CineTigers Surreal does not capture the characters, setting, and plot of Brewster McCloud. Will you please pass me whatever they were smoking when they wrote and revised this script. It was either the work of genius or insanity.I have waited over 5 years to see it, as I work through the AFI catalog. Altman's early film is hard to find here; not in my library, netflix, rarely shown. It was finally on TCM as a visiting programmers choice, SNL comedian Bill Hader.A great time capsule of 1970 Houston, with period cars and so many familiar faces. But a film of bizarre surrealism that exceeds anything I've personally seen from France or Italy.

valis666 Bookish virgin Brewster lives in the fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome and dreams of flying one day with the mechanical wings of his own creation. Every time he leaves his sanctuary he's affronted by some manner of uptight goon who seeks to hinder Brewster for one reason or another. These antagonists all end up dead and covered in bird poop -- is it Brewster? His guardian angel (with two scars where wings would've been) Abraham? Does it matter? Not really.Like most great art films, this will take some reading and reflection to truly get the most out of. The theme is freedom, obviously, and how our attachments and desires and fears keep us from reaching it. Brewster is told he needs to stay a virgin or he won't be able to fly, but in typical human fashion, temptation takes over as he falls for the beautiful Suzanne in Shelley Duvall's first role as an actress. The bulbous-shaped Astrodome is a metaphor for the birdcage in which Brewster lives. The ending is tragic and even silly and absurd at the same time. It is a strange, funny and poignant movie, and probably Altman's best.

lauerroad-1 This is one of my Top 10 Movies! It was when I saw it and it still is. It is the story of Sally Kellerman teaching Bud Cort how to fly in the Houston Astrodome. The humor is incredible, probably the best piece is when the servant tries to describe how tall a person was to a detective. The juxtaposition of the participants positions and the spoken words make it memorably funny. And when Rene A. starts out as a person and slowly evolves into a bird is just a wonderful thing to watch and a great acting feat. One of Robert Altman's best, it is a master of comedy and staging. I recommend this movie highly and I wish that it was available on DVD. I would buy it tomorrow.

evanston_dad If ever there was a love it or hate it film, this is it."Brewster McCloud" is a glorious mess, an imperfect film in that fascinatingly imperfect way that only Robert Altman could pull off. I admit that much of my affection for this film lies in the fact that I studied it in a Robert Altman seminar; each of us picked one movie to watch, analyze and report back on to the class, and this was mine. I was completely befuddled by it the first time I watched it, but then after I'd seen it three or four times, trying to make sense of it in order to talk to the class about it, I sort of fell in love with it.Brewster, played perfectly by Bud Cort, lives in the Houston Astrodome and harbors the intense desire to fly. His efforts in that direction are complicated by any number of odd-ball characters, including a rich tycoon for whom he works as a chauffeur (an unrecognizable Stacy Keach delivers a howler of a performance as the tycoon, and has far too little screen time), a private investigator (Michael Murphy) with a penchant for colorful turtlenecks who's investigating a series of murders around the city, and a couple of bizarre female love interests, played respectively by Jennifer Salt and a divinely whacked out Shelley Duvall. Meanwhile, a sort of guardian angel (Sally Kellerman) with scars on her back where wings used to be follows Brewster around and may just be responsible for the murders taking place around the city (every corpse the cops find is splattered with bird crap). And last but not least, in perhaps the most bizarre role (and that's saying something in this movie), Rene Auberjonois plays some kind of professor delivering a lecture on man's desire to fly, who serves as a kind of narrator for the film and gradually turns into a bird himself.Much of the film doesn't really make any sense in a conventional way, even after multiple viewings. The film is a lot like Altman's break out hit, "MASH," from the same year, with the overlapping dialogue, chaotic action and super-sarcastic sense of humour, but it doesn't have a universal topic like war around which to anchor itself, and many viewers might feel like they're watching an extended inside joke not meant for them. What is one to make, for example, of the use of Margaret Mitchell as a cranky old lady whose face we never see but whose voice is ingrained in our collective subconscious, and who is wearing an awfully familiar pair of ruby slippers when her body is found, victim to the mysterious avian serial killer? The allusion to "The Wizard of Oz" of course is obvious, but what purpose does it serve? The same can be said of Murphy's hilarious, dead-pan parody of Steve McQueen's character Bullitt, and the movie even includes a ridiculous and long high-speed car chase that pays homage to the one in that 1968 hit. It's all very funny, and maybe that's point enough, but I can't pretend to know what Altman was trying to say.But the ending, after all the glibness that has preceded it, comes to a poignant and quite emotionally affecting conclusion. Bud Cort is the perfect actor to make us root for Brewster, and once we see this strange and even rather creepy kid get himself airborne with a set of makeshift wings, our hearts soar and we want to see him achieve the impossible. Watching him frantically flapping his wings as he sails around the Astrodome, only to plummet to his death, offers a sad reminder that some dreams, no matter what optimists may say, are never attainable.Believe it or not, "Brewster McCloud" was the 1970 release that Altman thought would be the biggest hit, and he was very disappointed when "MASH" scored five Academy Award nominations and "Brewster" was ignored. One can't even conceive how Altman ever thought the stuffy Academy would go for something as esoteric as this.Grade: A