...its music community except maybe for the sex, back-stabbing record company executives and country songs. The 1975 Robert Altman-directed movie Nashville probably comes closest to realistically depicting Music City U.S.A.? Randy Travis...

...showcases films about and/or featuring prominent players from the state's music community. NASHVILLE (1975): Robert Altman's sprawling masterpiece is about much more than country music, but it works because the titular town's primary...

Opens Friday, Jan 4, 2013 Synopsis: "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) starts nosing around Cross's water diversion scheme. That proves to be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's critically lauded 1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, "matrimonial work" specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her husband, Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling). Gittes photographs him in the company of a young blonde and figures the case is closed, only to discover that the real Mrs. Mulwray had nothing to do with hiring Gittes in the first place. When Hollis turns up dead, Gittes decides to investigate further, encountering a shady old-age home, corrupt bureaucrats, angry orange farmers, and a nostril-slicing thug (Polanski) along the way. By the time he confronts Cross, Evelyn's father and Mulwray's former business partner, Jake thinks he knows everything, but an even more sordid truth awaits him. When circumstances force Jake to return to his old beat in Chinatown, he realizes just how impotent he is against the wealthy, depraved Cross. "Forget it, Jake," his old partner tells him. "It's Chinatown." Reworking the somber underpinnings of detective noir along more pessimistic lines, Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne convey a '70s-inflected critique of capitalist and bureaucratic malevolence in a carefully detailed period piece harkening back to the genre's roots in the 1930s and '40s. Gittes always has a smart comeback like Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, but the corruption Gittes finds is too deep for one man to stop. Other noir revisions, such as Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) and Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975), also centered on the detective's inefficacy in an uncertain '70s world, but Chinatown's period sheen renders this dilemma at once contemporary and timeless, pointing to larger implications about the effects of corporate rapaciousness on individuals. Polanski and Towne clashed over Chinatown's ending; Polanski won the fight, but Towne won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Chinatown was nominated for ten other Oscars, including Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes, and Score. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman Movie Details Play Trailer Movie Review

...small town America is captured here. THE PLAYER (1992): This pitch black comedy rates as one of legendary director Robert Altman's best and Tim Robbins' portrayal of a paranoid Hollywood executive is a scathing portrait of someone who finds...

...seems at once an affectionate throwback and a fever dream from somewhere far in the future. POPEYE (1980): Director Robert Altman understood that the essential elements of Popeye have little to do with spinach and the occasional fistfight. Instead...

...incorporated the now-standard elements of pop, jazz and big band music to his sound. Made his acting debut in Robert Altman's 1991 film The Player. He became part of the filmmaker's stock company, appearing in Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter...

...Texas - Was briefly married to Julia Roberts in the early 1990s - Has appeared as an actor in several of director Robert Altman's films NAME: John Hiatt HOMETOWN: Indianapolis STYLE: American roots rock Essential album: Bring the Family...

...personnel. Unlike the immensely popular television show of the same name, the play more closely resembles the 1970 Robert Altman film and is a dark comedy. Because nearly 30 teens are involved in the show, it underwent a heavy sanitization...

...might be a good idea to fashion a pair of wings and take a leap from the club level. Such is the premise of the quirky Robert Altman fable, which stars Altman regulars Shelley Duvall, Sally Kellerman and Bud Cort as an innocent living in the dome's...

...PG-13) Mo'Nique stars as an aspiring fashion designer. Augusta Village PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (HHHH, PG-13) Robert Altman's salute to Garrison Keillor's great radio program is gentle and whimsical, simple and profound. Evans RV (HH...