Brewster McCloud (1971)
Directed by Robert Altman
Brewster is an owlish, intellectual boy who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome. He has a dream: to take flight within the confines of the stadium. Brewster tells those he trusts of his dream, but displays a unique way of treating others who do not fit within his plans.
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What critics compared Brewster McCloud to
Hotshot detective Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy), clearly inspired by Steve McQueen in Bullitt, is called in to investigate.
Shaft is a good cop who runs on instinct and bucks the system; in the way he wears his shoulder holsters and turtlenecks, he's clearly meant to echo Steve McQueen in Bullitt.
(It was choreographed by the same guy who did "Bullitt.")
As well as playing tricks with film, Altman packs Brewster McCloud with many references to other movies – when Daphne Heap is killed, she’s wearing ruby-encrusted slippers in reference to actress Margaret Hamilton’s most famous role as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) – it’s one of several references to Victor Fleming’s film; the name of Michael Murphy’s cop foreshadows the better known Shaft first played by Richard Roundtree the following year but his look, right down to the piercing blue eyes achieved by contact lenses, is based on Steve McQueen in Bullitt (1968); there are a couple of references for Fellini and perhaps to Hitchcock – Brewster McCloud is an unruly and wayward distant cousin of The Birds (1963), with the avian population of Houston seemingly carrying out a quiet, covert war on the human race, acting intelligently and with a collective purpose; the first three lines of the cast list is briefly visible on the Astrodome display screens at the end; and Alt…
Mientras Brewster asesina a diversos personajes vía estrangulaciones que nunca vemos e hilarantes cagadas de pájaros que embadurnan los cadáveres, como la susodicha Heap, Abraham Wright (Stacy Keach), un anciano mezquino, homofóbico y dueño de varias residencias geriátricas para el que trabajaba de chófer, Douglas Breen (Bert Remsen), un oficial de narcóticos corrupto, racista y abusador de su esposa (Angelin Johnson), y hasta un hombre que intentó violar a Suzanne, desencadenando que ésta le pegue con una barra de hierro y se lleve el coche que ahora conduce, por su parte una figura prominente de la alta burguesía de Houston y con gran peso político, Haskell Weeks (William Windom), manda a traer a un investigador de la policía de San Francisco, Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy), para que ayude a los bobos uniformados de Texas considerando que el forastero resolvió solito un caso similar de California con mucha cobertura mediática, el del apodado “Estrangulador de Santa Bárbara”, pero el tal S…
In this way, Sorry to Bother You is proudly linked to the deep tradition of visually distinctive and narratively idiosyncratic comedies of cinema history like Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich and Adaptation by Spike Jonze, Robert Altman's M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud , Terry Gilliam's Brazil , and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove— dating all the way back to the earliest masterworks like Chaplin’s Modern Times .
Maverick Robert Altman's was Brewster McCloud (a favorite of mine).
The humor, though, is closer to “Brewster McCloud”: zany, wacky, almost alienatingly eccentric.
The movie is the sixth of seven Duvall made with Altman, who cast her in her screen debut, 1970s Brewster McCloud.
But, for all its lumpy qualities (which shouldn’t be a hurdle for those who’ve fallen in love with Altman’s equally worthy bastard children The Long Goodbye and Brewster McCloud, among others), 3 Women is a daring piece of cinema that glides along the edge of weirdness and somehow manages not to fall off.