Keillor's voice, Altman's vision fuse in "Prairie Home Companion" film

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: A Little Synergy on the 'prairie'
Garrison Keillor's voice fuses with Robert Altman's vision as the homey radio hit "A Prairie Home Companion" goes Hollywood.
By Kristin Hohenadel, Special to The Times
May 28, 2006



For 30 years, Garrison Keillor has spent his Saturday nights putting on an old-fashioned radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," the live variety program heard nationwide by 4 million listeners. But while building an institution by raising Midwestern self-deprecation and subversively folksy tongue-in-cheek storytelling to an art form, he's been harboring celluloid dreams — which is how his base at the Fitzgerald Theater was transformed last summer into the set of Robert Altman's latest film, "A Prairie Home Companion," opening June 9.

"This has been my ambition for years, to write for a dramatic medium," Keillor said. "Because I'm no good at it, and one aspires to do what one cannot do. I still have a hard time writing dialogue, because I come from people who didn't talk. We sat and chewed our food, looked out the window."

Keillor originally approached Altman with the idea of making a movie based on the characters of Lake Wobegon, the mythical Minnesota town where much of his storytelling is based, after a development deal at Disney fell apart. But after Altman and his wife, Katherine, a longtime Keillor fan, attended a live taping of "A Prairie Home Companion" on one of its regular tours across the country (it'll be at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday), the 81-year-old Altman decided that he'd rather make a movie about the onstage drama and backstage dynamics surrounding the making of a radio show. As he did in his last film, "The Company" (2003), a faux documentary about a season in the life of a troupe modeled after Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, Altman wanted to immortalize an ephemeral art form on screen.

So Keillor, 63, imagined a last night in the life of a program much like his own, "turning the show inside out" by writing a scenario based on real and imagined "Prairie Home Companion" personalities. Writing a fictional documentary about himself was, Keillor said, "an odd assignment. But I was intrigued by the idea....Regulars Sue Scott and Tim Russell play a fictional makeup artist and a stage manager, respectively. Regular chanteuse Jearlyn Steele plays herself. Dusty and Lefty, the singing cowboys — character sketches incarnated on the radio by Keillor himself — are reborn in the hilarious duo of Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly. "Prairie Home Companion" icon Guy Noir is now the theater's hapless security guard, played by Kevin Kline in 1940s attire. And central to the story are country music sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) and Yolanda's daughter, Lola (Lindsay Lohan). The show's live audiences were replaced here by local volunteers....

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-prairie28may28,1,414231.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews

[Elwood P Dowd]

1. This should be fun

:applause: :applause:

[freethought]

2. I've seen the trailer a couple of times

You're quite right. It does look like this could be a fun flick.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

3. I might even make it to the theater for this one.

I haven't been to the theater since Fahrenheit 9/11.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. Bush once said he gave a campaign speech in Lake Wobegon

Sez he talked about his days growing up on the ranch and how tough life was on the Texas prairie when he was a young man. He mentioned gathering eggs from the family rooster, picking bananas in the family garden, and riding an armadillo 12 miles to school every day. Life was tough for young George. I'm sure A Prairie Home Companion is his favorite radio show.

[LongTomH]

5. Elwood...........

Sez he talked about his days growing up on the ranch and how tough life was on the Texas prairie when he was a young man. He mentioned gathering eggs from the family rooster, picking bananas in the family garden, and riding an armadillo 12 miles to school every day. Life was tough for young George.

I BELIEVED the one about the six-foot, giant rabbit!

[Elwood P Dowd]

6. Now you have made Harvey mad

:P

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

7. I look forward to seeing it in the the Dales --

Highdale, Teasdale, Chippendale, Airedale, Mondale, and other fine shopping centers...

[TygrBright]

8. But will we see pre-flick adverts for "RAW BITS" along with...

...the shills for "Fandango" and "Coca-Cola?"

Enquiring minds want to know...

interestedly,
Bright

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Sunday a.m. kick for Garrison