Melodic ambience

It is friday at the red carpet again. The last big movie premiers at the Berlinale, “Capote”. The crowd is by far not as big as when George Clooney visited but still a lot of people showed up. What a different situation though. Oscar-nominated Catherine Keener (”Being John Malkovic, “The Interpreter” etc.) gets out of the car, nobody claps, just a few shouts from the photographers. She walks over to us and while she signs autographs she says something sarcastic like this to a one girl “I bet you don’t even know who I am, but as long as I sign here it is ok for you, right? - well, that is ok for me too” .

A few minutes later oscar-nominated actor Philip Seymour Hoffman gets out of the car - no clapping again, so he doesn’t feel the need to go to the “normal” people, he just stays by the press and tv stations that interview him. A lady behind me isn’t sure whom she is watching there, “That blonde guy there, I guess he is famous, he is even nominated for an oscar. “Yeah, I think his last name is just Junior” she says in german.
Everybody walks into the building after a short while. That was it.
As I said, what a difference.

A movie with Woody Harrelson, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones ,Lily Tomlin etc. etc. in it - and directed by Robert Altman - automatically pushes the expectations very high. After watching “A prairie home companion” at the Berlinale film festival, Berlin, Germany, I can state that they are being fullfilled completely. And it is not only about the brilliant play of the actors (I noticed especially Kevin Kline here) and the fact that many of them must have studied singing for a long while - this is a movie with a lot of music in it - but it is a movie with a lot of soul and humor.
The story - the last day of a radio show and how the participants deal with that - is filmed very well and the dialogues are witty or contemplative. And I think that makes the movie interesting because you’ll find seriousness as well as humor in this movie.

I don’t think this will win the golden bear at the Berlinale, because movies with a “heavier” story often tend to have bigger chances to win film awards than “just” comedies, but looking at the very positive reaction of the audience in the theater this movie will be a big success. So, if you see this movie starting in your theater go and watch it.