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SHORT CUTS(Robert Altman, 1993) stands as one of the best movies of the 90s, and a living textbook for Paul Thomas Anderson. Altman had been painting broad, multi-story canvasses like this one for two decades, but Short Cuts came on the heels of his comeback movie, The Player. Suddenly everyone remembered why, when it comes to narrative cross-talk, Altman is the man. Drawing from Raymond Carver’s short fiction, he packed nine stories and 22 major characters into Short Cuts, including Tim Robbins’s adulterous cop, Lyle Lovett’s resentful baker and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s harried mom moonlighting in phone sex. The most ferocious performance, though, comes from Julianne Moore, who carries off a scene no other Hollywood actress would dare. That alone must have inspired Anderson, who has put her in both his films. NNNNN(July 20,Paradise)
