A Prairie Home Companion | 
| Director: Robert Altman
Actors: Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Garrison Keillor
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy Used: $0.89
You Save: $19.09 (96%)
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Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 2096
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Genre: none
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
ESRB: Teen
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.1
MPN: N10541
UPC: 794043105418
EAN: 0794043105418
ASIN: B000H6SXYM
Theatrical Release Date: June 9, 2006
Release Date: October 10, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor combine reality and fantasy in this smooth, ebullient take on the long-running Prairie Home Companion radio show. Set during the show's fictitious last broadcast--the host station has been bought--the film has plenty of elements from the real PHC radiocasts, including a live audience and the sensational Shoe band. The onstage program is mostly music numbers, a beguiling mix of standards and old-style country. However, the show's usual comedy sketches are never presented, save for the commercial parodies--this may be a PHC show, but Lake Wobegone is never mentioned. Instead, the sketches are played out as backstage banter that feautres the Johnson Sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), a harried stage hand (Maya Rudolph), a former listener turned angel (Virginia Madsen), and Keillor himself (a crusty alter-ego named simply G.K.). A few characters from the real PHC are given life: the singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty and gumshoe Guy Noir are embodied by Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, and Kevin Kline, respectively. Old flames are fanned, stories are spun, new talents are found (Lindsay Lohan has a chance to shine as Streep's daughter) and everyone wonders if G.K. will do something to ebb the tide of cancellation (personified by Tommy Lee Jones as the corporate Axeman). All of the actors do right as singers, and seem to be having the time of their life. Keillor's screenplay is perfect fodder for Altman's usual brand of storytelling, as characters babble on with the camera picking them up often in mid-thought. The film appeared a few months after Altman received an honorary Oscar, and the director is still at the top of his game, creating this smile-inducing, song-filled time, ending with an ethereal last musical number. --Doug Thomas
Product Description
A LOOK AT WHAT GOES ON BACKSTAGE DURING THE LAS BROADCAST OF AMERICA'S MOST CELEBRATED RADIO SHOW, WHERE SINGING COWBOYS DUSTY & LEFTY, A COUNTRY MUSIC SIREN & A HOST OF OTHERS HOLD COURT.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 158 more reviews...
 Wow that was bad. June 6, 2009
Robert S. Moyer
How can so many talented people make a movie this bad? Given all of the positive reviews it had received, I was really looking forward to seeing this film. What a waste of time! It tries to be some deep meditation on death and the passage of time but what it succeeds in doing is drain all of the charm from the Prairie Home Companion radio show. All of the actors are playing caricatures but Kevin Klein takes home the ham for over-acting. On top of that, the performances were so loose that at times I thought Altman turned on the camera, threw out the script, and just let the actors goof off. If you like Garrison Keillor, buy his audio recordings of the real PHC. If you like Robert Altman, buy MASH or Nashville or Gosford Park. Just stay away from this muddled mess.
 Robert Altman's final work!!! March 2, 2009
Jason Pumphrey (Falls Church, Virginia United States)
This was the final film Robert Altman directed!!! Like usual it has a large ensemble cast!!! R.I.P. Robert Altman,we'll miss ya,your were a ground breaking director!!!
 A style that works better over radio January 25, 2009
Karen Chung (Taipei, Taiwan)
I watched this partly out of an impulse to revisit my Minnesota roots. But I guess everyone carries around their personal vision of where they grew up, and it won't necessarily coincide with someone else's. I didn't see much Minnesota in this film - GK is still very much GK, and his humor sometimes hits me right, sometimes not so much.
I think what I liked best about this movie was the singing. All of the singers were truly excellent. I had no idea Meryl Streep could sing so well and so expressively. Or that GK could, for that matter. He has an understated and relaxed style, but is a warm, solid bass, and seems to really enjoy their signature genres - bluegrass, gospel, folksy satire - which in fact I do too.
Streep's ability to imitate accents is legendary, but if she was trying to sound Minnesotan, she overshot her mark this time - her "meenly" for "mainly" was quite off. And I found her portrayal of a wishy-washy mom less than inspiring, though I'm something of a Streep fan. Lindsay Lohan did a better job on the rebellious suicidal daughter, which I enjoyed more once I stopped being distracted by her too-thick and prominent eyebrow job. Her singing was also top notch. I think Lily Tomlin provided some of the best acting in the whole picture.
Guy Noir was supposed to play a pathetic detective, and Kline's performance was admirable, but I found the character itself weakly conceived and underdeveloped. The "Angel" also set off a lot of ambivalence in me. The characters in this film tend to hover between stereotype and bumbling humanity, which can be charming, but in my view the combination fell short in several instances.
The opening with the risque jokes - which did make me laugh out loud - made me wonder if it was setting the tone for the whole movie. The answer is partly yes. I think GK got some kind of exhibitionist thrill out of appearing in his shorts in one scene.
One of the lines that made me feel I was finally seeing through to the real Garrison Keillor was his reply upon being asked what he planned to do now that his show was being forcibly terminated. He deadpanned, "I want a job where I don't have to talk at all." expressing, I guess, his weariness at constantly trying to come up with a smooth clever retort to everything. The movie overall seemed to ooze with opportunistic cynicism. I couldn't see where it was leading beyond a feeling of being fed up with everything.
I started watching the movie on my pc, but stopped in the middle planning to finish it later. The software packaged with the DVD failed completely when I tried to find my original place with fast forward, and the movie wouldn't open with my usual DVD software either, so I ended up taking it to a library to finish on a DVD player, which we don't have at home. I could view the rest of the movie OK, but then was unable to access the "Extras" at the end, since that part is formatted only for pc's. At that point I didn't feel like trying it on yet another machine and just let those go. So beware of possible technical problems if you plan to watch this on a computer.
If you're a GK or APHC fan, do by all means see this movie. I did enjoy it overall. Others will probably be hit or miss. It does have certain psychological interest if the prospect of analyzing GK and GK types in further depth intrigues you.
 Wit, sense and fun January 6, 2009
Wolfgang Schilk (Alamogordo, NM)
Great humour, serious view on the meaning of life and a lot of musical fun - radio with a view.
 And for the 'non-Minnesotans' ? January 5, 2009
Morten Lokkegaard (Sao Paulo Brazil)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After noticing the on paper great cast we decided to give it a shot. It is interesting to read the disappointment among those familiar with the old radio variety show - then you can only imagine what it was like for those of us (the majority around the world I take it) that never even heard of it...
Leave aside a funny dialog between the two sisters (Streep and Tomlinson)where both spoke so fast and much they much have had to take a helping of bottled oxygen afterwards and a couple of funny country & western songs by Woody Harrelson and his buddy the movie moved nowhere fast and lacked completely in both plot and content.
If you embark on something clearly local the director must not assume all will be familiar with it in advance and build up a story around it or maybe more appropriately cast it more modestly and only release it in North East America.
So for anyone not at least 50 and from the Minnesota area of the US there are literally thousands of better movies to invest in and few you would regret more.
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