The Long Goodbye, or, The Proto-Lebowski?

The Long Goodbye is a prime candidate for working through my movie backlog, since I’ve had it on the must-see list forever. It’s long been praised as a classic, by a lot of people I respect. It essentially created a genre of one: the contemporary neo-noir. And it’s a meandering Raymond Chandler mystery starring the coolest private detective. But it’s also a Robert Altman movie, and that’s given me pause. I think it’s sacrilege for a film school dropout to admit it, but I’ve never had any patience for Altman’s movies. I believe I understand the appeal: the ones I’m familiar with are mash-ups of Hollywood high concept and cinema verite. Taking something that could otherwise seem inescapably artificial, but presenting it in a style that suggests reality. Languid pacing, long shots that don’t play out as you’d expect, either starting off slow, or petering out without a conclusion, or going off on tangents, or ending without having accomplished much of anything. And of course, all of the…