Welcome to L.A.

Well acted but the movie just drones on about people that aren't as smart as they think they are. I lived in L. A. for 10 years and worked at Paramount Studios. I've met these people. Most of them are boring, self-obsessed people., Hutton being the worst of them.

You can't help but compare it to the other big L.A. Statement Movies--Altman's SHORT CUTS, and P.T. Anderson's MAGNOLIA. I like Rudolph's way better than either of those: it's gentler, humbler, more observant, truer. Limiting himself to a dozen or so L.A. habitues, Rudolph starts with one funny, correct move: no movie people. The dances of disconnection, attempted connection, failed connection, and--stunning!--connection accomplished are as tender and as finely, thinly observed as Rudolph has ever pulled off. So many beautiful moments here: the best comes when Keith Carradine, as a dupe of his sleepy-stud character from NASHVILLE, breaks up a romance to go on a healing mission with a half-crazy housewife (Geraldine Chaplin). When his philandering with her rescues her marriage during a tense phone call in his apartment, Carradine's face spreads with gladness and relief. The rightness and the unexpectedness of the moment is fantastic. Even more than the goofy, enjoyably romantic CHOOSE ME, this is the one where Rudolph got it all right. And no other movie captures L.A.'s peculiar loneliness like this one: he doesn't hype anything or play to the tourist mentality--something that could not always be said for his mentor, and the movie's producer, Robert Altman.

The minute the singer uttered "City of one night stands", I should have stopped watching this but I soldiered on. I was hoping for a storyline with Laurel Canyon scene in it since it was a "musical" of that period and about LA. Nope. Welcome To LA has a great cast that is totally wasted. I'm pretty sure the cast completely trusted Alan Rudolph on this mess and signed their respective contracts and have to suck it up.

Sissy Spacek, Sally Kellerman and Geraldine Chaplin were were good all things considered. Is the whole movie a flashback? I waited and waited for a narrative but the writer hid it with the Easter eggs. Scenes like a minute of Geraldine walking on an alley emoting, then cut to an unrelated scene. Cut and paste is a bad way. Rudolph trying to be a 1970s Alain Resnais, he is not by a long shot.

Being an Angeleno who loves movies about LA, I say avoid this movie at all costs.

Ps I looked up the singer Richard Baskin on Discogs and I am happy to tell everyone that his contribution to the soundtrack was the last of his recording career.

"Welcome To LA" is a dated film involving ten characters whose only shared trait seems to be loneliness. The movie plays like a moody tone poem, and there are no comedic, dramatic, or action-filled sequences... just a bunch of urban sun-bums looking lost and hopelessly mellow.

Keith Carradine redefines the term "slacker" for the Me Generation, as he wanders around LA with a soul patch having intercourse with a score of women while never once changing his expression. He's supposedly an artist, with troubles in his romantic life and familial relationships, but he is so centered, so serene, so placid, that he comes off more as a Buddhist monk or Jedi Knight.

He has occasional flashbacks to his former lover played by Diahnne Abbott, and I have to believe that no man would ever forget this woman. In her wordless seconds of screen time here, just like her tiny roles in "Taxi Driver" and "New York, New York," you can see that this is one of the most gorgeous, sexual women ever to walk the Earth... she's got the jungle in her, and this is the type of woman men kill other men to be with. She was my favorite part of the movie.

Between stories involving the grating Geraldine Chaplin and the sexy Sally Kellerman we keep cutting back to Richard Baskin as a singer/songwriter recording his album in a studio. These songs and the montages cut around them- which were presumably meant to be the heart of the film- are rendered unlistenable by the foul, nails-on-blackboard voice of Baskin. The fact that this man was ever allowed behind a microphone is a crime against the eardrum. Instead of the soulful, contemplative center of the story, we get a talentless drone warbling clichéd lyrics while the leads bemoan their fate. Nothing makes the heart ache like sunshine.

The only other bright spot is Sissy Spacek, a woman of unbelievable beauty and depth, who effortlessly steals the show whenever she's on screen. Ms. Spacek can be a naive little girl one minute, an intellectual adult the next, and a lusty sexpot only seconds later. If you love her like I do check out "Violets Are Blue" in which she plays a woman so irresistible you cannot help but fall in love.

"Welcome To LA" is supposed to show the isolation and loneliness that exists even in the hedonistic, superficial world of La-La Land... the trouble is we wind up with a movie that confirms our worst beliefs about the place: These characters have no right to be this bummed... it's shallow, narcissistic self-pity. But it makes for a great late-night movie.

Grade: C

Despite a fabulous cast led by Alan Rudolph regular Keith Carradine, this vacant, flat movie with virtually no plot is easy to classify as a lesser "Nashville" set on the West Coast. I mean, what are the major happenings, Denver Pyle makes Harvey Keitel a partner? Uh . . . that was about it, there's a party.

So, why the heck do I like this so much? I've seen it maybe 30 times, even though it's unavailable on any media, at the moment, at least, and every time I watch it all the way through to the last shot of Carridine looking sideways at the camera. I saw it when it first came out, and it stayed in my mind for decades until it started to show up on the movie channels. I can't explain it, the music is nice (particularly "One Night Stands" and "Welcome to L.A."), but the conversation isn't particularly clever (compare "Choose Me" for example). I can't really defend the film, how could I? There's no message, no plot, no outstanding performances to champion . . . I don't know, I just enjoy watching it. Beats me.