Welcome to L.A.

The wealthy “Carl” (Denver Pyle) is reluctantly estranged from his musician son “Carroll” (Keith Carradine) who is, himself, a rather introspective womaniser who has no interest in committing to any of the women who have touched his life as he philanders around Los Angeles. Quite what any of these w ... omen could ever see in this man is beyond me, but he seems to have them hooked and that’s the excuse auteur Alan Rudolph uses to take us on a trip through his dirty linen, and boy is it absurd. Peppered by full-scale and over-produced ballads - complete with on-screen orchestra, we follow a series of uninteresting peccadilloes that bamboozle all the more because the likes of Harvey Keitel - his dad’s factotum; Geraldine Chaplin, Lauren Hutton and Sissy Spacek have given this house-room. The latter of these household names stands out, I suppose, but she and her feather duster aren’t really here anywhere near enough to give this meandering exercise in familial discord and self-indulgence any real sense of purpose. Bed-hopping can be a fun basis for a film if it’s a comedy or if there is some depth to the story and/or the characterisations, but here it is if we are being presented with some amateur revolving-stage histrionics designed to alienate and disinterest us rather than engage. Who cares what happens to any of them? I didn’t, sorry. read more