Brewster McCloud

Brewster McCloud is a weird movie by people who were on drugs. I thought about it hard, and that is absolutely the easiest way to describe it.

Of course, it was made in 1970, when lots of people were making lots of great movies on drugs.

So, I'm not sure if a lot of people even know about this movie. This is the movie that Robert Altman made between M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. For some reason, it's never had a proper DVD release. I found a VHS at a thrift store a couple years ago and quickly snatched it up. But, being a VHS tape, I just as quickly set it aside, and left it to collect dust. Last weekend, I finally popped it into the old VCR and gave it a shot.

It's a pretty good movie, although I admit I'm not 100% sure I get all of it. It's definitely an original movie. It has all of Altman's trademark moves; the large cast, the overlapping dialogue, the punny signs in the background, the caustic outlook.

So, what is it about? Birds, mostly. It's about how we are like birds, how we are not like birds, and where we fail to be like birds. The title character, played by Harold and Maude's Bud Cort, is a young man secretly living in the Astrodome, constructing his own set of mechanical wings. Sally Kellerman is a mysterious woman who may or may not actually be a bird (?) who has lost her wings. There is a detective on the trail of a serial killer, whose victims are found strangled to death and covered in bird shit.

The whole film is narrated by a professor (Rene Auberjonois), whose lessons on bird behavior are intercut with human behavior that resembles the bird he is describing. He also slowly transforms into a bird-man throughout the movie. Yeah, it's that kind of movie.

Also of note is, this is Shelley Duvall's first film, as an Astrodome tour guide that Brewster falls in love with. She's very birdlike in appearance. With her long neck and the way they give her like 4 big lashes around each of her big round eyes, she reminds me of the ostrich ballerinas in Fantasia. Not a slam, mind you, just an observation.

The ending is pretty awesome. Altman builds and builds his story to a triumphant crescendo, only to burst it like a balloon, and then thumbs his nose at us, the audience. In so doing, I think he's making a statement about where we're heading as a people. Maybe man was never meant to fly, you know?

Sorry this review is kind of scattered. Brewster McCloud was kind of scattered too, so it's appropriate. I do love Robert Altman when he's on, and this is a pretty wild movie, even for him. I'll give it a solid B.

If you are interested in seeing it, the only way it is available on DVD is on the Warner Brothers Archive website, where DVDs are made-to-order of catalogue titles that they didn't sense enough demand for. There's some other good stuff in there, too. I'm sure it has popped up on Amazon by now too. It's not on Netflix, unfortunately.