The Screenplay of the Major Motion Picture
April 3, 2006
This unique collection of skits, songs and "News from Lake Wobegon" monologues from the radio show A Prairie Home Companion
is gleaned from over 30 years of the popular program. Longtime fans will hear some of their favorites, including "The Lives of the Cowboys: Big Messer" and "Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian," plus the toe-tapping music of the Guys'All-Star Shoe Band. Newcomers to Garrison Keillor's show will find the CDs a great introduction to this quirky Saturday night broadcast heard around the world on public and satellite radio. Other highlights include "Bertha's Kitty Boutique," "The Ten Minute Macbeth" and "Guy Noir's Movie Shoot." The understated humor and occasional wackiness serves as both an excellent introduction for new listeners and a selective greatest hits for steadfast fans. This is a collection well worth hearing again and again.
March 31, 2008
Leave it to Keillor to satirize “Guy Noir: Private Eye,” by exposing the M.F.A. degree as a tool of organized crime. The parodies of American literature, however, including Dickinson, Frost and Hawthorne, are generally sophomoric. You know whose woods these are. The collection of vintage performances improves in a 10-minute rendition of Macbeth
, with the lead character as Mr. Rogers and Lady Macbeth as Julia Child. There are two versions of Hamlet
, both of which reduce Ophelia's madness to “La, la, la.” Yes, that's a quote. The Prairie Home Companion cast members fare better when they move away from parody. One of the best bits involves an English major (Keillor) working at a fast food job and correcting customers' misuse of “who” or “whom.” Billy Collins's satirical ode to “The Lanyard” is both hilarious and astute. There are some nice fillers, including Meryl Streep reading Mary Oliver and Allen Ginsberg's overblown recital of Whitman's “Song of Myself.” In the end, listeners will feel that these two so-so CDs could have been reduced to one good one.