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This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Good movie but grossly overrated

Did you people see the same film I saw?

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Everybody knows that man has always shown his superiority over animals and birds.He has always made a point to do things which have been done by other species.There was hardly any moment in the history of mankind when man did not make attempts to fly high in the sky. It can be surmised that keeping these facts in mind,American director Robert Altman chose to make a film which revealed man's hidden desire to fly like a bird."Brewster Mccloud" is also a pure entertainer as it addresses a serious issue in a very light manner.Robert Altman's film bears testimony to the fact that birds need to be respected as well as protected from selfish humans.Apart from birds in all shapes and sizes,this film concerns a young boy who would avoid many young women whom he considers obstacles in his path leading to a journey high up in the skies.Funny cops are not a rarity but "Brewster Mccloud" has cast some funny actors as inept cops who adopt funny methods to find out more about murders taking place near them.Lastly,it is not only ornithologists but also bird watchers who would turn out to be this film's loyal audiences.

The recently released remastered DVD edition looks good but strangely does not have captioning - perhaps not that strange because Altman's layered dialog is a nightmare to caption but much is missed by the absence of captioning.This has been on my list of top ten films since I first saw it 40+ years ago. It withholds at lot from the initial viewing and you discover something new each time you watch it."The film has references to other films, Altman's own work, and other places. Altman refers to Bullitt (1969) by including a character named Frank Shaft, who is a detective from San Francisco." The name may have inspired the name of Richard Roundtree's "John Shaft" character, in a more subtle parody from 1971 ("he just took my man Leroy and threw him out the God damn window")."Homages to The Wizard of Oz (1939) have been noted in the film, as Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, is the music conductor seen during the opening credits. She is seen wearing ruby slippers in the film. Hope (Jennifer Salt) who supplies Brewster with health food, resembles Dorothy, as she wears a distinctive gingham dress, has pigtails and carries a basket. At the end of the film, she is shown in the cast as Dorothy carrying Toto." Shelley Duvall plays a Raggedy Ann airhead character (without Luna Lovegood's redeeming qualities) and actually appears as a Raggedy Ann clown in the final scene."Brewster McCloud" is a film that presents society as circus performers and life as a circus, if you haven't figured that out by the end Altman hits you over the head with it as he goes out with perhaps the best black comedy ending of all time. Throughout the story a bird-like narrator, sometimes on camera and sometimes in a voice-over commentary, discusses the traits of various birds; traits that are shared by the human characters in the story, although that leap is left to each viewer. Allusions to birds are found throughout the story, from the orange Plymouth Roadrunner to the names of several assisted living facilities.The title character (played by Bud Cort) is much the same naive Private Boone character Cort portrayed for Altman in "MASH". The difference is that Brewster is on an ambitious quest to literally fly. Which involves intensive physical training when he is not busy designing and building a set of Wright Brothers inspired wings.During the course of his project Brewster has to be rescued several times and stay focused on his goal of flying. In this he is assisted by personifications of Faith (Sally Kellerman) and Hope (Jennifer Salt). Kellerman's character is actually named Louise and functions as his guardian angel, although if Hope is Oz's Dorothy then Louise is Oz's Glinda. "Hope" is conceptually what self-pleasuring is all about and she demonstrates this when thinking about Brewster. Freud's dream of flying as symbolic of the sexual urge is explained to Brewster by Louise and at first glance Brewster's loss of virginity and its attendant loss of idealism is what dooms him. But I see it being more the loss of his humility. And it is his new found arrogance that drives away his Faith. She exits by the Astrodome's huge commercial gate which slowly closes after her exit, trapping Brewster inside the structure. He can utilize his wings in what is essentially a large bird cage but he cannot escape. The dome representing the constraints and limitations of society and outside the dome representing freedom. One assumes that had he not driven her away that Louise would have assisted him in leaving the dome. There is a bit of "The Incredible Shrinking Man" in this idea of needing to become infinitesimal in order to merge with the infinite.Given that most of the cast were Altman regulars, it is remarkable how successful he was with his physical casting. Duvall, for example, has not just the physical rag doll look (note the Raggedy Ann wallpaper in her apartment and the emphasis given to her huge eyes) but her most striking feature is her thinness - a physical manifestation of her character's most striking feature - shallowness.It is a nicely layered film that works well simply as a social satire of American values and conventions. Many of these details will escape the notice of the first time viewer, such as in the scene of Patrolman Johnson's family at dinner. He has three sets of twin sons gathered around the dinner table in their Little League uniforms, the smallest two playing for a team named "WASPS".In the end the circus audience watches in satisfied fascination as yet another high flier overreaches and falls back to earth. The "Greatest Show On Earth" presided over by controlling ringmaster Haskell Weeks (William Windom), perhaps a nod to cinematographer Haskell Wexler with whom Altman hoped to one day collaborate.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. Comment

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.

Brewster McCloud (1970), set in Houston in the late 1960s, is a Robert Altman comedy. One reference source describes it as a quirky comedy, which may be the best adjective to attach. The movie is about birds, and things bird-like, in three ways: First, Rene Auberjonois appears intermittently as a gawking professor of ornithology, to lecture the audience on matters avian. As the film progresses, he comes more and more to resemble his subject. Second, Bud Cort lives surreptitiously in a cubbyhole of the Astrodome, where he has fashioned a set of wings and is attempting to learn to fly, as in human-powered flight in something of a throwback to before the Wright brothers. Third, there occurs in Houston an inexplicable series of deaths, possibly murders. A common element is that the deceased are found with....well, let's stop there, tiptoeing toward the edge without risking falling off the cliff into a spoiler.Sally Kellerman plays a quasi-angelic character who watches over Cort's welfare. We have also the young Shelley Duvall, ten years before her appearance as Jack Nicholson's wife in The Shining (1980), in the role of an Astrodome tour guide. Michael Murphy plays the San Francisco detective who is summoned to Texas to investigate what is going on. His big decision each morning is to decide on the color de jour for his trademark gun holster and matching turtleneck.As was said, quirky.