The Robert Altman Tournament of Champions kicked off with exciting Round 1 action! (Click image to enlarge.) Nashville, the top seed in the tourney, rolled over lowest-seed Quintet while singing "It Don't Worry Me." Garrison Keillor in A Prairie Home Companion had little trouble gently taking the air out of Richard Gere's smarmy charm in Dr. T and the Women. Pamela Reed in Tanner '88 blew smoke rings around Sam Shepard in Fool for Love, while favorites McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Secret Honor, and M*A*S*H defeated their opponents (Ready to Wear, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, and HealtH) with ease. Cookie's Fortune bested The Gingerbread Man with an unexpected assist from the latter's studio heads and John Grisham.
In the other bracket, the Brits in Gosford Park cut down O.C. & Stiggs with witty insults, whereas Popeye K.O.'d Vincent & Theo after downing a can of spinach and punching Van Gogh's ear off. California Split laid down a full house against Kansas City, Short Cuts "medfly quarantine" defense worked like gangbusters vs. A Perfect Couple, and The Long Goodbye wielded a Coke bottle against the young soldiers in Streamers to deadly effect. 3 Women out-weirded Images, and The Player had little trouble turning Beyond Therapy into a habeas corpus.
Minor upsets: The Company outdanced Brewster McCloud in a squeaker; the 48 character-ensemble in A Wedding dogpiled on Keith Carradine and Shelly Duvall in Thieves Like Us.
Round #2, Key Matchups: Will McCabe have his confidence rattled by Tricky Dick Nixon's offer to buy out his land? Who will win the a key Southwest region battle between Short Cuts and California Split? Finally, how will 3 Women fare against The Long Goodbye? Said Mark Rydell to Spacek and Duvall: "Streamers I loved. You I don't even like."
2 comments:
Oh, dear. I don't know if I will ever be able to figure out how this game works! All the same, it's refreshing just to be seeing these excellent titles being mentioned.
Sorta off-topic, but I saw a little of Streamers on IFC. Apparently it's only just now gotten a DVD release. From what I saw, the transfer is rather horrid- the film doesn't look very good on celluloid. But the film itself? Pretty intense, especially towards the end.
Oh, and also, thanks for the shout-out in your Quotables section!
It's close, but I think Thieves Like Us should have been able to take A Wedding.
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