Robert Altman

I really like Altman's style in all three of his movies that we watched. I like how involved his moving cameras are, making us feel like a part of the movie rather than just seeing still shots and cuts to remind us where we're sitting. He achieves this with a few incredible tracking shots, especially in the opening scene of "The Player." I also like his use of overlapping dialogue. Although it can become distracting, it is much more realistic than just hearing one person speak. Again, it helps erase the feeling that we are merely being presented something to view.

Something I noticed about the plots in each of Altman's movies was that the three we watched all had quite abrupt, unexpected endings. My favorite ending was in "The Player," because of the way the "Habeus Corpus" subplot was worked in. I thought it was very fitting that the original "Habeus Corpus" ending was rejected by its viewers, but happened in reality (which was its whole point in the first place: "because that happens!"). The other ending I particularly liked was in "Nashville," which is ironic because I hated the rest of the movie. I thought the ending was the only point that really had meaning to it, and the rest was too long to justify its thematic purpose. In "The Long Goodbye," I liked the ending as well, but only because I thought it substantially reversed the dark turn the movie took when it was nearing the end. I know shooting someone is pretty dark too, but what I liked was that Marlowe, the "good" guy with whom we simpathize most, got his revenge on the people who used him.