SMILE (1975). Is this the best movie ever made about small town American values? While also being the funniest? Michael Ritchie -- aka, my Robert Altman -- sandwiched this perfect little arsenic-laced cupcake between THE CANDIDATE and THE BAD NEWS BEARS.

It's a sprawling ensemble quilt of a film, but less NASHVILLE than DAZED & CONFUSED on that front. Deceptively relaxed and almost documentarian in its filmmaking, it's actually a marvel of insightful, cutting observations all expertly structured and paced and juxtaposed.

Bruce Dern is the heart of the film as an RV salesman who doubles as one of the judges of a California teen beauty pageant, and who desperately wants its superficial values of good cheer and modesty and helpfulness to be true. It's an aching portrait of quiet desperation.

I laughed as loud & as often with this as I do with AIRPLANE! or STEP BROTHERS, but without it ever tilting away from its grounded, humanitarian naturalism. All I need now is a nice blu ray restoration to come out so Conrad Hall's exquisite cinematography can fully come through.

@SunsetGunShot's wonderful essay captures the charms and surprising depths of SMILE much better than I can: https://thenewbev.com/blog/2017/06/kim-morgan-on-michael-ritchies-smile/