Review of Welcome to L.A. (1976) by Greg W — 25 Nov 2011

Sort of altman-lite, tho rudolph is a bit more of a romantic. this is altman's erstwhile assistant's debut feature, which seems like the continuing adventures of keith carradine's character in 'nashville'.

he plays a writer of rather bad songs and son of a millionaire, who has a string of relationships with altman regulars sally kellerman, geraldine chaplin, sissy spacek, etc. even lauren hutton and harvey keitel are in this, harvey smoking a pipe and acting mostly uptight.

some good performances and dialogues and structure similar to 'shortcuts', this was the first of a trilogy that ended with the far superior 'choose me'. rudolph seems to use distinctive music in each of his films, and the biggest problem here was the terrible folk-rock singer, richard baskin, whose performances throughout provide a running commentary on the characters' lonely lives.

it was all I could do not to fast forward through these parts, but the film was interesting enough to finish.