YouTubing-To-Obscure-Shameless-Self-Promotion Wednesdays: "Retirement? You're Talking About Death, Right?"

So, earlier today I was casually worrying about what I was going to post on my obligatory YouTube Wednesdays. Let's just say the site really needs the flood of Altman material that's doubtless en route.

I have no eulogy. You can throw a rock and you'll hit one, maybe even three. I won't even link to any, lest I pretend to single any out. I feel no need to try to coax words to explain why I will miss a filmmaker who was in my top tier, and whose Hands on a Hard Body movie I was eagerly anticipating, even if it had only been in pre-production. And I really can't conjure up words to explain what it's like to live in a world where there will be no new Robert Altman films.

That said, there are plenty of Altman films which even I haven't seen, and some which even you haven't seen. (I counted about 10, plus a whole fuckload of TV work, his The Caine Mutiny and McTeague adaptations among them.) I eagerly anticipate, for one, the well-belated reassessment of his '80s, play-adaptation-heavy period. Ditto his television days, before M*A*S*H.

I leave you with lists.

Upper Echelon

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

The Long Goodbye (1973)

California Split (1974)

3 Women (1977)

Tanner '88 (1988)

Gosford Park (2001)

Underrated

Images (1972)

A Perfect Couple (1979)

Popeye (1980)

Kansas City (1996)

The Gingerbread Man (1997)

Ones I Most Desperately Need to See

Countdown (1968)

Brewster McCloud (1970)

Thieves Like Us (1974)

HealtH (1980)

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Vincent and Theo (1990)

Tanner on Tanner (2004)

And because no Altman break-down would be complete without it:

Overrated or Just Not Very Good (Yet Well Worth Seeing, Natch)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's Lesson (1976) [but great visuals; squint hard and it's just as good as those from the same epoch]

Quintet (1979) [though something tells me this becomes a masterpiece on third or fourth viewing]

Streamers (1983) [so far the only Altman I flat-out just don't like]

Secret Honor (1984) [okay, not really, but it does has a chasmic gap between material and execution]

The Player (1992) [also not really, but I've always found the central conceit a little on the glib side]

R.I.P., dude.

And now, Le Weekly An actual film cover issue yields an article on the Greater Philadelphia Film Office and Sharon Pinkenson, its frizzy, golden-haired head. Meanwhile, a new, fancier spread for the film section debuts along with an interview section lorded over by moi; first out of the gate is an intervew with actual-Amerindie god Andrew Bujalski that I had to cut well, well down. (Forgive the name, by the by.) A review of his Mutual Appreciation follows. Ditto Rep.