Irrascibly informative, like a grandfather who fought in a big war and told wildly different tales about it each time. As an aspiring filmmaker, I'll very much miss his (TinyHyphen'd) style. God Bless.

Don't forget Prairie Home Companion, which was great fun to take in.

RIP

I didn't see "Prairie Home Companion," but I also enjoyed "Theives Like Us," "Welcome back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," and "Short Cuts." Thought "The Wedding" was mean-spirited and "The Player" was wildly overrated, though clever.

"Nashville" makes the short list of my all-time favorite movies.

Alex, good call on those Altman 3. They're my favorite of his movies as well.

So many terrific movies and only a few corkers. He worked all the genres. Buffalo Bill. Prete a Porte. The Player. Three Women. Jimmy Dean. Gingerbread Man. What about the television. Shows how old I am.

Trying to figger out what movie to see tonight in his honor. Phillip Marlowe. Elliot Gould and his cat. The girls next door. Cigarette smoke. Kills Bouton. Sterling Hayden. Nina Van Pallandt. That one should come with footnotes.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Why did Beatty have to die? Lauren shooting the wedding. Sophia's big breasts. Paul Newman. Shelly Duvall. What happened to Three Women? The Music in Kansas City. I liked it, even though no one else did. Was Robin great in Popye? Terrific. California Split. Theives Like Us. One of my faves. Vasly underrated. Fool for Love.

Got it! A baseball movie! Not really, but close. Icarus in the Astrodome. Brewster McCloud.

I like Altman but Prairie Home Companion was one of his worst films.

Elliot Gould's performance in "California Split" is one of the best I've ever seen.

He did the first season of the Combat! series and was responsible for a lot of the framework of the show. He made Rick Jason's character a LT (he had been a sergeant as was Vic Morrow's character in the pilot because series creator Robert Pirosh was a sergeant in WWII. Two of Piroosh's best men were Cajuns so he had two in the pilot..one got killed). Altman had been an officer and couldn't see a TV series without officers. He was responsible for many of the chess related call signs because "war is like chess". He would kill off soldiers after a few episodes when audiences were getting comfortable with them to show war was often brutal. He left after one year because of conflicts with higher ups..he had too many "solo" episodes and they wanted an ensemble. But the actors under him thought highly of him, as they did for most subsequent directors.
Also any director who would have an 8 month pregnant Ute Lemper in a film stark naked (Prete a porter) is a man of my sensibilities.