Customer Reviews

Welcome to L.A.

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A wonderful tribute to one of the world's most underrated but most familiar cities. You know it even if you have not been there. I would wager that more films are set in LA than any other city on the planet. Its combination of tall palm trees, hills and mountains, beaches and stylish skyscrapers make it visually truly stunning. But enough of the travelogue!! The film has a wonderfully atmospheric quality - very 1970s (in a good way) - and the actors never put a foot wrong. I love French films and there is something Gallic about the direction. Another French connection is Geraldine Chaplin, who numbers a couple of films from that country in her distinguished career.

I won't tell you any more or I might spoil things, just go and buy this today on DVD - and enjoy!!! Or maybe not. One little problem - you can't buy it on DVD because it is unavailable. This is ridiculous. If you would like to have this movie re-released, please mark this review as "helpful".

!!!! STOP PRESS !!! - YOU CAN NOW - WE DID IT!!!! HOORAY !!!!

How can it be? Surely every film buff has seen this film, I've watched it maybe 10, 15 times. A solid cast, an early film by an outstanding director, like it or not, it's a historically important movie for film appreciation alone. It makes no sense that something which annually pops up on IFC and other places isn't on DVD. Some kind of rights dispute? Note that Rudolph's "Trouble in Mind", an equally interesting film with a unique cast, is also missing.

This mosaic comedy-drama tells the story of a La Ronde-like circle of romantic adventures and failed affairs centered around a songwriter named Carroll Barber (Keith Carradine) and his father Carl Barber (Denver Pyle). There is a trail of Carroll's past relationship spread throughout the city of Los Angeles. Barber is an aloof womanizer who cannot commit to any relationship, and is used to illustrate the loneliness of Los Angeles big-city life. Among the women in his life are Ann Goode (Sally Kellerman), a lonely real estate agent, Karen Hood (Geraldine Chaplin), a Valley housewife addicted to taxi rides, Linda Murray (Sissy Spacek), a woman prone to vacuuming in the nude and Nona Bruce (Lauren Hutton), the snapshot-taking mistress of a wealthy man

I lived in Los Angeles since 1978 sigh....the 70's!!!) till 5 months ago * sob * and to me, this movie CAPTURES the aura, the sensibility, the moodiness the fears the loneliness, neediness, manipulations, and cut throat using that is the deep and profound epitomy of the City of Angels! I adore adore adore this movie! If you have ANY love of Los Angeles this movie is for you.
Please watch it more than once I have seen my well worn and hyper stretched VHS tape countless times and love each scene even more) ...as the characters, strange and weird, get more understandable each time. The music is bizarre, Richard Baskin of Baskin and Robbins, his dad) is nauseatingly obnoxious and perfect in this underlying part and his music flows under the movie like a dark strange blood...his voice is good, the musicians are real studio musicians he too, I believe he was Barbra Streisand's boyfriend at this time) ...Keith Carradine, a multi talent in his own right...actor, songwriter, singer, painter....is perfect perfect perfect as the cold icy stranger, the user, the self centered artiste who is above all the even colder LA manipulations...Cissy Spacek, so young and bubbly as the ingenue with a mind like a trap...on and on...this movie is priceless and perfect. Sally Kellerman as the gorgeous neurotic, with the philandering hubby, trying to find herself...so scared...Geraldine Chaplin, Harvey Keitel...a couple full of love full of hate connecting, parting....
They DO NOT make movies like this at all...it is a work of true art with exceptional acting, unique writing , and cinematography...the scenes in cars...SO Los Angeles.
Not that I am the expert, but I am someone who has lived and deeply deeply loved that city. This is a particularly wonderful strange dark movie that gets better and better each watching. I can not recommend it enough.

If you happen to live or spend some time in Los Angeles, California, you develop all kinds of feelings in regards to this one special city. In my case, this feeling has varied depending on my mood or a particular time where something alters the dynamic of the city. I'm sure that producer Robert Altman (yes, the famous movie director) and writer-director Alan Rudolph felt something about being in L.A. that motivated them to make "Welcome to L.A.," a fascinating and quite unique look at the City of the Angels.

There are so many things that can be written about Los Angeles, really, most of them centered on Hollywood. The stories that Rudolph glued together for his film are, in fact, related to show business, music being the background for the script. The main character is Carroll Barber (Keith Carradine), who doesn't talk much, but commands the screen with no effort. Carroll is in town to write the lyrics for an album by Eric Wood (Richard Baskin). While in Los Angeles, he meets his father Carl (Denver Pyle), a successful business man, who heads Barber Dairy Industries, and who is not happy that Carroll did not follow his footsteps. In the meanwhile, and with lots of time to kill, Carroll gets lucky with the ladies, who fall for him with no effort, too. His housekeeper (Sissy Spacek) likes to vacuum-clean topless, his real-state agent (Sally Kellerman) is desperate for an adventure, the album's photographer (Lauren Hutton) is always ready for a one-night stand, and his agent (Viveca Lindfords) is aging without love. Yet, the woman that steals Carroll's heart or libido is Karen Hood (the wonderful Geraldine Chaplin), who happens to be married to Ken (Harvey Keitel). Karen is not happy in her marriage, and thinks that she is going to die (I don't think I have very long to live").

"Welcome to L.A." takes another interesting look at Los Angeles, a city with a lot of ambitious people that are craving to be famous and many other that are lonely, like in the case of this film. The story is also continuously aided by Baskin's singing, with lyrics mostly related to the characters and the city in general. In the end, one of the lessons from the film, as Kellerman tells Carradine, is that, "Day dreams and traffic - that was Los Angeles is all about." And, if you happen to like nudity, I guarantee that you will never forget Geraldine Chaplin's famous scene almost at the end of the movie. This film is part of the MGM Limited Edition Collection and is only produced by demand. (USA, 1976, color, 103 mins).

Reviewed on Monday, December 12, 2011 exclusively by Eric Gonzalez for Metro Goldwyn Mayer - MGM.

Welcome To L.A.

A dreamy stream-of-consciousness movie about a tangle of romantic relationships in 1970s L.A., a place where everyone seems to be living a life of quiet desperation while searching for the next hookup. In terms of being an awesome film backdrop, L.A. often lags behind cities like NYC and San Francisco, but this movie manages to make it look like a dreamscape best viewed at 3 am while slightly stoned. This movie came out just a few years after Altman's "Nashville", and it too is very Altmanesque. Interesting to see Keith Carradine appearing as yet another womanizing musician but far more fleshed-out and human of a character, interacting with Geraldine Chaplin who plays a Valley housewife very unlike her annoying "Nashville" character. The soundtrack is also a classic example of lush period singer-songwriter gems. So glad to see this film is now available on DVD.