6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.
Starring: Marylouise Burke, Woody Harrelson, L.Q. Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison KeillorMusic | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
As the son of a long-time public radio engineer, yours truly has countless childhood memories of hearing "A Prairie Home Companion" -- especially "News from Lake Wobegon" -- softly coming from any number of speakers in our small home, and especially on long car rides. You might think, then, that such a deep-rooted history would leave me with an osmosis-formed recollection of specific stories or characters from Garrison Keillor's long-running radio program... but really, I just remember it as pillowy sonic comfort food as we traveled home from family outings in the Saturday night darkness. Keillor served as host of the weekly variety show for more than four decades after its inception in 1974, which means there's about as much material in the vault as your average daytime soap opera.
The narrative through-line of A Prairie Home Companion concerns its fictional final show, where musical talents like singing sisters Yolanda (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin), jokey cowboy duo Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly), and others do their schtick for a live audience and those listening at home, who are of course serenaded by the dulcet voice of host "G.K." (Keillor) that ties everything neatly together. With its long-time home of the Fitzgerald Theater soon slated for demolition courtesy of the radio station's parent company and its top executive, known as "the Axeman" (Tommy Lee Jones), all that's left is for the cast, crew, and others including private investigator Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) to accept their fate. Yet a possible intervention arrives with the sudden appearance of a trench coat-clad blonde known only as "the Dangerous Woman" (Virginia Madsen), so perhaps not all hope is lost...
It's a well-meaning but mishandled framing device for what's otherwise a collage of small interactions, occasional dramatic twists, and the
predictable chaos of a live show, making the result fitfully entertaining but largely inconsistent. Highlights peek around every corner: a song there,
a one-liner there, and course the calm and collected demeanor of Keillor himself, who never disappoints. But where A Prairie Home
Companion falls short is the attempt to be something dramatically bigger, with almost all of the ongoing exploits of Guy Noir and
especially "the Dangerous Woman" falling mostly flat with precious few exceptions. It manages to tug a heartstring or two along the way and might
please a segment of the show's long-time fans... but as a whole, A Prairie Home Companion falls short of potential.
Reportedly shot on 1080p digital video with an intentionally "thick" appearance, A Prairie Home Companion obviously bests Warner Bros.' 2006 DVD counterpart but doesn't approach the heights of typical Warner Archive Blu-rays. This 1080p transfer was likely taken from similar elements to that older disc release and certainly improves in the areas of base-level fine detail, black levels, color representation, and of course encoding, despite the bulk of this film running at a rather modest but not necessarily detrimental ~25Mpbs bit rate. It's difficult to accurately judge certain anomalies such as stray amounts of posterization and banding as they may very well be part of the source material (whether or not it's meant to evoke a production shot on the fly), but A Prairie Home Companion's intentionally warm color palette and overall cozy atmosphere nonetheless looks about as good as possible here so I'll call it a win.
The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is an inarguable winner, of course, with the intended live stage performance atmosphere accurately rendered during musical numbers. Backstage moments are just as interesting for different reasons, with occasionally overlapping conversations and other goings-on adding their own layers of sonic support. Don't get me wrong: this isn't an overwhelmingly active mix but it feels pleasingly authentic with the professional sheen of seasoned veterans at its disposal. Die-hard fans will enjoying turning this one up a few decibels.
Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature, but not the extras listed below.
This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover art. Extras are all ported from the DVD edition.
As much as A Prairie Home Companion wants to be a spiritual send-off to the long-running radio show's legacy, Robert Altman's final film falls short of its source material. Most of the inserted drama is rendered inert and too much focus is placed on the celebrity cast, leaving only the raw musical compositions and "hosting" by Garrison Keillor to carry the weight. They do to an extent, but there's quite simply not enough great material here to justify a feature-length film, meaning that any number of "APHC" broadcasts will be time better spent. That said, die-hard fans may warm up to the film's sentiments and Warner Archive's Blu-ray treatment is nothing if not admirable, serving up rock-solid A/V merits and a nice pile of DVD-era extras. This one isn't blind buy material, but established fans will certainly love it.
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