Saw A Prairie Home Companion. A Robert Altman movie with Rob's big fingerprints everywhere, from the kind of listless improvised script to the lunge at the jugular of cheap sentiment. It works here because one of the appeals of the lovely radio show is its kind of out-of-time soppy feel. It's silly old self-consciously granddad-tier jokes about "giving shy persons the courage to stand up and do what needs to be done" and so on. The action revolves around the 'one last' show that the gang puts on before the hated Suits shut them down for good. The pace is slow and ambling, which is welcome until nearly the end, when you feel things should kind of get to the point. Kevin Kline provides needed comic relief as Guy Noir which is a sort of extended theft/homage to Inspector Clouseau. I felt Streep's improvisation tended more toward the cruel self-parody of A Mighty Wind. A trap that the other, more practiced comedians (Lilly Tomlin, John C Reilly) correctly avoided.
The film is choppy but relaxed. It crams in a lot of little subplots but wisely stays a bit aloof and stays not too interested in any one of those subplots, drifting instead from hubbub to hubbub. It also made me hunger hard for my old days preforming.
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