Bland On the Run

Nashville(1975)

Starring: Robert Alterman Directed by: Lilly Taylor, Karol Kane, Ned Beatty, Waldo Carradine, Sissy Lu Spacey Rating: R Genre: Comedy/Drama Other: Music

Review "Blue Velvet" meets "The Ugly Coal Miner's Ugly Daughter" is this oddball concoction by director's director Alterman ("The Birdman of the Astrodome", "Hudson Goshawk Park"). The ensemble cast includes  Lilly Taylor ("Kill All The Men, All The Time"), Karol Kane ("My Tiny Sister's Tiny Hands"), Waldo Carradine ("Death Race 2012: L.A. or Bust") and Sissy Lu Spacey ("Carrie", "Walking Tall: The Minnie Pearl Story") as a Hootenany band invited to open at Woodstalk for Jimi Hendrix by drug-addled impresario Ned Beatty ("Crawling and Squealing") under the impression that they are helium-voiced blues yodelers "Canned Heat." What appears to be real concert footage alternates with handheld camera sequences during which each member in turn flashes back to the Esalen weekend where the group met for the first time around the rotting remains of an enormous sea elephant. Alterman seems to be saying that some actors can sing, and are sometimes depressed and that the very act of "acting" can be both boring and cathartic. My own experience as a thespian (an admittedly small part as the pimp "Diggety-Dog" on a early episode of "Baretta") confirms the insight (I spent three months curled inside of an empty hot tub abandoned in a vacant lot next to Jack Nicholson's place). Not for everyone, or maybe anyone, but this someone says "check it out."