Movies: A Prairie Home Companion – in all the years that movies have been available to buy, either on tape or DVD, I have only bought a handful. (The children, on the other hand, have amassed a collection of videos that is astounding in its size, if not its intellectual content.) The ones I own are all films that in some way speak directly to me – Pleasantville, The Truman Show, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Usual Suspects, Blade Runner, Dark City, Memento, Mulholland Drive.

There are a few others I would buy right this moment if someone came to the door and offered them to me for a reasonable price (ok, they’d actually have to materialize beside me, because I don’t feel like getting up to answer the door, and I really wouldn’t pay for them, but I would allow them to take up space in my house) – Laurel Canyon, Mulholland Falls, L.A. Confidential, L.A. Story, Defending Your Life, Bandits, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Donnie Darko, Lost in Translation, The Station Agent. These would be movies I would always watch if I see them come up on the cable channel guide. (Come to think of it, why doesn’t my DVR send me a text message when one of these movies is going to be playing?)

Most of these fall into two basic categories: the weird, science-fictiony ones and the ones that occur in some altered reality that represents the long-gone small town life that I crave (you could argue that all non-documentary movies are in an alternate universe, but I would probably not be listening to you). There are a few that are included due to the depth of the story, but they are rarities.

A Prairie Home Companion has a meandering, wispy story, and, even though it occurs in the here-and-now, it is ultimately about a way of life that is past. Roger Ebert’s review says it all; I cannot add to that, other than to say that this is one that will become a part of my small collection when it becomes available.