A wonderful warm movie, reminiscent of his masterpiece Nashville, cutting in and out between the lives of people involved in the last performance of a doomed live radio show - inspired by Garrison Keilor's own still-running show and starring him as the avuncular host. It's a mosaic of little defining moments caught by Altman's roving cameras as if snatched from life.

It triggered many memories at the champagne reception afterwards. "Bob was completely in charge of his life, " recalled Julian Fellowes, who scripted Gosford Park. "He always did it his way." Fellowes had been on the phone with Altman a few weeks before his death. "He was in the middle of planning another movie, so he died with his boots on."

When Altman asked Fellowes to write Gosford Park, Hollywood producers wanted to bring in other writers. "He wouldn't budge, " said Fellowes. "Nobody could tell him what to do. He was a product of the rebellious 1960s, but a gentle rebel."

Virginia Madsen, cast as a mysterious angel in a white raincoat, at one point remarks in Prairie that "the death of an old man is not a tragedy".

Watching in the darkened cinema at a Bafta screening, it seemed as if Altman was reassuring those he left behind not to worry. A Prairie Home Companion opens in Ireland on 5 January. I can't think of a better way to start a new year.

Click your heels together and go off to the IFI THEWicked Witch, along with the Thin Man and Dorothy has set up residence at the IFI over Christmas, where The Wizard of Oz is playing in a brilliant highresolution restored print. Also showing in a new black-and-white print is Woody Allen's Manhattan.

IRELAND TOP FIVE MOVIES (weekend 15-17 December) 1 (1) Happy Feet (George Miller) Euro324,134 (Euro1,181,918 to date) 2 (2) The Holiday (Nancy Myers) Euro220,235 (Euro931,506) 3 (-) Deja Vu (Tony Scott) Euro176,800 (-) 4 (3) The Santa Clause 3 (Michael Membeck) Euro164,715 (Euro1,483,925) 5 (-) Eragon (Stefen Fangmeier) Euro154,954 (-) Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources