Monday, July 12, 2010

Brewster McCloud (1970)

Brewster McCloud is about a boy who wants to learn how to fly. Not in a metaphorical way, but literary fly, like a bird.

From the opening scene you immediately understand that you are watching something rare and special. Jumping back and forth through the fourth wall, the story gets ever more weird and wonderful as it unfolds.

The plot and characters are almost too good to be made up, and the whole film is inter-cut by a wonderful professor who holds a lecture about birds.

Being legendary director Robert Altman's (most famous for MASH) second feature, it shows so much ingenuity, it's a wonder he has not produced more gems like it in later years. One can suppose he simply ran out of oomph at some point, but I'd rather blame insane production companies gagging and binding his creativity, by demanding more crowd pleasing, more mainstream, more shit.

So if you're like me, sick and tired of the cliché infested films being puked out of Hollywood by the thousands each year, watch this instead, and be inspired by a real voyage into original art.

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