Customer Reviews

Tanner '88 (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of the most important things Alman's done. Which is probably why it's one of his favorites along with MASH and NASHVILLE and SHORT CUTS. It is a political satire set in the '88 presidential election. It has everything and more, even a sequal, Tanner On Tanner. Very smart and sophisticated. CHECH IT OUT NOW!!!!!!

Tanner is an odd bird, it hasn't aged quite as well as i thought it would...yet it remains interesting and sometimes fascinating. The performances are all over the place, sometimes great (Micheal Murphy especially) and sometimes alomst cartoonish...this could be a result of the writing...Trudeau is a cartoonist after all. Being taped on video gives it an odd look as well. Still i watched the whole thing in one sitting and wanted more...so it gets 4 stars. (the interview with Altman and Trudeau is a nice plus)

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the series.

Tanner 88 is a TV miniseries which aired on HBO during the 1988 election year. It portrays the campaign a fictional presidential candidate by the name of Jack Tanner.

He is ultra liberal and nominates Ralph Nader for Commerce secratary, Gloria Steinem for Health secratary and other actvists for cabinet positions.

The film has a cast of many famous people playing themselves, including the late country singer, Waylon Jennings, Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, Gary Hart, and many others.

The show ran for 11 episodes starting with the beginning of his campaign to his loss of the nomination to Michael Dukakis.

I found it to be interesting and had some interesting humor in it also. Also since the show aired on HBO it contains language and scenes not shown on regular television. It would get a TV MA for language and sensuality if aired today.

The Criterion DVD includes new interviews with the show's creators Garry Trudeau and Robert Altman. It also has cast members reprising their roles for introductory 'interviews' for each episode. These were first shown during the airing of the series on the Sundance Channel in 2004

This overall was an interesting change of pace from the normal issuing of films on Criterion and I think it is more than a coincidence that it was released less than a month before the real 2004 presidential election.

Just in time for the November U.S. elections, the good folks at Criterion have released Robert Altman's little-seen (yet influential) Tanner '88, an eleven-episode mini-series that he created with Gary Trudeau (of Doonesbury fame). Done for then fledgling HBO and shot on video, it was an attempt to critique and satirize the political landscape in America at the time. Sixteen years later, it is still relevant.

The Sundance Channel bought the rights to Tanner '88 and ran the entire series earlier this year. They brought back Altman, Trudeau, and key cast members to record brand new intros for each episode. Tanner is now a university professor who reflects, with some bitter resentment, on that fateful bid for the Oval Office.

There is also a fantastic 20-minute conversation between Altman and Trudeau. It's a spirited conversation with Trudeau being quite animated and Altman flattered by the former's gushing praise.

Tanner '88 is not just a fascinating snapshot of American politics in the late `80s. It holds up today because a lot of the same things are being said and a lot of the same things are being done. The people are still at the mercy of these double-talking politicians and Altman and Trudeau's series zeroes in on this with absolute clarity. Despite its limited run when initially broadcast, it went on to inspire Tim Robbins' scathing Republican satire, Bob Roberts and Steven Soderbergh's short-lived TV show, K Street, which also mixed actors with real politicians (and was also green-lighted HBO). This is a timely release well worth a look.

A remnent of the days of George H (!) W Bush, Ronnie (cut down trees to save the enviroment) Reagan, and Michael "As the son of Greek Immigrants" Dukakis, it is a funny and interesting start to the mockumentary buisness.
it hasn't aged all that well, and frankly, it's overly comical, but nontheless very interesting

Tanner 88 is a prescient addition to the catalog of mockumentary films initiated by Spinal Tap in 84. The presidential candidacy of Jack Tanner in 88, following a semi-scripted format, foretells the character of a future candidate, Barack Obama, who appears in the reprise, Tanner on Tanner. In that sequel, Obama's actual keynote address in 04 before the Democratic National Convention in Boston smacks of the glittering generalities mouthed by Tanner in 88: "We are not red states and blue states. We are the United States." Altman's skillful satiric skewering of politics, mass media, and in particular documentary film making demonstrate the common thread of style over substance. Early aspirations of pursuers in all three of those fields begin with high hopes for social justice, but substance is eventually gutted by the exigencies of compromise along the road to becoming a power player. One scene late in Tanner on Tanner exemplifies the schism between personal belief and public profession. In that scene, one film editing monitor shows a sweating Tanner in a racquetball court railing against the Bush presidency for taking this country into war with a "swinging dick," while an adjacent monitor shows Tanner telling Charlie Rose why the U.S. should stay the course in Iraq.

