Critic's Grade: A-

On Saturday evenings on the way home from church my Mom and I would always listen to a variety show on NPR known as A Prairie Home Companion. It had plenty of quirky stories, humor, fake commercials, and original musical numbers. The show originally aired in 1974 as a variety show and it had had ran at the Macalester College until it landed in The Globe in St. Paul in 1978. After it was renovated it was renamed the Fitzgerald Theatre in 1994.

The show generally featured creator and master of ceromonies, Garrison Keillor a.k.a GK, who deliveres humorous monologues and jokes about his fictional hometown of Lake Wobegon. It also features a variety of other regulars and the music featured is an upbeat folk rhythm.

On a performance night like any other Garrisson Keillor and the other cast members are preparing to put on another great performance. Unfortunately the cast members, as well as the audience, with the exception of G.K., do not know that this will in fact be their last show. WLT, the sponsoring station, has been sold to a Texas conglomerate.

I am not very familiar with the films of Director Robert Altman, but apparently his films are just part of the day and life of most people. Ongoing conversation over silly things and has been known to produce films that some call "Highly naturalistic, but with stylized perspective," and is famous for films such as M*A*S*H and Nashville.

His direction, as well Garrisson Keillor's screeplay, mesh well with his technique of on screen conversation as Yolanda Johnson (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin) as both bickering and loving, duet singing sisters of a once five sister country sensation.

Keillor's screenplay is filled with plenty of personal monologues, familar bits from his shows, musical numbers, crazy dialogue, and ongoing humor. Most of the characters are fictional or exhibited in a totally different way than that of reality. An example of this would be Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) who works at the theatre as a humorous backstage doorkeeper, but in the show, he is merely a fictional character voiced by G.K. in his detective bits of about a detective of the same name (Guy Noir).

The films also features other characters such as Lindsay Lohan as Lola Johnson, the I guess you could call "Emo" daughter of Yolanda, who sings a song at the end of the film and forgets the words. It also features John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson as the two cowboys who sing crude songs, singing duo Robin and Linda Williams as themselves, and backstage managers Tim Russel and the pregnant Maya Rudolph.

The performances were all impressive and more than expected, especially that of Garrison Keillor and Lindsay Lohan in a scene talking about how G.K. got started and the two end up singing backstage and being told to shut up by Maya Rudolph. They continue to sing over her.

Only one character particularly bothered me during the film, and that was of Virginia Madsen as Dangerous Woman, an angel, who apparently died on the road listening to a horrible penguin joke made by Keillor when her car when off the road. Her purpose in the film is to drive away the buyer known as the Axeman played by Tommy Lee Jones. For the most part she seems to glide around a white trenchcoat with angelic dialogue. She appears bored with her role and scenes with ther almost feel like a tragedy.

The film plays a lot like a backstage behind-the-scenes documentary which was a good feel for it, considering an outrageous plot was not at all needed. The songs are ones to listen for and the first minute or two you watch the performer singing and it cuts backstage to someone else,but you can still hear the performer. The film was completely shot inside the Fitzgerald Theatre, as well as a local coffee shop, impressively shot on location. With the the feel of the hit radio show and documentarian feel by cinematographer Edward Lachman, you get a simple, yet heartwarming, entertaining family film.

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