Short Cuts
Dir: Robert Altman
1993
**
Short Cuts has quite a cast. Of course it does though, it's a Robert Altman film and it's based on collected short stories (and one poem) by American classic, Raymond Carver. They must have been climbing over themselves to be in this film. It is essentially, an actors film. Thing is, the performances aren't very good. It hasn't passed the test of time as it should have. This film is still celebrated but I can't see why. Altman, one of the biggest hit & Miss directors of all time, had good intentions with this experiment but it just didn't work. The film is 20 years too late, aesthetically and in mood, and cast for that matter. It's a product of that horrible late 80's/early 90's style (or lack of style I should say) where clothes, hair, acting etc are just drab and unexciting. Hollywood churned out some real stinkers between 88 and 94, moody, shallow, self-centered and self-important nonsense. I challenge anyone to say they enjoyed this film more the second time round. The length is totally unjustified, the direction and performances are totally self-indulgent and unconvincing. It has it's moments but at over three hours long you'd expect so.