FILM

Bird Shit, Bull Shit

The kid with the wings is Brewster McCloud. He’s got a vision about flying away from this vale of tears on a set of home made wings. Just fly away. So here he is flying about the Houston Astrodome. Below is a squad of fully armed riot cops who would arrest him for murder if they could reach him. Poor kid. It’s so hard to fly away inside the Astrodome.

Brewster McCloud is a composition by Robert Altman and Lou Adler. You know who they are, the M*A*S*H* director and the exMamas and Papa’s producer. Together they have put together a flashy movie which shoves the old knife in to the hilt. It’s sort of a parable, an allegory, or, possibly, a fable. Maybe it’s some of all three. Mostly it’s about bird shit.