― C0L1N B..., Monday, 23 April 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― jposnan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 03:22 (sixteen years ago) link
― Ben Boyerrr, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:10 (sixteen years ago) link
i just saw this and pret a porter recently and was thinking 'damn this robert altman guy is really sweet and funny. i don't know why i have slept on him so long.'
i'll agree that mcdowell doesn't quite muster up the existential frustration that would likely come with the situation between her and the baker. but i think part of what is happening in that scene is the utter exhaustion of her character and also a transformation of the baker from dickish, self-centered revenger to comforting stranger. in fact he is one of the few characters who steps off his hamster wheel in order to show another human being compassion.
it seemed to me with this movie altman was giving a middle finga to the hollywood persona and all the self centered people that it to produce.
― a fool committed to a VISION of SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE UNDERSTANDS (jdchurchill), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 17:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin are aces. I would have watched a film based just on their short story.
― cool and remote like dancing girls (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 17:07 (thirteen years ago) link
yea so true. i would watch tom waits in any film pretty much, and havei love the part where he comes into the diner with yard debris in his hair, totally distraught and nearly in tears and she treats it like it's happened dozens of time before. "i slept in the yard. i couldn't sleep in our bed." as she plucks the debris from his curls
― a fool committed to a VISION of SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE UNDERSTANDS (jdchurchill), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 17:29 (thirteen years ago) link
lyle lovette's performance is painfully bad imo. perhaps he could have read his lines better off an offscreen teleprompter, his performance is just so dull and flat.
― _▂▅▇█▓▒░◕‿‿◕░▒▓█▇▅▂_ (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 17:36 (thirteen years ago) link
but that is my understanding of lyle lovette's ouvre: so dull and flat. except his hair. he's got that kid'n'play hi top fade for the white-guy thing goin on!
― a fool committed to a VISION of SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE UNDERSTANDS (jdchurchill), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 18:29 (thirteen years ago) link
Jack Lemmon is the sore thumb in that cast.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, April 23, 2007 9:41 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is insane, his scene with Bruce Davison in the hospital telling him why he left him is the centerpiece of Short Cuts in the same way that "I'm Easy" is the centerpiece of Nashville.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 07:51 (six years ago) link
really? He just oozes falsity (the actor, not the moment).
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:47 (six years ago) link
Exactly!!
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:48 (six years ago) link
Was it Robert Altman, Matthew Modine, or Andie McDowell who ruined Short Cuts?
it was me, sry
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 16:28 (six years ago) link
I don't think I dislike anyone in the movie (the actors, I mean, not the largely abhorrent characters they play), it just doesn't hang together. It needed a 'hub' for the disparate threads to wind around, e.g. the Nashville music scene. And no, the deus ex earthquake doesn't count.
The Lyle Lovett arc could've been a film unto itself imo.
― Animal Bag's Greatest Hits Vol. 5 (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 20 February 2018 16:34 (six years ago) link
ya the circuit in Nashville is smaller, it's easier to tie (almost) everyone together, in Short Cuts the constant interaction between storylines & the very astute editing achieves the same effect imo. having seen Magnolia years before Short Cuts, the impact of the earthquake was definitely dulled, but the awful CGI camera shaking more so than the device itself.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 20 February 2018 17:02 (six years ago) link