Robert Altman what's your Favorite and Least Favorite

How can anybody like Popeye? The worst songs ever in a movie musical sung by people who have no business singing.

Paul Thomas Anderson is obviously a fan, lifting not only the song "He Needs Me" but even using Shelley's track for the emotional centerpiece of his Punch-Drunk Love. Harry Nilsson is a brilliant songwriter and I think he gave Altman and company exactly what they asked for - songs in character rather than self-contained pop tracks designed for radio play plopped into the film whether they matched up with the tone and characters or not.






I'm an Altman acolyte but no fan of Popeye, though the older I get the more forgiving I become towards it, and it does hold more charm for me now than the likes of O.C. & Stiggs or A Perfect Couple. The book Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Most Iconic Flops by James Robert Parish has a concise and interesting twenty-three page run down on Popeye's overages and production problems, apparently mostly stemming from the mismatch of Altman with vainglorious producer Robert Evans. Though as the book rightly points out, Popeye grossed about $50-million in the U.S. alone - the twelfth-highest total of 1980, well behind the phenomenon of Empire Strikes Back in the top spot but ahead of Kubrick's The Shining and bonafide comedy classic Caddyshack. So while the film does have a horrible reputation and is considered a "flop", that's really about its critical reception and the residue potential the project inspired upon its announcement, not its relatively healthy box office.

Popeye is a triumph of production design, if not quite the masterpiece of McCabe & Mrs. Miller; that ramshackle town of Sweet Haven built on Malta is impressive. That remote and elaborate set was also the source of much of the soaring budget. It does look great on screen, though.

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The screenplay is witless, a real surprise from Jules Feiffer who consistently lied in interviews saying he based his screenplay on the original comic strip and ignored the animated cartoons. He mixed them together and got mush. Wimpy was a very important character in the strip little used in the cartoons and same is true in the movie. Blutto in the comic strip during the cartoonist's lifetime appeared in only one story continuity that was running when the cartoons appeared and was never a rival for Olive's affections. Popeye in the comics never ate spinach before displaying strength, and so on.

Listening to it again. the song is still dreadful and she can't sing.

I just googled "terrible songs Popeye" and I'm definitely not alone.

Poopdeck Pappy wasn't ever in the cartoon* and plays a pretty big role in the movie so whatever Feiffer said I think it's fair to call it a synthesis of the two, but in fact it's something quite different than either (but still Popeye). The opening image of huge storm clouds over Popeye rowing from out of the sea is really lasting as are quite a few in Sweet Haven itself.

I think it's kind of a weak-tea argument to google "great songs popeye" and say "see! people do agree with me!" so I'm not going to bother but I do like them quite a bit (though they generally sound better on the soundtrack album). She's no diva but the way Duvall/Olive sings "he's large" never fails to make me smile and there is a lot of odd humor in the songs and in the movie as a whole. Anyway this is just in answer to your (trick?) question about how "anyone could possibly like that movie" so feel free to go back to google and tell me I'm wrong and it is in fact quite impossible to like it.

*correction: Pappy was in several of the later cartoons (post 1938).

Popeye disappointed me as a young kid (I was expecting more of the cartoon-end spinach-fuelled spinning arms and that), but looking back on it it's easier to appreciate the craft involved. Wouldn't mind seeing it in full again just to appreciate the good in it with adult eyes.

And as an aside concerning its production, I especially like Nilsson's original demo (drunken?) crooning of 'Din We' (recorded out in Malta I believe). I'll see if I can dig it up. Tis worth a listen

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

1. The Long Goodbye- ++
2. 3 women
3. McCabe & Mrs. Miller-
4. The Player
5. Gosford Park-
6. Vincent & Theo- -
7. Nashville- -
8. MASH -

As you can see I'm not a big fan of any of his works Edit:Except The Long Goodbye that I've seen.
Most of the movies are very slow and seemingly irrelevant. In all his films (except one) I credit his directorial style and scenery but not much else

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I adore:



But not a fan of anything else I've seen from the director.

