A Lot of Bill & Bull
Things have been going well for Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman) with his travelling Wild West show gaining in popularity leading to Bill hiring both a producer and a publicist to take the show to the next step. In need of expanding his talent Cody decides to hire Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) to play himself as a bad guy in a typically inaccurate re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But much to Bill's angst not only does Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) take to Sitting Bull but so do the audiences.
I guess I am a simple sort of movie fan, I like movies which entertain through a variety of things be it the story, the visuals or because of who is in it. The one thing I have never gone wild about is the director of a movie, yes I have some which I know usually deliver to my tastes but who directs a movie is never enough to attract me to watch a movie. That separates me from many who enjoy the movies of Robert Altman because it seems fans of the directors work tend to love what ever he has made where those who are not so bothered by the director tend to have a more hit n miss record with his movies.
Okay I am going about things in a long winded fashion so to gut to the chase I did not like Robert Altman's "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" a fittingly long winded title for a movie which didn't need to be as longs as it was and by the time you finish it you think what's the point. Of course the point is that Altman is delivering a revisionists view of the West and doing so in an extremely drawn out and dry manner. Yes he has assembled an impressive cast and the staging is pretty entertaining but his long winded way of getting to a point, delivering drama and creating characters makes it a tedious experience and one which long before it has hit the half way mark you are looking at your watch.
What this all boils down to is that "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" has to be one of the most tedious movies I have watched and that is down to this movie being all about Robert Altman's approach to movie making which isn't for me.
