Here’s the first of a new gig I’m trying out: arts reviews. Here’s my review of "A Prairie Home Companion" for my alma mater, The New York Sun:

Radio is a lonely, romantic
business. A tower, somewhere out on the prairie, broadcasts words and
sounds and music and traffic and weather into the emptiness, and
perhaps somewhere a few souls taking a rest from beating a living out
of the earth tune a broken-down old contraption (do they even still
make radios anymore?) in to pick up the fading signal.

At least, such is life in the world of "A Prairie Home Companion,"
the movie version of Garrison Keillor’s beloved radio show of the same
name. Directed by Robert Altman, and with a screenplay written by Mr.
Keillor himself, the film reimagines the National Public Radio staple
as an obscure - and doomed - transmission received by only a few
hundred local fans. With an easygoingness bordering on narcolepsy,
"Prairie" is a lazy but absorbing pleasure, especially if you’re a fan
of folk music and droll Midwestern wit. But its structure is
perplexing, with tangents going nowhere, star cast members wasted (or
seriously miscast), and a central conceit that at times seems like an
afterthought.

I guess I just have opinions on everything.