Wordiezett So much average

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

thrall7 I saw this movie while I was in college and loved it then, and having seen it again recently can say that it has held up well. It is funny; weird; has a terrific cast; and is one of my favorite Robert Altman films. Bud Cort is rightly known for his work in "Harold and Maude" but I actually think he's better in this. His character, to me, was a lot tougher to "sell" than his character of Harold in "Harold and Maude." The entire cast is great, but another favorite in this film is Stacy Keach. His scene with Brewster as his limo driver, and the sudden soiling of the car, is so funny. I've never understood why this film isn't more highly regarded among Altman's work, but recommend it to anyone.

JasparLamarCrabb Robert Altman's absurd satire is so over-the-top it will surely be an acquired taste. Bud Cort lives in the fallout shelter beneath the Houston Astrodome. He's making wings so he can fly. His bird-mentor is the enigmatic Sally Kellerman and his girlfriends include oddball Jennifer Salt and the even odder Shelley Duvall (in her film debut). They're all priceless as is most of the large cast, including John Schuck, Stacy Keach, Bert Remsen and William Windom. Rene Auberjonois appears as some sort of lecturer, informing the audience of various bird species. Michael Murphy is very funny as a San Francisco "super cop," who manages to speak all his lines without moving his lips. Altman pays tribute to a lot of other films, ranging from THE WIZARD OF OZ to BULLITT to his own M*A*S*H. It's part murder mystery, part romance, but mostly comic. There are some forgettable songs on the soundtrack courtesy of John Phillips. The screenplay is credited to Doran William Cannon, who also penned Otto Premingers equally bizarre SKIDOO.

tieman64 Robert Altman directs "Brewster McCloud". The plot? Brewster is an eccentric inventor who lives beneath the Houston Astrodome. He spends his days working on a pair of man-powered wings which he hopes will enable him to fly. But while he is busy collecting materials to build his contraption, mysterious deaths occur throughout his city.Altman's running joke is that "Brewster McCloud" is essentially a giant birdwatching film. Indeed, the film is narrated by Rene Auberjonois, who treats the picture as a grand safari, Altman planting bird references everywhere in the form of food, signs, clothes, license plates, characters, costumes, dialogue etc etc. Why Brewster wishes to fly is given a neat twist. Rather than some kind of Icarus complex, Brewster seems to be acting upon suppressed memories. He was born to fly. His entire race was born to fly. He belongs in the skies. It's all in his DNA!Brewster is aided in his quest by Louise, a sort of guardian angel. She has scars down her back, which suggests she once had wings herself. She's like a God or guardian angel, who descends to teach Brewster the mysteries of man's ancient wings. It's all pretty odd, particularly when Altman likens flying to sex, and Brewster's avian urges to psychosexual lusts.Later in the film, Louise is dismayed to learn that Brewster slept with a girl he barely knew (Shelly Duvall). The once pure and naive Brewster thus becomes tainted by the "sins of the flesh". He's contaminated, his earthly sins affixing him to the ground. They seal his mortality and prevent him from entering the angel world up above.To redeem himself, Brewster must therefore seek forgiveness from Louise, who now appears in the guise of Dorothy from "Wizard of Oz". From here on, Altman swathes the film in "Oz" references. Flying monkeys, red slippers, golden roads, they're all subtly woven into the crazy plot. This being Altman, chunks of the film then become covert commentaries on major aspects of American life (sexuality, class-struggle, race, ambition, bigotry, success, economics, crime, politics, religion). These themes are then bound to a plot which is really about the loss of virginity, or rather, idealism. During its climax, Brewster's broken wings and crumpled, twisted body, point toward the climax of Altman's "Nashville", in which characters sing "It Don't Worry Me" after an assassination. Both films take place in cities yearning for economic power, both use large structures as metaphors for America (The Astrodome, the Parthenon), and both posit the creative spirit and personal conscience as being overrun by corporate American, capitalism and commercialism in general.8.5/10 - Worth two viewings.

Lee Eisenberg To follow up "MASH", Robert Altman made this quirky gem about a young man (Bud Cort) living in Houston's Astrodome, who is obsessed with flying to the point that he's building a set of wings. Louise (Sally Kellerman) is the only person in the world who really understands him. Simultaneously, a string of bizarre murders is plaguing the city: the victims are always covered with bird droppings. To solve it, the city hires Bullitt-esquire detective Shaft (Michael Murphy) to investigate. Then things really get weird. Rene Auberjonois plays the narrator, who gets more and more birdlike as the movie progresses.I actually have a connection to "Brewster McCloud": when they were filming it, my mom and her sister went to audition for a part, but the line was too long, so they decided not to (the role eventually went to Shelley Duvall). But that's just a side note. It's a really neat movie.