Amazon.com Essentials:
This 1975 film sits near the top of any list of the best films of the
1970s, perhaps in the top five and, in some people's minds, at the pinnacle
itself. Robert Altman, at his most Altmanesque, spins together plot
strands involving two dozen people over the course of one particularly busy
weekend in Music City, USA. Though several of the story lines deal with
country-western stars--played by Henry Gibson, Ronee Blakley and Karen
Black--the plot also deals with the country scene's wannabes, the business
people who pull the strings and the operative for a mysterious presidential
candidate who is trying to get the de facto endorsement of some of the
country stars by having them appear at a rally for him. (The unknown but
rocketing presidential aspirant was eerily echoed the next year, when Jimmy
Carter came out of nowhere to win the presidency.) Blakley is
heartbreakingly fragile as a Loretta Lynn-like singer on the verge of
total mental meltdown, while Lily Tomlin is outstanding as a
housewife-gospel singer who has a dalliance with a randy folk-rock cad,
perfectly played by Keith Carradine (who won an Oscar for his song "I'm
Easy"). The cast also includes Jeff Goldblum, Scott Glenn, Keenan Wynn,
Shelley Duvall, Geraldine Chaplin (hilarious as a fatuous British TV
journalist), Barbara Harris, Michael Murphy, and Ned Beatty, with cameos by
Elliott Gould and Julie Christie as themselves. Next to Mean Streets,
perhaps the most influential film of the decade. --Marshall Fine
