Last night I had a terrible dream. I was asked at the last minute to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of someone I did not know well. They promised me a dress but I looked down to see that I was wearing a thin nightgown with no underwear except for tights, and two sweaters, one of which was torn. My hair, in the process of being "done," had shrunk until it was short. I tried to back out of the wedding but it was being filmed for a reality show which offered me lots of money and a proper dress if I would reconsider. Then I woke up.
Now, everyone who knows me knows I hate weddings. I've had two, the first of which was a shotgun wedding with the shotgun pointed at me, the bride. That may be an unusual circumstance. The second marriage I did want, but to expand upon my attitude towards weddings in general I will let you know that my father planned both of my weddings. And he is no flower-arranging ponce, but an enlightened redneck who collects guns. So you see, I don't like weddings.
Nevertheless, I do like Robert Altman films, and I have had his 1978 film A Wedding in my Netflix queue for weeks. So when I woke up this morning and decided it was a movie marathon day, based on my dream of last night and on the continuing trending search engine topic of royal weddings I decided to start the day with A Wedding.
It was the right decision in a lifetime of bad decisions, folks. This is the best movie I have seen in my entire life all year. It has heavy hitting actors like Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Mia Farrow, and Viveca Lindfors. It has character actors like that guy who played Molly Ringwald's dad in Sixteen Candles (here again playing the bride's father who favors the daughter who isn't getting married) and a stealth Tim Thomerson. Seriously, that man is an acting chameleon.
It has the intersection of nouveau riche Southerners, New England blue bloods, and Italian mafia, all of whom are known for trying to maintain a certain set of manners, yet we get to see almost all of those manners drowned in alcohol and set alight. I hate to reveal anything about the plot, but this is Altman at his best. This movie just kept getting better and better and better, like a string of mystery firecrackers. It was better than my divorce. It was more surprising and delightful than finding out the person next to you at the party has a cigarette case half full of joints and they're willing to share.
If you love satire, if you hate weddings, you must see this movie.
2 comments:
This is the second rave for this film I've read in the past year or so, which is about the same amount of time since I put A Wedding in my instant queue. It's time that I finally get around to watching this -- I hate weddings and love satire, after all.
Also, TIM THOMERSON is in this?! If I had known that earlier, I'd probably put less effort into ignoring it.
Thanks for reading. Yeah, it's a great movie, the best thing I've watched all year, at least out of the things I watched for the first time.
Doesn't Thomerson just show up in the strangest places? I've seen Carny about 20 times, for example, but didn't realize he was in it 'til I read an interview with him about the making of Carny. He's a true character actor in that he changes from film to film. He doesn't have a big part here, but I marked out anyway.
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