marvel of movie making and shouldn't be missed. 5 Oscar nominations including: Best Picture[1975], Best Director-Robert Altman, Best Supporting Actress-Ronee Blakley, Best Supporting Actress-Lily Tomlin, and
Best Song-"I'm Easy"-Oscar winner.

Rating:
Summary: American Pie
Review: This is a well told story of many walks of American life. Terms like "melting pot" and "American Pie" come to mind. The characters are well defined under Altman's direction as he views this large web that covers this diverse cast. They slowly move toward the center bringing them all together for the unexpected ending.

Rating:
Summary: Panoramic, Reflective Piece of Americana
Review: Nashville's Country & Western Music Scene is the setting for this engrossing perspective of America's joys and frustrations. This unusual tale is presented in an episodic structure, seen through the eyes of 24 characters who eventually meet at a Nashville political rally.

This is a masterful and free flowing film with memorable performances and a shocking ending. The superb cast includes Lily Tomlin, Karen Black, Ned Beatty and Shelly Duval. The love theme "I'm Easy" by Keith Carradine won that year's Oscar for Best Song, while nominations included Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Altman) and Best Supporting Actress (Tomlin). A five star film and one of Hollywood's best pieces of Americana.*****

Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: What an absolute bore-fest! If you're not a fan of country music, stay far, far away from this movie - there must've been at least an hour and a half spent just on performances of some god-awful kuntry sangin'. And the rest of the time went like this: let's put 13 people on screen at once and have them all mumble inanities to each other, and we'll see if the audience can make out anything interesting (I never did, needles to say). In addition, it had no visual appeal at all, looking like a bad home movie. Don't waste your time on this one.

Rating:
Summary: Altman's bicentennial jubilee Americana
Review: Even in homespun Nashville?
Well Nashville like Hollywood is a business town and everyone in it is just passing through on their way up or down. And even good ol fashioned country music is not immune from the corrupting influences of industry. Country music offers an attractive grass roots/idealised version of American life and the atmosphere in which that music is created just seems all the more tainted in comparison to those ode-to-the-simple- life lyrics.
Altman loves satirizing America but there is definitely a love for the object of his satire as well. He has taken on L.A. and Hollywood and in more recent years Europe too but Nashville seems just the right spot for Altmans particular kind of satire to blossom in.
Nashville attracts all kinds and in Nashville the people are perhaps a little less sophisticated and a little less jaded than they are on either east or west coast. Nashville is insulated and its world is thus all the more intimate,a perfect situation for an Altman cast to thrive in. Altmans Nashville is an interesting blend of the America that the founding fathers championed and the one that they feared. Nashville is diverse, not necessarily an easy goin and peacefully coexistent diversity but an always interesting and lively one. All the various country stars and producers are pursuing what is in their own best interest or in some cases just too self involved to pay much attention to anyone else. All the competitive jockeying for position makes for a ruthless atmosphere at times but at other times when the music plays it creates a celebratory and festive atmosphere. The women seem to have the hardest time with this lifestyle. Karen Black's character is a succesful singer but near breakdown, Lily Tomlin is genuine and talented but gets involved with the wrong guy played by an easy goin Carradine, & a wannabe singer who can't sing ends up stripping to please a riotous crowd. Everyone wants their moment to shine.
The cutting back and forth between all the various plot lines wears you out but it is also exilerating as the plot lines begin to mesh as the movie nears the climactic rally. The abscence of big stars(except in cameo) is just one of the many admirable things about this film and one that keeps it feeling grounded. Its barely controlled chaotic structure and its just barely manageable length assures that you will not fully digest this monster montage all at once which is probably a calculated effect. There is just life, no one kind of order will suffice. Altmans magic is that he loves showing you all sides of it. There is no central narrative voice as in a novel just a speechless camera which seeks and finds a kind of satisfaction in the glory of endless variety.

Rating:
Summary: Strange movie
Review: This is a rather hard movie to review because it is very un-formulaic. It follows a very fluid storyline about a week in the life of several people involved in the Nashville music industry in the late '70s. There is no cutting of scenes, they just flow from one to the other. Be sure to think of John Lennon during the final scene. Good acting, a non-judgemental view of its characters, and the unique shooting technique make this an interesting watch.

Rating:
Summary: Time hasn't been kind... but was it ever?
Review: I have struggled to determine, for the life of me, what people see in this gargantuan travesty of a film. I rented this movie several times and painfully made it through on the most recent trip, only to question just what in heaven's name motivates critics and supposed "film buffs" to hold this film in such high regard. The entire piece seems hideously dated, but even with the perspective of having lived through the events described, I still have to wonder what all the fuss was about even upon its release.

