Altman's other films as well as playing memorable characters in films by other directors. Release The film's premiere was at the Houston Astrodome on December 5, 1970. An audience of 35,000 was anticipated. Reception Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four and, comparing it to M*A*S*H, wrote that it was "... just as densely packed with words and action, and you keep thinking you're missing things. You probably are. It's that quality that's so attractive about these two Altman films. We get the sense of a live intelligence, rushing things ahead on the screen, not worrying whether we'll understand." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded three out of four stars and wrote, "Once again Altman has taken a story (this time a rather weak one) and given it a distinctive spirit and flavor thru casting, cinematic devices and odd juxtapositions. An Altman film, if two can make a genre, appears to be more of a mood than a story. This rarely works, but it does for him." Variety called the film "a sardonic fairy tale for the times. Extremely well cast and directed, Lou Adler's made-in-Houston production demands an intellectual audience which is satisfied with smiles instead of belly-laughs." Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film "... has more characters and incidents than a comic strip, but never enough wit to sustain more than a few isolated sequences." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times believed that the film was "not in a class" with M*A*S*H, but opined that "I doubt that the new year will give us a more startling, bizarre and rowdy piece of business." John Simon wrote, "Brewster McCloud is a pretentious, disorganized, modishly iconoclastic movie which, in the manner of its Icarus-like hero, aspires to fly high and merely drops dead." The film presently has a score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews, with an average grade of 7.3 out of 10. References External links 1970 films 1970 comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films American aviation films Films directed by Robert Altman Films set in Houston Films shot in Houston Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Houston Astros 1970s English-language films 1970s American films