Monday, July 21, 2014

Oscar Movie Review: "Nashville" (1975)

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Oscar Movie"Nashville"
Year Nominated: 1976
Director: Robert Altman
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours, 39 minutes
Did It Win?: No.

Centered around a reform party political campaign we follows the lives of several people in the Nashville country music scene.

This is another one of those movies that, since we didn't live through the time of its inception and themes, perhaps we don't understand the gravity of the film. "Nashville" has about a dozen different story lines going on simultaneously. This lends to its messiness and overall erratic feel. Most of the dialogue between characters is pretty much incoherent, almost like you were sitting in a restaurant and hearing all the other patron's conversations from the tables surrounding you. You hear a word here and another word there, but none of it pieces together to form a comprehensible story. It's a fumbled, jumbled mix of politics, sex, music, and inane banter between the several different character all at the same time. Given its reasonably high ratings across the board, obviously, there are people out there who like this film. It didn't get nominated on accident. It's something that's a really original idea, and we think this lends to people's high praise of it. It's an early example of a hyperlinked piece of cinema such as the more recent "Babel" or "Crash." Though it has an ensemble cast and characters with connecting stories, those stories lack focus and meaning, at least in our present day lives. We personally don't "get" it. We found ourselves hoping it would be over soon and it kept going on. and on. and on. It drags along at a snail's pace for 2 hours and 40 minutes that we quite frankly will never get back. The good reviews led us to want to see this movie, but a masterpiece this is not. Maybe we will watch it again in 10 years and see if we have changed our minds.

My Rating: 4.5/10
BigJ's Rating: 4/10
IMDB's Rating: 7.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 93%
Do we recommend this movie: Meh.

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