It appears to me that "Nashville" is a weak attempt at an "American Graffiti"-esque blending of storylines all loosely dealing with the "fading American dream" malaise that swept post-Watergate America. Dead-end hippies who won't grow up, shady politicians, hollow media fools, and cynical music-biz execs waltz from scene to scene with no apparent purpose (usually called a "plot") other than to drop bizarre and achingly forced dialog spewing unnecessarily trite 70's social commentary. In the absence of anything important to say, Robert Altman weaves a laundry list of cinematic and socio-political cliches that, even in 1976, had grown tired and predictably shameless. I simply cannot stomach the scene when Keith Carradine turns to the Sergeant and says "killed anyone this week?" I mean, come on. How boring, predictable, and anachronistic can you get?

Meanwhile, the cast does its darndest to look interested in carrying out these roles in a setting completely devoid of any natural, realistic framework. Everything seems so darned staged, so sterile and planned, that nothing is spontaneous yet it all seems completely benign and improvised, somewhat akin to a home movie when everyone just sort of was told "go ahead and do SOMETHING that would seem appropriate here". It is a lifeless, unrealized, and underwhelming attempt at art, and it fails miserably. The performances themselves are about as forced as the woeful "plot" and dialog, with each actor behaving as though they are caught in an endless episode of "Love, American Style". (And not exactly an all-star cast at the time, either: I mean, Karen BLACK?) Despite the mediocre songs themselves (much of which are not 1976 Nashvillian country music, but a Hollywood impression of what Nashville country was, and that's a big difference), the musical scenes are painful to sit through. The cinematography and sets are appallingly amateurish, often barely upstaging what one would anticipate from a cheesy high-school theater production. And don't even get me going about the dated costume and wardrobe vibe: even though it may have been somewhat "hip" in 1976, the whole appearance of the film is dirty, claustrophobic, and uncomfortable.

From every corner comes rampant praise for this film, which I have dared over and over to amaze me in some small way, only to come up continually disappointed. "It's a picture of America, a 'snapshot' of the American Dream" they cry, these anonymous faces who somehow haven't seen the host of films far superior on the subject, with strong acting and a coherent, focused story. But with "Nashville", by the time the ending rolls around and you're checking your watch for the umpteenth time, you gotta wonder if the whole thing might have been better as an after-school special.

Rating:
Summary: A disaster that only critics loved
Review: Three hours of improvisation and "loose as a goose" directing that should have been edited down to 70 minutes. Altman connects dozens of characters and sub-plots with that old Hollywood standby, an assassination. Unfortunately, that doesn't resolve any of the plots. It only ends the film. Abruptly. VERY abruptly. Boring, pointless, a film that begins to unravel in the first ten minutes and never recovers.

Rating:
Summary: Just Great
Review: Nashville is just mesmerizing. Knowing that it had no real plot(which is only half true), I expected to be slightly bored, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. The acting in this movie is just amazing. I can't recall any acting more convincing than Lilly Tomlin at the party talking to someone about injuries...SO REAL!!! I heard some complaints about the DVD picyure qaulity, but it looks fine to me. The picture quality isn't as good as a current blockbuster, but this was made in the 70's without a huge budget....this is as good as it will ever look. Anyone who watched the horrendous VHS knows how good this really is. As far as the extras go, the interview with Altman is nice, but his commentary can be ignored. He pretty much just repeats what he says in his interview. He also only talks periodically which is my commentary pet peeve! When there are gaps in the dialogue I start watching the movie, and then get irritated when they start talking again. Anyway, great movie! Everyone should watch it, and if you are considering buying it, this DVD is the only way to go.

Rating:
Summary: The Great American Film
Review: It was January 1975. I was on my way to New Orleans but decided to spend a couple of nights in Nashville. I went to the old and new Grand Ole Opry's, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the clubs, recording studios, the "authentic" concrete replica of the Parthenon--I was a tourist observing other tourists, each of whom manifested in some way reverence for the source of it all--the music that had replaced the age of Irving Berlin with network shows featuring Glen Campbell, Roy Clark, Roger Miller, Kenny Rogers, Dolly and Loretta, and on and on. The entertainers of yesterday and tomorrow all had one agenda on mind: to make it by way of, if not in, Nashville. There was no other route to fame and fortune.

On my last day in Nashville, the newspapers devoted front-page space to excoriating jazz drummer Buddy Rich for making negative comments about country music on his trip through Nashville. To suggest that it was "simplistic" was tantamount to blasphemy. Altman's use of Nashville as a microcosmic metaphor for the American dream isn't simplistic, nor is it necessarily disrespectful toward Nashville and its "culture," as a number of spectators and even critics (Rex Reed) suggested at the time of its release in the summer of 1975. Rather, think of the role of Dublin in a Joyce novel, or of New Orleans in an inventive Louis Armstrong improvisation. The film is bound to be dismissed by most viewers who see it, especially on a television screen. But it is neither pretentious nor cerebral. It does, perhaps, require some awareness of American popular culture, a sense of irony, and an ability to weigh simultaneously the grandeur and ordinariness of the American people and the joy and sadness of life. The viewer who possesses these qualities is in a position not only to discover one of the most extraordinary, inspired achievements in the history of filmmaking but to be changed for the better by experiencing it.