Word: altmans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like the jazz it depicts, "Kansas City" comes across as an effortless delight guided by an underlying discipline. This fine work lives and breathes before our eyes in the hands of master director Robert Altman, who uses the film less as a conventionally plot-driven vehicle than as a slow Sunday ride through whatever catches his fancy. The result is a movie that succeeds on many levels: as a historical snapshot of a vibrant city, as a tragic dual portrait of two women from different walks of life, even just as a scrapbook of moments, riding on jazz rhythms...
...main plot thread off which Altman works involves Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a punchy, fast-talking gal looking to get her husband Johnny (Dermot Mulroney) back from a gangster, Seldom Seen (Harry Belafonte), whom he foolishly irked. Kidnapping Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson), the doped-up wife of a prominent politician, arises as the logical solution: she hopes to force Mr. Stilton to sic the police on the gangster...
...anyone watching this movie for only the plot will be gravely disappointed, perhaps even bored: Altman feels for the audience intelligent enough to accept the vital added layers of atmosphere that allow one to imagine the rest of the city not shown on screen. Many scenes start from images reflected in mirrors, as if to remind us that at any given time we're voyeurs just happening to see part of the movie's world...
...addition to the touching relationship that develops between Blondie and Carolyn, Altman (who co-wrote the story) presents lingering buffer shots of Seldom's jazz players at the Hey-Hey Club; an amusing ballot-stuffing sequence, headed by the ubiquitous Steve Buscemi as Blondie's sister's main squeeze; and even an odd story line about a young jazz musician and the pregnant 14-year-old he befriends. Rounding off the historical side are various pleasant touches: one political makes a mistake about a friend's wife ("Oh, Bess is Truman's wife!"); Blondie takes Mrs. Stilton...
...word "tapestry" is often used to describe Altman's films: characters move into and out of importance, now tangentially related to each other, now heavily influencing events. Here, there is less of this elegant dancing, recently highlighted in "Short Cuts...