Short Cuts (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

It takes a while to begin writing a review after the subject has just taken one's breath away. There are so many families, all taken from Raymond Carver's book of the same title. There are at least 25 main characters in all (including the two women at the end of the movie and Casey Finnigan). The theme of the movie is randomness and human despair. Tolstoy tells us that all unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways, yet Altman had successfully created a movie in which the individual unhappiness in each of the families portrayed are interconnected so as to form a tapestry of universal sorrow.Some scenes are truly memorable - the movie begins with a flight of helicopters at night, looking as if they were aeroplanes with light bulbs all over. The acting can only be described as the promise of some of the best actors of our time, bearing in mind that many of them were still young at the time (1993) - Julienne Moore, Frances McDormand (before her fame in 'Fargo'), Anne Archer, and Robert Downing Jr. There are two country singers who played smaller but important characters - Lyle Lovett as Bitkower the baker whose cake was never delivered, and Danny Darst as one of the fishermen who found a dead body while fishing.Altman (and Carver) depict the ravaging of families by infidelities, and at the same time, showing how the characters treat their acts of betrayal. Drink, poverty, and the almost meaninglessness of daily routine are snapshot throughout this long (3 hour) movie - but you'd wish it never ended.

Based on nine stories and a poem by the late Raymond Carver, Short Cuts is a deeply realistic, broadly written, stunningly structured jazz mural of a city on the edge.The stories, fused together so seamlessly by Altman, were conceived separately by Carver, and only one was invented for the film (a tragic duet between Annie Ross as a drunken, dying jazz singer and Lori Singer--who does her own playing--as her classical cellist daughter). Only two of the tales are in a form fairly close to Carver's. Those are the stories based on "A Small, Good Thing" (about a baker who harasses a couple who haven't picked up their son's birthday cake, unaware that the boy lies comatose after a car accident) and "So Much Water So Close to Home" (about three fishermen who won't let the discovery of a nude female corpse disrupt their fishing vacation).Originally, there were no links among the tales, other than thematic ones--Carver's sense of modern urban isolation, the misunderstandings, petty cruelties, and sad silences. So Altman and co-adapter Frank Barhydt, Jr., made the links and found the short cuts. The ensemble is large: pool cleaners and TV commentators, waitresses and jazz singers, limo chauffeurs and conservative doctors, phone-sex specialists and cake bakers, makeup artists and fishermen. Altman and Barhydt (and editor Geraldine Peroni) concentrate entirely on transitions, leaping from one track to another, making connections between the clusters of characters (think PT Anderson's Magnolia).Part of the greatness of the film, which is one of the triumphs of recent American film-making, lies in Short Cuts's recognition that nothing in life is ever resolved, that there are not only no happy endings, but virtually no endings at all.

I haven't read much by Raymond Carver, but I think this movie succeeds on its own terms. It's beautifully shot--especially the helicopter/crop duster scenes at the beginning--and it has a stellar cast giving their best for director Robert Altman.If you've seen other Altman movies--especially Nashville--you'll feel completely at home. The running time is 3 hours, but it doesn't seem like it. The multiple plot lines are diverse but never sprawling. The dead, drowned girl introduced at the beginning is supposed to become a symbol of death-in-life throughout the movie but that symbolism never drowns the movie.The plot about Lori Singer as a cellist in a difficult mother-daughter relationship was a highlight of the film to me. There is one moment in the film when she embraces Andie MacDowell after MacDowell's son has died. In that embrace, Singer feels the love MacDowell has for her son that she herself has never felt from her own mother. Or at least that's how I see it.My point is, faults notwithstanding, Short Cuts is an excellent movie about relationships and individual epiphanies. For the most part, it is uncluttered and very realistic in its avoidance of melodrama and easy resolutions to the mysteries of human behavior.

Something about the presentation made me feel nobody cared about the quality of disk or my movie viewing experience. It felt tossed, jostled, and I felt bamboozled. Played the disc and it works fine. Great film. My favorite by Robert Altman. Lilly and Tom are the best pair. Watch for the big LA earthquake. ♥️♥️♥️

Terrific picture and audio quality. Just love this movie and was happy to find it in Blu-ray at long last. An outstanding Robert Altman movie. Recommend highly.

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Everything went fine, awesome movie, awesome label! Nothing else to add.

A dream come true!