Short Cuts

This movie exemplifies why Altman is one of the greatest American directors. It paints a picture of a community using broad strokes, you have every type of person here, all personalities represented and we see much in the way of human weakness and lust. Altman is a master at weaving together stories that ostensibly shouldn't connect, other film makers like P.T. Anderson attempt to achieve the same effect with varied results. The uneven Magnolia and the stellar Boogie Nights are examples of mimicking the Altman style. Of the four films Altman attempts this technique "The Player, Short Cuts, Pret A Porter, Nashville and to a lesser extent M.A.S.H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Short Cuts is the most effective. Highly recommended piece of American Cinema.

I rented this based mainly on the cast, which is amazingly strong. It starts fairly well, with quite a few nice jokes and hilarious situations, but after about an hour it exhausted itself, and it still went for TWO HOURS MORE. The script and direction rapidly deteriorated. The actors stopped acting and just shouted at each other. Moral nuances got replaced by clichés. All resemblance of sense was lost. May be Altman thinks he is inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni? Yes, Antonioni's "Blow Up" has mysterious murder, clowns and slow pace. Well, Mr. Altman, it takes more than that to make a great film...

At first, you might find difficulties on remembering who's who and what's who's problems. But soon enough you easily get caught in the common urban connections between these superb casts. Robert Altman has done it again. After some of interesting turns in movie directing, he continue with this compilation of short stories and mark them as short cuts; for short episodes of urban life. It somehow reminded me to 2 Days in a Valley, but in bigger frame and bigger story. And each of these stories tells about different life and perspective in other angles. Eventually you'll ended up wondering how these stories might end, and I tell you this, all of these stories won't end easily. Apparently there are actually no short cuts. The casts are great and interesting, and they interact with good style and solid lines. A good week-days evening movie!

The lives of 20-some different characters living in LA intersect in this wonderfully made movie, which may just be Robert Altman's greatest achievement. The enormous amount of characters may sound like it'd be overwhelming, but it's really so well put together that it's not too hard to follow. It's ultimately a study of these people's relationships with each other and how they get on with life, despite their flaws. And trust me, these are some flawed people, but that's real life. Anyone who saw and liked Magnolia should see this movie, the movie it was most influenced by. You won't see a better acted ensemble piece than this.

Not quite as focused as the The Player a year earlier, this has a Nashville-like quality with some wonderful performances. No Altman flick could be dull. Especially impressive are Tim Robbins, Tom Waits, Lily Tomlin, and Bruce Davison. Perhaps a bit long, but excellent music and nice overall mood. The Lori Singer character was particularly interesting, but not her mother. I don't get that woman at all (whoever she is)! Buck Henry is wasted and Anne Archer is lovely and talented as always. Jennifer Jason Leigh in another offbeat wacky role with Christopher Penn has her troubled idiot husband. An 8 out of 10!

Its sort of like the movie Magnolia, but darker and without frogs. Its style reminded me a little of Altmams earlier film NASHVILLE and possesses some of the same weaknesses, like being over long. To be sure it has many fascinating vignettes and situations, but they're mixed with less then interesting moments. The ending as well ends so abruptly, that its nearly dissspointing. One thing I do know for certain, is that I hope to never watch it again. Even though its not terrible.

I've always considered Robert Altman to be an artist rather than a "director" in the conventional sense. He has always allowed his actors, working within specific guidelines, to take the lead in creating their own impressions of the roles, dialogue and even the music of his films. Much of the dialogue is improvised, if not all of it, and he shoots more film per scene than any other director working today, sometimes as much as 60 hours per hour of footage shown in the final product. A great admirer of jazz, you could say that Short Cuts is Altman's Kind of Blue. It is seminal, familiar, unpredictable, sad and, most of all, so accurate in it's portrayal of how we act in every possible situation you could think of. I don't think I'll ever forget Andie McDowell responding to Lyle Lovett about her son's death, or how Buck Henry took pictures of the dead girl floating in the stream, or how Fred Ward wouldn't bring the body back, but made sure to bring back the fish. It was all so true to me.

Despite its 187 minute runtime, this is my favorite Altman film. There are so many great actors in this movie, so many. From Jack Lemmon to Bruce Davison to Julianne Moore to Matthew Modine to Michael Beach to Fred Ward to Tim Robbins to Robert Downey Jr to Jennifer Jason Leigh and so many others. Chris Penn, Sean Penn's late brother, was also in this movie, in a fine role. His was one of the finest acting jobs I've seen in a movie. This was a three hour movie focusing on over a dozen characters living in or around Los Angeles whose lives tend to intersect at points. This was similar to 2005's CRASH which won the Best Picture Oscar. SHORT CUTS was less about racism and more about individuals and the social mores they project and the consequences of acting or not acting what you believe. Altman wrote the screenplay to this movie based on the writings of Raymond Carver. Great movie. Wonderful.