Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is a hard-boiled character working security at the radio program 'A Prairie Home Companion' and it's the last night on the air. Garrison Keillor brings some great A-list stars into his movie. There is also the master director Robert Altman. Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly) are cowboy singing duo. Virginia Madsen plays the mysterious woman in white. Yolanda (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin) are sister singing duo as Yolanda tries to get her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) to sing with them.

I have never heard the radio show. I'm not really a fan of this kind of music. The good reviews and Robert Altman attracted me to the movie. There is barely anything here for me. It's obvious to say this movie meanders. That is part of Altman's style. However I have a hard time find anything compelling in this. It became very repetitive for me. Keillor has the presence of a stuffy college professor. The A-list cast is interesting but then they add an actress like Lohan. It's not that she does a horrible job as much as she sticks out like a sore thumb. This is just not a movie for me.

... that this movie would play at German theatres under the name "Robert Altman's Last Radio Show" (I'll talk about the origin of that title later)? And I'm not translating the German title into the English language, it's the title that is used in Germany now, and it's not the first time they use another English title for an English/US movie ...

... that Lindsay Lohan would be acting in a Altman movie? And the emphasis is on acting. She does a pretty good job here (ok, she's no Meryl Streep, who's also playing in here, but she's good). As are the other cast members (look on the IMDb list, for further details.

... that this would indeed be Robert Altman's last ... show/film? Which could be one of the origins of the German title (see first paragraph). Although a bit macabre you can never be sure. But one thing is sure, Altman still loves the overlapping dialogue (which most directors/producers etc. wouldn't do, because the audience can't understand what the actors are saying ... Altman goes with the realism!

So we get here, a funny (in an off-beat manner) comedy about a country show ... which also means, you shouldn't hate country music, because if you do, you won't like this movie ... end of story! :o)

The fact that "A Prairie Home Companion" was Robert Altman's final film makes it all the more eye-opening that the movie portrays a final broadcast. In fact, the presence of the Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen) almost seems to foretell Altman's approaching end.

Anyway, the movie portrays the final broadcast of Garrison Keillor's (playing himself) famous radio show - which is done like a 1940s broadcast - as a Texas company is taking it over. In the process of everything, people's secrets get revealed (namely in the duct tape scene),and one gets a sense of independently owned media sources getting bought out. But regardless of what happens, the various performers all know that they have to hang on to their lives.

Among the performers are the calm Johnson Sisters (Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep),the dirty-minded Lefty and Dusty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly),and others. The real sense of the 1940s comes in the form of detective Guy Noir (Kevin Kline),keeping an eye on everything; he looks as anachronistic as the show itself, but he never lets it get him down.

The movie has the definite feel of a Robert Altman movie, with the overlapping dialogue (I remember that when Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep gave Altman his honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards in February, they talked like that). Not his best movie by any stretch, but still worth seeing. Also starring Tommy Lee Jones, Lindsay Lohan, and Maya Rudolph.

It runs in your blood. Yeah...