Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

mark.waltz It's obvious that director Robert Altman was out to make something different, but the mystery of the bird poop killer is an odd experience. Bud Cort, of "Harold and Maude" fame, plays an eccentric young man desperate to grow wings like a bird, being stalked by the sultry Sally Kellerman (barely saying a word) and all of a sudden involved with the zany Shelley Duvall as evil people all over Houston are mysteriously killed after getting a faceful of bird doo doo. There's stupid cops, car chases and an assortment of weird characters including Rene Auberjonois as a creepy bird expert. Don't expect a knee slapper here. The comic moments are more ironic than funny. John Schuck, preparing to play Rock Hudson's sidekick on "McMillan and Wife", puts on his cops uniform for the first time, and veteran character actress Margaret Hamilton sings a delightfully off-key rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" with a particularly amusing wardrobe reference to a famous prop from her most famous movie. In fact, this film has several references to that classic, references that may be funny to some but forced to others. I did get a few laughs out of this, but overall, it's way too forced to completely work, even as a black comedy.

tieman64 Robert Altman directs "Brewster McCloud". The plot? Brewster is an eccentric inventor who lives beneath the Houston Astrodome. He spends his days working on a pair of man-powered wings which he hopes will enable him to fly. But while he is busy collecting materials to build his contraption, mysterious deaths occur throughout his city.Altman's running joke is that "Brewster McCloud" is essentially a giant birdwatching film. Indeed, the film is narrated by Rene Auberjonois, who treats the picture as a grand safari, Altman planting bird references everywhere in the form of food, signs, clothes, license plates, characters, costumes, dialogue etc etc. Why Brewster wishes to fly is given a neat twist. Rather than some kind of Icarus complex, Brewster seems to be acting upon suppressed memories. He was born to fly. His entire race was born to fly. He belongs in the skies. It's all in his DNA!Brewster is aided in his quest by Louise, a sort of guardian angel. She has scars down her back, which suggests she once had wings herself. She's like a God or guardian angel, who descends to teach Brewster the mysteries of man's ancient wings. It's all pretty odd, particularly when Altman likens flying to sex, and Brewster's avian urges to psychosexual lusts.Later in the film, Louise is dismayed to learn that Brewster slept with a girl he barely knew (Shelly Duvall). The once pure and naive Brewster thus becomes tainted by the "sins of the flesh". He's contaminated, his earthly sins affixing him to the ground. They seal his mortality and prevent him from entering the angel world up above.To redeem himself, Brewster must therefore seek forgiveness from Louise, who now appears in the guise of Dorothy from "Wizard of Oz". From here on, Altman swathes the film in "Oz" references. Flying monkeys, red slippers, golden roads, they're all subtly woven into the crazy plot. This being Altman, chunks of the film then become covert commentaries on major aspects of American life (sexuality, class-struggle, race, ambition, bigotry, success, economics, crime, politics, religion). These themes are then bound to a plot which is really about the loss of virginity, or rather, idealism. During its climax, Brewster's broken wings and crumpled, twisted body, point toward the climax of Altman's "Nashville", in which characters sing "It Don't Worry Me" after an assassination. Both films take place in cities yearning for economic power, both use large structures as metaphors for America (The Astrodome, the Parthenon), and both posit the creative spirit and personal conscience as being overrun by corporate American, capitalism and commercialism in general.8.5/10 - Worth two viewings.

fedor8 You can tell this movie is from the early 70s from a mile away. Experimental, cynical, satirical, and overtly left-wing: cops are dumb, Capitalism stinks, and subtle preaching against anti-Communism and racism being scattered all over. Actually, to be fair, considering when it was made – and by whom (Altman is one of those deluded leftists) – it isn't even that political or critical of (Western) society.The movie has rather wild, quick editing, which aids the timing of the gags – of which quite a few are funny. The unpredictability and zaniness of the fast-paced and fun first half unfortunately is followed by a weaker second half, which gets bogged down in weak/unfunny resolutions (like Murphy committing suicide – what was that???). Even the very funny bird-dropping gags started to wear a bit thin. Toward the end, there is even a car-chase in which Duvall – for some strange reason – decides to have a cat-and-mouse game with the cops. This was stupid. Even dumber was Duvall suddenly informing the police of Cort. The obligatory (for this movie) end-of-movie flying sequence looks pretty good, but ultimately only the first half remains in good memory.I consider Altman to be one of the best directors of all time, in spite of him being a silly little hypocritical leftist. He has made a number of crappy movies, but there are also some that are terrific, like "3 Women", "Images", "M*A*S*H", "Vincent & Theo", and even "Short Cuts". "B.M." belongs to neither category. Overall, it's solid.

jdlarsen-1 Folks must have been very stoned when they made this .... It is such a "playful" film with so many great characters (and actors) riding on a very wild and surreal mixed up mythology. The film should be re-released (maybe since Altman got an Oscar they will).I don't know how he got away with making this... but thank God he did! In many ways Robert Altman except for his hands off approach to his actors has created many films that are at the equal to Fredrico Fellini in satire and whimsically profound sequences that baffle the audience -= but ain't it nice to home from a movie and remember it because you just can't get the ideas and images out of your head. This is a very funny film. It has the Star Spangle Banner, Ruby Slippers, Bird Do-Do, Mustard pumps, un-principled law enforcers, and wings that try very hard to fly away.