Holy crap.

I haven't seen a single Altman movie, but damn.

I really liked Gosford Park very much, and thought it was better than The Player, but not quite as good as M*A*S*H (still haven't seen Short Cuts or Nashville, though).

New editorial:

We released this issue a week before Robert Altman’s death. We wanted to honor his career before this prolific, long-lived filmmaker passed away, and just managed to do so.

At Ernst Lubitsch’s funeral, Billy Wilder said, “No more Lubitsch.” William Wyler responded, “Worse than that. No more Lubitsch pictures.” Altman had been on a great run in his last years, producing major work long after we had any right to expect it. This makes the news of his death that much sadder: we’ll never see new Altman.

Here's my favorite Altmans:

1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
2. Thieves Like Us (1974)
3. The Long Goodbye (1973)
4. Tanner '88 (1988)
5. Gosford Park (2001)
6. California Split (1974)
7. Nashville (1975)
8. The Company (2003)
9. Popeye (1980)
10. Cookie's Fortune (1999)
11. The Player (1992)

Anyone care to participate in an Altman deathmatch? Or make some Altman lists?

I boycott, in advance, any deathmatch not won by McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

My Altman Top 5 (Top 5 what? I dunno, just things I like.)

1) McCabe and Mrs Miller. Esp. Warren Beatty, & even more esp. "I got poetry in me!"
2) Sound design. His biggest, most-lasting contribution IMHO. The overlapping conversations, often with the important one not in the foreground.
3) The music in The Long Goodbye. It's the same song throughout the movie, even Sterling Hayden's doorbell gets in on the action.
4) Sissy Spacek in 3 Women. 'Cause she was gorgeous & I'm shallow that way.
5) The Player: a) Buck Henry pitching "The Postgraduate" at the start, and (b) Lyle Lovett trying to teach Whoopie Goldberg how to say Gudmundsdottir.

I'm trying to think -- I've seen The Player, and part of 3 Women (a really long time ago) and A Wedding (I think). Still haven't seen Nashville or McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

Oh, I've seen The Company, too. Which never quite struck me as an Altman film, and ended abruptly, I thought. I liked it, but I'm a sucker for a ballet movie.

I think Popeye would get a pretty high percentage of votes for being a bad movie, but even that one has the silver lining of the single most perfect casting choice in motion picture history: Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.

My least favorite Altmans:
1. Dr. T & The Women (2000)
2. Quintet (1979)
3. O.C. & Stiggs (1987)
4. Pret a Porter (1994)
5. Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976)
6. Kansas City (1996)

On the fence:
1. Short Cuts (1993)
2. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
3. MASH (1970)

I haven't seen any of the others, but I have A Prairie Home Companion, Tanner on Tanner, Vincent & Theo, Secret Honor, and Images in my Netflix queue.

Edit:

I think Popeye would get a pretty high percentage of votes for being a bad movie, but even that one has the silver lining of the single most perfect casting choice in motion picture history: Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.

I watched it again last year and was struck by how much better it was than I remembered it being. In fact, as my list shows, I liked quite a bit in retrospect.

I loved Altman, even when I didn't like his work.

Favorites include Gosford Park and The Player.

I liked Cookie's Fortune more than I expected. The Wedding was filmed at my college and everyone said that Altman was a delight to work with.

To be frank, Short Cuts made me want to open a vein. And Popeye just made me go tsk, tsk

Bless his heart on all counts though. I've so enjoyed him and his lust for life/cinema.

I loved Short Cuts when it first came out but GF and I rewatched it recently and it didn't hold up. Even though I know Dr. T sucks, we still liked it due to the Kate Hudson/Liv Tyler love story angle. We're so predictable. RIP, Altman.

Sound design. His biggest, most-lasting contribution IMHO. The overlapping conversations, often with the important one not in the foreground.

Oh my, yes. He taught me how to pay attention to the wee details.

I actually quite like Pret-a-Porter, even though it's not that good.