Synopsis
Brewster McCloud (1971) is Robert Altman's oddball cult comedy, now available to watch online on iFILM. An owlish young loner holes up in a fallout shelter beneath the Houston Astrodome, consumed by a single goal: to build a working pair of wings and fly inside the stadium's dome.
While Brewster tinkers away, an absurd circus spins around him. A mysterious guardian played by Sally Kellerman shields the dreamer, and a string of murders rattles the city, each corpse left smeared with bird droppings. A preening super-detective is brought in to crack the case, and the investigation curdles into sharp satire of cops, politicians, and the whole American hunger for escape. It's also Shelley Duvall's screen debut.
Altman shot this right after M*A*S*H, and the fingerprints are unmistakable — overlapping chatter, mockery aimed in every direction, and an ending you won't shake off. It's a film for the adventurous: nonlinear, goofy, occasionally cruel, and cult-beloved precisely for that nerve. Stream Brewster McCloud (1971) online on iFILM.
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