California Split

California Split

OK, so it's coming out as what appears to be a bare-bones disk instead of a juiced-up Criterion collection title (doubly sad since other Altman classics like Secret Honor, Tanner 88 and Short Cuts are getting the CC treatment the same month) but that doesn't matter. \r\n\r\nWhat does matter is that I'm finally going to get to see my favorite film in widescreen. \r\n\r\nI taped Split off cable years and years ago. I remember setting up the recording at some ungodly hour (3:25 a.m. or something) because I didn't want to miss it and I ended up watching the movie in its entirity. \r\n\r\nElliott Gould gives an amazing, lived-in performance as a lucky card player who takes a liking to a less fortunate gambler and, through a series of episodes, we watch them pass a few weeks hitting the track, going to boxing matches, playing poker, drinking, getting beat up and using a neat home remedy on their bruises over Fruit Loops. Their friendship is one of the best I've seen on-screen. Screenwriter Joseph Walsh appears briefly as Sparkie the shylock and it's a perfect cameo, a pre-Sopranos portrait of a crook haggard by the life (Didn't I tell you that I've got busts happening all over the city, that my parents are in town, and you come in here and you don't have dollar one?) \r\n\r\nThis is a woefully underseen Altman classic, mostly because it's not available on tape or DVD, it's pretty rare. But it's a great movie -- I even have the one-sheet for Split hanging over my computer -- and I'm very, very pleased that I'll finally be able to see something *besides* the opening and closing credits in letterbox (it always seemed to underline the cruelty of pan-and-scan when, after the credit Directed by Robert Altman my beloved black bars disappeared).