What a lovely film this is, so gentle and whimsical, so simple and profound.

A down-home-exquisite musical dramedy.

The songs in the film are a blast and John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson share one of the funniest singing moments onscreen ever.

Both magical and consistently joyous. The director, Robert Altman, and the writer, Garrison Keillor, have, against all odds, transmuted the fatigued public radio institution into a lovely fable about mortality, fleeting fame, fondness for the past and the ineffable beauty of life in the present.

Not since Woody Allen's "Radio Days" has anyone created such a cinematic Valentine to the wonderfully imaginative medium of radio as A Prairie Home Companion.

Rib-ticklingly funny at times and genial as all get-out.

Sometimes you forget how great an actor is, then he or she is reborn in an Altman movie.

Keillor's modest subservience to Altman's group dynamic feels downright gallant, and in the context of the veteran director's most humanistic movie by a wide margin, it certainly has its rewards.

It's not a perfect movie, and it does not aspire to be a great one. It's just wonderful.

At the age of 81, Altman may show signs of mellowing, but he again emerges as a master filmmaker.

Take a swig of this moonshine. There's magic in it.

As for this film's esteemed director, I don't remember getting such sheer pleasure out of an Altman movie since . . . hmm, lemme look at the filmo . . . hmm--"The Player"? Not so much . . . "O.C. and Stiggs"? I wish . . . Um, "Popeye"? More likely, but . . . Ah-"A Wedding." Yeah, that's it, "A Wedding." Whoa. That was, like, almost 30 years ago.

A meditation on death that has you humming to the melody and laughing at the joke -- it's an elegiac picture that refuses to eulogize.

Altman and Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion is fittingly both a celebration and a winning example of the joys of collaboration.