A Prairie Home Companion

[Brian in Mesa]

Cast Aboard Altman's Praire Home Companion
Source: Variety
May 16, 2005

Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Lily Tomlin and Maya Rudolph are set to star in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, a spin-off from Garrison Keillor's legendary U.S. radio variety show. Kevin Kline is also in talks to join the cast.

Keillor has written the script and will appear as himself in the movie, which will shoot this summer in Minneapolis, reports Variety.

In the film, as the ensemble of performers, musicians and back-stage crew prepare for the final live broadcast, long-simmering passions boil to the surface while an imperious stage manager struggles to hold everyone together.

Streep and Tomlin play sisters, while Lohan is a sexy ingenue. A menacing stranger, who might just be the angel of death, stalks in the wings, but the show must go on.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

A Prairie Home Companion

Release Date: June 9, 2006
Studio: Picturehouse
Director: Robert Altman
Screenwriter: Garrison Keillor
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for risque humor)
Website: A Prairie Home Companion

Starring: Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, Lily Tomlin, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen, Maya Rudolph, Lindsay Lohan

Plot Summary: Director Robert Altman and writer Garrison Keillor join forces with an all-star cast to create a comic backstage fable, "A Prairie Home Companion," about a fictitious radio variety show that has managed to survive in the age of television. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin star as the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda, a country duet act that has survived the county-fair circuit, and Lindsay Lohan plays Meryl's daughter, Lola, who gets her big chance to sing on the show and then forgets the words. Kevin Kline is Guy Noir, a private eye down on his luck who works as a backstage doorkeeper, and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are Dusty and Lefty, the Old Trailhands, a singing cowboy act. Add Virginia Madsen as an angel and Tommy Lee Jones as the Axeman and Maya Rudolph as a pregnant stagehand and Keillor in the role of hangdog emcee, and you have a playful story set on a rainy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, where fans file into the Fitzgerald Theater to see "A Prairie Home Companion," a staple of radio station WLT, not knowing that WLT has been sold to a Texas conglomerate and that tonight's show will be the last.

Shot entirely in the Fitzgerald, except for the opening and closing scenes which take place in a nearby diner, the picture combines Altman's cinematic style and intelligence and love of improvisation and Keillor's songs and storytelling to create a fictional counterpart to the "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show. The film uses the musicians and crew and stage setting of the actual radio show, heard on public radio stations coast to coast for the past quarter-century (and which, in real life, continues to broadcast). The result is a compact tale with a series of extraordinary acting turns, especially Kevin Kline's elegant Keaton-esque detective and Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep's singing ("Goodbye to My Mama") and their beautiful portrayal of two sisters who talk simultaneously. And Virginia Madsen's serene angel. And Lindsay Lohan's version of "Frankie and Johnny".

 

[D-Dogg]

I'm game...when is this out? I'll watch it when it hits DVD.

I must admit...I *gasp* like Lindsey Lohan. Tons of Hollywood starlets and Tiger Beat readers will probably hate me now.

 

[Yuma]

I'm game...when is this out? I'll watch it when it hits DVD.

I must admit...I *gasp* like Lindsey Lohan. Tons of Hollywood starlets and Tiger Beat readers will probably hate me now.

I must admit, I listen to this on the radio!