Altman State...

Robert Altman, 1925-2006

In November, Robert Altman, a fantastic director, among other things, passed away. Gosford Park is by far my favorite Altman movie... the others that I've seen were all good, well done works, even "The Company" wasn't bad, even if it wasn't great...
But "Gosford Park" was entertaining and interesting... well acted (i've frequently told my friends that I think Altman owns all of the best actors in hollywood) and well directed. Granted, my friends didn't quite like the slow pace of the movie, but it gave me time to think about it, to notice things i would otherwise have overlooked, and I also ended up liking some of the characters. Besides, it's a movie, and I'd rather sit around in a movie theatre watching a story unfold than count the people that come into the all night dunkin donuts while my friends and i are there. Altman was good at making entertainment, not just a tacky quick fix... sometimes, the fun can last awhile :-)
In my opinion, Altman was the best. No other director came close to being as talented as he, nor could anyone else get such a fantastic cast all together with such an amazing expectation: he wanted to see what they would do... he wasn't just there to order them about... they had to bring their own view to the movie... perhaps that's why his work was so good.

Either way, my writing in this entry isn't so good (who knows if the rest of my blog makes sense :) ) but I felt that I needed to say something about Altman, lest anyone forget that he was the best.

Here's to Robert Altman, to his great work, and to hoping someone will be nearly good enough to follow-not too far behind-in his footsteps.