Altman's skillful breaking the frame of the journalism's fourth wall and the intermingling of actors and real life characters create a suspension of disbelief that had me caring about what happened to Tanner and his daughter after 04.

This has that Altman mix; often brilliant, and occasionally over the-top,
and self conscious. The acting is generally good, but a little uneven.
Some characters are very real, others come off as pure caricature. The
series felt longer than it needed to be to make its points. The middle
episodes were a bit boring.

(Spoiler alert!)

But then there's the episode where Tanner goes into the hood and meets
w/real mothers of murdered kids, in a lengthy improvised scene of pain and
anger which is simply devastating, and the whole series felt redeemed.

Overall, while watching it, I liked it, not loved it. But looking back,
it left me with a much more powerful and lasting impression. It
may be uneven, but its worth your time.

This is a show written by Doonesbury writer Gary Trudeau and directed by filmmaker Robert Altman. That is a pretty good team, isn't it? And the idea is great too: a fictional former congressman running for the Democratic nomination in 1988. Definitely ahead of its time - this is something MTV might have done in 2004.

The problem is, it's not very good. Trudeau's writing is fine - he says writing scenes is a lot like writing daily cartoons, so he's had the practice. It's also pretty well-informed, although the consultants who helped may have more to do with that than Trudeau.

It is very Altmanesque, down to the "cocktail party" dialogue technique, where everybody says their lines amidst chatter from everyone else. I personally can't stand this, since it makes it necessary to turn up the volume like you are deaf in order to hear the funny asides and stuff. But it's Altman, all right.

But the problems are several. First, it's shot on videotape, which looks unbelievably cheap. Think "outtakes" or "audition footage" and you'll maybe get close. Was this necessary? I really doubt it. It is hard to overcome how low-budget it makes this look.

The drama itself isn't much. Some reviewers seem to think this anticipates Clinton's rise, or skewers slickly produced political campaigns. The candidate is a standard liberal, getting arrested protesting and everything, so he's not Clintonesque. And genuine commentary on modern campaigns might be nice; instead we get meaningless platitudes that are instantly forgotten. Much is made of a scene with Bruce Babbitt advising the candidate, but I can't tell you what the heck anyone said because it was pure puffery.

The idea is an interesting one, and when I heard about it, I couldn't wait to see it. There's cameos by political consultants (Shrum, Matthews), politicians (Dole, Robertson, Kitty Dukakis), and others. The episodes sometimes show campaign techniques that are interesting. But not very often, and the drama between staffers and reporters (many of whom are out and out dorks with zero appeal) is very dull. There's also plenty of exaggerated reactions (when one character leaves the room, the camera shows everyone with dropped jaws for about 30 seconds). The whole thing feels like amateur hour. There was one hilarious moment when the candaidate goes to a robotic factory. It was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while, but it was definitely the exception.

The most interesting thing about this is the time capsule quality of it. It shows what liberals might have wished for back in the late 80s before Willie Horton, etc. The candidate's cabinet proposals include Robert Redford, for example.

But it's not very interesting all by itself, so I can only give it two stars.

Script by Gary Trudeau, directed by Robert Altman, shot on video with a small crew, improvising around real life Democratic Convention, bringing in real people from media and politics. And with a candidate, Jack Tanner, who was remarkably prescient of Clinton. The campaign slogan "For Real" had it's tongue firmly in it's cheek. All well ahead of the pack in terms of reality tv, dogme films and it's undertanding of the media.

Truly Excellent. I hope they do it justice in the DVD release.

But not me. I agree with Jim. 353 minutes of politics is too much for me. This HBO special is for the political junkie only.