Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

SnoopyStyle Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is a hard-boiled character working security at the radio program 'A Prairie Home Companion' and it's the last night on the air. Garrison Keillor brings some great A-list stars into his movie. There is also the master director Robert Altman. Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly) are cowboy singing duo. Virginia Madsen plays the mysterious woman in white. Yolanda (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin) are sister singing duo as Yolanda tries to get her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) to sing with them.I have never heard the radio show. I'm not really a fan of this kind of music. The good reviews and Robert Altman attracted me to the movie. There is barely anything here for me. It's obvious to say this movie meanders. That is part of Altman's style. However I have a hard time find anything compelling in this. It became very repetitive for me. Keillor has the presence of a stuffy college professor. The A-list cast is interesting but then they add an actress like Lohan. It's not that she does a horrible job as much as she sticks out like a sore thumb. This is just not a movie for me.

sashank_kini-1 When something goes wrong on live radio, Prairie Home Companion, both the radio show performed in the film and the movie itself come alive. It's like two men fishing placidly in the middle of a calm lake until one gets hold of a mighty rebellious fish and both men jump to instant action. One of the few and far between moments that jump Prairie Home Companion to activity include a duct-tape gag which Garrison Keillor, the voice of the popular variety show both in reality and in this film, and other performers improvise after Molly, the assistant stage manager, who's usually the only one insisting on maintaining order and decorum, flubs the cue sheets. The three-to-four minute gag thoroughly entertains you as Garrison and the Johnson sisters (played by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) cook up wackiest uses for a duct-tape while the sound-effects guy (Tom Keith) gives complementary dog howls, helicopter noise etc until Molly (who's played by SNL regular Maya Rudolph) finds the right sheet. It doesn't just end there: Yolanda Johnson (Streep) also manages to convey her dejection towards Garrison's failed romance with her during the gag. The problem with Robert Altman's 'Prairie home Companion' is that it stays only marginally memorable; everyone in the film is too comfortable and laid-back, listlessly chattering and bantering with each other and the audience is expected to be all ears for these strangers' plain talk. Until the duct-tape moment, you begin to grow impatient for there is nothing much to keep you really interested. We learn in the beginning that Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), the radio show's security director who takes his work too seriously, is in search of a mysterious woman in white (Virginia Madsen) who's been lurking in the theater. It's the final day for the esteemed radio show and its regulars which include Johnson sisters and two singing cowboys (played by Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) perform for one last time before the theater is demolished to build a parking lot. The mysterious woman in white is revealed to be Asphodel, an angel who visits the show to comfort its people and escort one to afterlife. Another visitor includes a businessman called 'The Axeman' (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who's the one responsible for pulling the plug on the show. The fate of these people is touching but it never touches you, for these people turn out as nothing more than broad caricatures whose lives are hardly used or explored in the plot. Streep's Yolanda is a chirpy, twittery, humble, good-natured and caring woman who can sing really well and Streep shows us such a woman during the film but there's nothing else she can do. Her character has little more to do than to define how such a character talks, moves, acts and sings and watching Streep do so much for a role with minimal character development makes us a little exhausted with her Yolanda. Her sister Rhonda (Tomlin) is less girly and bubbly and while Tomlin doesn't overdo her performance like Streep, she doesn't stay memorable both onstage and backstage. Yolanda's daughter Lola is played by perennially-suffering Lindsey Lohan, whose character likes penning depressing suicide poems but is very much delicate at heart and empathetic towards everybody. Lindsey isn't distracting until the last scene where she tries (badly) playing a busy workaholic with plenty of things on her mind. The two cowboys played by Woody Harrelson and John Reilly are the humorously irreverent sidekicks who bring in the laughs with their risqué humor and bad jokes (rather jokes in poor taste), another high point in the film. But again these aren't two cowboys we've been following through the years and so they're like new-kids-on-the-block for us when they appear in the film. The lack of exposition in Prairie Home Companion makes every character and every situation seem superficial and wispy. Either the film is for fans only (yet many of the characters except Garrison and Guy Noir weren't part of the radio show either) or the film lacks vitality. Was Asphodel the angel really needed in the film? Or did Altman see her as a greater symbol not just for the film but also for himself? One thing we know is that Altman got all the comfort from her soon after filming. Bad joke, huh?

Rodrigo Amaro In a strange twist of fate, "A Prairie Home Companion", a movie about the last broadcast of a famous radio show was the final film directed by the great Robert Altman, on the same year he received an special Oscar for his long film contribution, after losing it several times and never winning for films like "Nashville", "MASH", "The Player", "Short Cuts", and "Gosford Park. His last work is a charming and nostalgic film that resurrects the simplicities of the radio just like Woody Allen did in "Radio Days"; a tale about life and death, and lots of music.Everything can happen during the last performance of a talented group of musicians who'll be out of work after a decision made by the guy who runs the show (played by Tommy Lee Jones) into transforming the Company into a parking place. So, in this last broadcast everything will happen, from the sudden death of one of the singers to the appearance of a beautiful ghost (Virginia Madsen); from dirty jokes played by a pair of singing cowboys (roles of John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson) to the debut of a young suicide girl as singer (Lindsay Lohan), and the incredible musical performance of two famous sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin). "A Prairie..." is an excellent comedy with Altman's sense of humor present all the time, that kind of comedy that doesn't need rude jokes to exist, it is simple but effective and you'll be laughing at several moments (the 'Duct Tape' commercial with the guy improvising countless and humorous sound effects is the funniest part with Meryl and Lily teasing Garrison Keillor to make an advertisement about duct tape that keeps going absurd). The only thing that seems out of place, quite useless and totally expendable is the ghost presence in the story. P.T. Anderson, Altman's most famous disciple (and stand-by director for this film) knows how to convince us that things happen and that's it (the frog rain in "Magnolia" for instance). But here, while trying to show that anything can happen in the last broadcast, even the appearance of a female ghost can happen, the script went in the wrong direction, it was quite pointless such presence and if you watch closely you'll notice that even cutting her scenes the movie still would work. It doesn't ruin the film, it just damages a little.Altman ended brilliantly with this film, directing great actors in magnificent performances, a good and funny story, very uncompromising and very nice to watch. Better than all that you won't find! 10/10

mike-seaman A Praire Home Campanion, Robert Altman's last film, was one of his weakest. The film moves nowhere and does so slowly. It also attempts a sort of time dualism, the modern world is passing outside while the 1930s are moving on inside the radio world. It simply doesn't entirely work. Virginia Madsen's character as the Angel of Death is a failed experiment at metaphor and symbolism, creating nothing more than a largely useless character.The two most disappointing performances are Kevin Kline as Guy Noir, a character that is cardboard and his gags are largely lacking. The other is Lily Tomlin who seems to be sleepwalking through the film.The only characters I found even remotely interesting and amusing where performed by Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly, a pairing that played very well off of each other.Overall A Prairie Home Campanion is basically a fictional documentary about largely uninteresting people, telling uninteresting stories.