I love this movie. I can't get enough of it. It's an actor's dream this kind of film, it lets you create a character who thinks and breathes and has flaws and peculiarities. Sex is a great big theme in this movie, and we learn about many of these characters by how they deal with their own sexuality and sexual evolution.
Altman is the grandfather of this kind of movie; the "hyperlink" movie, with tons of characters and overlapping dialogue. It bugs me that this isn't in the top 250, but without Altman, "Magnolia", which is in the top films, would've never been made, and we would never have been treated to "Boogie Nights", or movies like "Crash", "Babel", and "Traffic".
Impressionism isn't a favorite of mass audiences, and you need enough of those folks to turn "Short Cuts" into top 250 material. Most people in the mainstream find these kind of movies boring. "Nothing happens", as if "things happening" only counts when you're either chasing someone or being chased yourself. "Short Cuts" has a million things happening in it, from one great scene to the next. As long as you're curious about human behavior and get into it on that level, this movie is an easy 9 or 10 for you, but for audiences trained to digest movies with basically the same 2 or 3 formulas, it jars those people all to hell.
Too bad, cause I've watched this at least 15 times now, and it never gets old; in fact, it deepens with time.
Robert Altman was a diamond in the ruff, I tell ya.
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