Kills Me Dead

Two things I think are of importance here. First is that I’ve long thought the great mid-western states of Wisconsin and Minnesota should be annexed into Canada for sharing such a similar climate; as such, I have a weird affinity with these states for some reason. That, and the fact that Green Bay Packer fans get those awesome cheesehead hats. Secondly, my mother used to listen to Garrison Keillor religiously until they stopped airing his show on the CBC (or wherever), so like Wisconsin and Minnesota, I’ve got a weird affinity for the show.

Anyway. It’s sort of cloyingly sentimental in places, but you get over it because everyone involved does such a great job bringing all the characters to life. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin totally kill the mid-western accent and basically exist throughout the movie as they did in their Oscar presentation earlier this year, only less obnoxiously. I kinda sorta maybe have a crush on Woody Harrelson (wtf, right?) as Dusty the cowboy and John C. Reilly’s character was kind of a wild west version of Stevie from State of Grace (no, really).

They did a fair job of adapting the radio show for the screen. For one, they allowed all the regulars on the show to have places in the film, and it wasn’t just a case of seeing them for a split second, they were actually featured in several scenes with and without the lead actors. They kept in all the standard advertisements that are read week to week, and I was glad when they did the add for ketchup (because that’s my favourite).

Virginia Madsen’s character (“Dangerous Woman”) was sort of obnoxious and not entirely necessary.

The only thing that didn’t work in the film was Guy Noir. Kevin Kline was fantastic as the detective, but the insertion of that character into the film was really clunky. Everyone else in the film was playing an actual performer who might have been part of the radio show; even if it was a made up act (The Johnson Sisters), it was still a case of “real” people who might have just been strolling through town and were asked to be on the show. Guy Noir isn’t really a person in the same way; because he’s from another genre and era (film noire) all together, it was odd to take him out of his usual context in the radio show to be the real life security guard at the theatre. It was disjointed, but Kline managed to pull it off despite this.

Oh, and the humour? Is terrible. Which is exactly the kind of sense of humour I have, so it worked out well. But if you don’t like puns and things of that sort, you probably won’t find it terribly funny.