Metrograph

Both loved and loathed in the city it’s named for, Altman’s teeming panorama film, depicting a few very busy days in the Country Music Capital, is a dense tapestry of music biz insider jokes; a jamboree (with original tunes authored largely by members of its exceptional ensemble cast, representing 24 interlinked characters) of song and cacophonous, polyphonic chit-chat; and a pile-up of perspectives on the fractious state of the trigger-happy Republic in its Bicentennial year. “The funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen… [an] orgy for movie-lovers… pure emotional high.”—Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

Distributor: Paramount