Brace yourself readers, because now director Robert Altman sits in the big directors chair in the sky, our television schedules will be inundated with his movies.

He’d probably object to calling them movies, rather they are films. No… moving image installations. The man loved celluloid, not audiences.

As with all deaths of the mildly famous and above, everyone who barely registered interest starts gushing out tributes. Possibly the most fitting is Lindsay Lohan, star of Altman’s last film “A Praire Home Companion”, who wrote a powerful and lyrical letter, which can be found here:

“He left us with a legend that all of us have the ability to do… there’s a triumph in the world a million souls hafta be trampled on… But treasure each triumph as they come ….Be adequite”.

Well put, Lindsay.

Really, though, is Altman worth such fuss? He was known as an actor’s director, but mostly because he allowed actors to take control of scenes and babble on pointlessly. Sure, he helped create a more improvisational style with films like “MASH”. But does that excuse “Pret A Porter”, the over-rated heavy-handed “The Player”, and the dull-as mud “Gosford Park”? Not to mention “Popeye”. His only genuinely good film was “The Long Goodbye”, a witty take on the detective story made two years before “Chinatown”.

Not that I’m relishing his demise, far from it, but surely he deserves a bit of honesty, rather than a barrage of claims that no one really believes. Maybe he was just “adequite”.