Pretty much all I can say after watching this, is that PT Anderson owes much to Altman. The number of complex characters in many different situations, all culminating in one big climax. The token characters, the abrupt scene changes, all attribute back to Anderson watching this film before Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

If you haven't sat down to watch this 2hr 40min piece of celluloid, I highly recommend you do so. As you know, and Altman so eloquently said in an interview on the disc, Nashville is a microcosm of the Hollywood syndrome, and the film demonstrates this perfectly. The massive scope is just one of the impressive things attached to this film. I can only imagine watching this on the big screen. I'm going to get film geeky here, but the saturation is just beautiful, namely the final scenes with the American flag. One has to love the 70s Panavision camera setups. Seems like the Super 35 is lacking sometimes in the richness. Just a personal bias though.

The political satire aspect is brillant as well. The unshown, mystery presidential hopeful is bold and looking to take Tennessee. Some of the points made, such as taxing churches, changing the Nat'l Anthem, and no lawyers in politics were interesting, and thought-provoking as to who nowadays one could parallel.

Speaking of parallels, the characters definitely ha(d/ve) contemporaries. Haven Hamilton could've been George Jones, Barbra Jean most definitely Loretta Lynn (look at the hair/dress!), Tom Frank-Gram Parsons, Tommy Brown- uh, Charlie Pride (hey, remember Buck in Boogie Nights...see the parallels!)

Definitely Netflix this baby!

Then there's the fact that Keith Carradine got a Top 40 hit out of the film. Well, maybe Top 45.

Haven't seen this, but as a huge PT Anderson fan, I realize this is a grievous error. Altman's Short Cuts is another favourite of mine.

Thanks for the review.