A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Starring: Marylouise Burke, Woody Harrelson, L.Q. Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen
Director: Robert Altman
Runtime: 105 mins
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Theatrical Release:9 June 2006 (USA)

Synopsis:

A long-running live radio show is in danger of being canceled by new owners of the company that holds both radio station WLT and the theater from which the show is broadcast. The film takes place on the night of the show’s last performance. The show has two visitors: an angel calling herself Asphodel (Virginia Madsen) comes to comfort the people who work on the show and to escort one of them to the afterlife, while “the Axeman” (Tommy Lee Jones), a representative of the new owners, arrives to judge whether the show should be canceled. He makes it clear that the show is not what he considers modern popular programming, and though he too is escorted by the angel, the show is shut down anyway. In an epilogue at the end of the film the former cast members are reunited at Mickey’s Diner. Their conversation pauses as they are joined by Asphodel, leaving the implication that she has arrived for another of their number.

Director Robert Altman and writer Garrison Keillor join forces with an all-star cast to create a comic backstage fable, A Prairie Home Companion, about a fictitious radio variety show that has managed to survive in the age of television. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin star as the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda, a country duet act that has survived the county-fair circuit, and Lindsay Lohan plays Meryl’s daughter, Lola, who gets her big chance to sing on the show and then forgets the words. Kevin Kline is Guy Noir, a private eye down on his luck who works as the shows security guard, and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are Dusty and Lefty, the Old Trailhands, a singing cowboy act. Add Virginia Madsen as an angel, Tommy Lee Jones as the Axeman, Maya Rudolph as a pregnant stagehand and Keillor in the role of hangdog emcee, and you have a playful story set on a rainy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, where fans file into the Fitzgerald Theater to see “A Prairie Home Companion,” a staple of radio station WLT, not knowing that WLT has been sold to a Texas conglomerate and that tonight’s broadcast will be the shows last.

DVD Release: October 10, 2006

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New Line Record’s A Prairie Home Companion Soundtrack Hits #1 on Billboard Bluegrass Chart

LOS ANGELES (June 14, 2006) – The soundtrack to A Prairie Home Companion, released by New Line Records on May 23, hit #1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album chart this week. Additionally, the soundtrack is in the top 10 on both Billboard’s Soundtrack chart and on iTunes.

Picturehouse’s A Prairie Home Companion, directed by Robert Altman, is a fictionalized account of Garrison Keillor’s award-winning show, which currently runs on more than 558 public radio stations. The film, which opened on June 9, features an all-star cast of Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.

The soundtrack consists of original gospel, folk, and country/western tunes along with traditional American folk songs and Carter Family compositions sung by the film’s cast members with music by The Guys All-Star Shoe Band.

“The music in this film is its breath. It never stops and it keeps the film alive,” said Altman. “Richard Dworsky and The Guys were superb to work with: great musicians with an astonishing repertoire (most of which they write themselves) – and it all just sings. Working with them was one of my keenest pleasures on the picture, matched only by getting to know some of Garrison’s other top-flight regulars and witnessing what some of my terrific cast can do on a stage with a song. It inspired me while we were shooting and it inspires me still.”

For more information, please contact:
Kerri Chyka
Corporate Communications, New Line Cinema
Kerri.chyka@newline.com

Jason Linn
EVP, Music, New Line Records
Jason.linn@newline.com

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Jearlyn Steele canta la cançó “The day is short” a la pel·lícula “The last show” de Robert Altman (2006). Subtítols en català.
Més informació a http://www.enveualtacultura.net

Garrison Keillor, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors and our special vocal quartet extol the benefits of drinking hot coffee in the cold cold winter in Minnesota. Broadcast live from the Fitzgerald Theater, January 31, 2009. Script and more info available at www.prairiehome.org