A Prairie Home Companion (2006) - No Gay Content

Very good movie.   

Here, an ensemble cast tells us the story of a radio show called A Prairie Home Companion.  The show is (still) aired on Public Radio in the U.S. and apparently it was a big hit.  Garrison Keillor wrote the screenplay and also played himself, the host of the show.  Garrison's story is a fictionalized account of how the show ended.  Robert Altman directed.

Our characters included Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as sisters in a double act. 

There was a great chemistry between them -- they could easily get Oscar nominations for their performance.  You saw a bit of their act in their presentation of the Oscar to Robert Altman:

Just in case you didn't know, Lily Tomlin is an out lesbian.  I guess you can sort of think of her as a female Ian McKellen.  Both are outstanding out gay actors.  We need more of those.

Lindsay Lohan is also in the movie.  She plays Meryl's daugther, and I was pretty surprised with her performance.  In the movie, her character is obsessed with suicide and death.  I think she has a future -- she just needs to stay away from bad movies. 

We also had Woody Harrelson and John C. Riley, both very good, as a pair of singing cowboys.

   

So, the acting was truly superb (particularly Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin -- loved them).  Lily definitely needs more screen time and more projects, we rarely get to see her act. 

I thought Kevin Kline and Virginia Madsen could have been better though -- they were good, don't get me wrong, but they can deliver much more than that.  Kevin was involved with the management of the radio show and Virginia was a mysterious stranger.  Virginia was a bit lost and Kevin was dull.  Well, her role was kind of weird, kind of a Woody Allen role (I won't say much more here, go see the movie). 

No content for our gay movie review, although there was one scene in which Woody Harrelson mentions something about a guy's bulge and that only someone not normal would look at it -- something like that.  That could be potentially homophobic, but I didn't really get that part, they have that small dialog while a hundred other people are talking and screaming at the same time...so I'm leaving it out.

I say A Prairie Home Companion is very good, not excellent, basically because of the subject.  The type of radio show portrayed in the movie is uninteresting to me and the flick is very much about radio.  In that sense, A Prairie Home resonates more with A Mighty Wind than with Best in Show.  Both A Mighty Wind and Best in Show deal with subjects that are as boring to me as radio is (folk music and dog shows, respectively).  Somehow, A Mighty Wind is a great movie, but difficult to watch if you are not into folk music.  On the other hand, Best in Show is a fantastic movie regardless of your taste for dog shows.  I think Best in Show was more successful in focusing on the various eccentric characters (including quite a few gay ones) rather than on the dog show thing.

Anyway, go see A Prairie Home Companion, it's definitely worth your time.

Comments

[Greg]

It was a pleasant movie, giving me a kind of nostalgic feeling for the old timey radio shows. The acting turned out much better than I though it would. As for Virginia Madsen, I thought her character was a bit out of place, but not bad overall.

[Queer Beacon]

Thanks for the info, Regexp. Is the show still a hit? That is what I meant, sorry for the confusion. You see, I had linked to the show's official website -- I was surprised to see the show was still on, but pretty sure it was no longer a big hit, however good the show might be. I corrected the info on the post. Read on ;-)

[regexp]

In response to:

The show was aired on Public Radio in the U.S. and apparently was a big hit.

--

"was"? It -is- a weekly two hour radio show that has been on for close to 30 years. The movie contains characters from the show but the show itself is different than the movie.