1. Nashville-
2. 3 Women-
3. The Long Goodbye-
4. Gosford Park-

From what I've seen, I freakin' love the guy. But I'll refrain from voting until I see MASH, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Player, and Short Cuts.

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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock

McCabe & Mrs. Miller
3 Women
The Long Goodbye
Short Cuts
Nashville +
The Player
MASH

By the looks of it, I've already voted for McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Not exactly sure when that occurred. Probably prior to my year long hiatus from the forum. It's a choice I'm going to stick with. With a few exceptions I've generally enjoyed the other films of his I've seen (Short Cuts, The Long Goodbye, MASH, The Player, Gosford Park, etc), but none quite match up to that.

Still have to see 3 Women, Nashville and a few of his other more notable works, while hoping to avoid the duds like A Prairie Home Companion and Popeye in doing so.

Ranked:

Popeye
The Long Goodbye
Brewster McCloud
Short Cuts
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Player
Thieves Like Us
Nashville
Vincent & Theo
Cookie's Fortune
MASH
Kansas City
Gosford Park
3 Women
Images
Buffalo Bill and the Indians
Tanner on Tanner (tv mini-series)
A Prairie Home Companion
Quintet
Ready to Wear
The James Dean Story (tv documentary)

There are a bunch that I still haven't seen, and a bunch of the ones I have I can't do justice to until I see them again.

I recently watched an hour or so of Vincent & Theo. Haven't seen much by this man (MASH, Prairie Home Companion, some of Short Cuts). So far, I find his style very boring. I think I liked what I saw of Vincent & Theo, but it's slooooow. And apparently, the cut I watched was missing an hour of stuff that's in another edition you can find in the UK. I'm not eager to get that since I'm still working on the shorter version.

I love MASH

And The Long Goodbye

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Oh God! I'll come off as even a bigger heathen than I am.

The Delinquents (57)
The James Dean Story (57)
Nightmare in Chicago (64)
Countdown (68)
That Cold Day in the Park (69)
MASH (70)
Brewster McCloud (70)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (71)
The Long Goodbye (73)
Thieves Like Us (74)
California Split (74)
Nashville (75) +
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (75)
3 Women (77)
Quintet (79)
A Perfect Couple (79)
HealtH (80)
Popeye (80)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (82)
Streamers (83)
Secret Honor (84)
O.C. and Stiggs (85)
Fool For Love (85)
Beyond Therapy (87)
Vincent & Theo (90)
The Player (92)
Short Cuts (93)
Prêt-à-Porter (94)
Kansas City (96) +
The Gingerbread Man (98)
Cookie's Fortune (99) +
Dr T and the Women (00)
Gosford Park (01)
A Prairie Home Companion (06)

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Not an Altman fan, Mark?

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

The Long Goodbye is a near masterpiece

Near?

first post! Here's to many more Robert Altman-related posts to come

MASH
Brewster McCloud
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Long Goodbye +
California Split
Thieves Like Us
Nashville +
3 Women +
Popeye
The Player -
Short Cuts
Gosford Park

I'm a bigger fan of the whole than of any one individual work, though McCabe is one of the best American movies I've seen. He was at his best in his film's most intimate moments. The way he mined richness from casual idiosyncrasies reminds me of Mike Leigh. Still wanna see The Company

Bump!
In my last post here I stated I wasn't a big fan of his works that I've seen. Well the other day I found a true masterpiece by him. The Long Goodbye is absolutely brilliant. Very comparable to Chinatown, I'll be posting a full review in Movie Tab II later today, but I can no longer say I don't like Altman. Because The Long Goodbye is one of my new favorite films of all time

I'd rank him as one of my three favorite filmmakers of all time. Five of his films are essential masterpieces: McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Short Cuts, 3 Women, and The Long Goodbye. McCabe is probably my favorite; it has an ethereal quality that no other western (or any other film) possesses, and is perhaps Altman's most effective example of genre revisionism, though The Long Goodbye comes close. The Old West is re-imagined as a haven of greed and used as a parable for capitalism.