Full disclosure: I don't think I would've touched Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean with a 10-foot-pole unless I'd be asked to write about Robert Altman films. And this is one of his highest-rated, even sneaking into the top 10 highest-rated on IMDb. But I really didn't like it very much, and I don't know, maybe it even started with that dreadful title. "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." Seriously? So it's the name of the play this film's based on, but it's a bad name for a play and it's a bad name for a film.
It centers on a group of women who have a James Dean fan club, and they reunite on the 20th anniversary of his passing. I think there are some interesting things here to do with the topic of celebrity, and the way famous people are easy to love and worship. That's one part that was at least a little engaging, and I do think a "reveal" (not really a plot twist) around the halfway point was interesting, and certainly led to the second half being a little more engaging than the first.
But there are still so many things here I don't really like, and it's just overall not my kind of movie at all. It's all stagey, there's some really bad over-acting (even by "theatrical" standards), some wacky zooms on Altman's part, and a lot of it I just found kind of dull. For the themes it tackles, and for at least one or two characters, it held some value, but it's also really not my thing.
It centers on a group of women who have a James Dean fan club, and they reunite on the 20th anniversary of his passing. I think there are some interesting things here to do with the topic of celebrity, and the way famous people are easy to love and worship. That's one part that was at least a little engaging, and I do think a "reveal" (not really a plot twist) around the halfway point was interesting, and certainly led to the second half being a little more engaging than the first.
But there are still so many things here I don't really like, and it's just overall not my kind of movie at all. It's all stagey, there's some really bad over-acting (even by "theatrical" standards), some wacky zooms on Altman's part, and a lot of it I just found kind of dull. For the themes it tackles, and for at least one or two characters, it held some value, but it's also really not my thing.