The Main Stream

Folksy humorist Roy Blount Jr. is in his element as he leaves New York to traverse all 2,552 miles of the Mississippi River, America's "great liquid divide," in filmmaker Roger Weisberg's tribute to our nation's literal main stream. Blount's travels yield the expected encounters with offbeat salt-of-the-earth types, as well as the requisite despair over the homogenization and pollution of America, but while this PBS-aired documentary is as meandering as the mighty Mississip itself, Blount is good company as he skips stones with Garrison Keillor, participates in a whitewashing contest on Mark Twain Day in Hannibal, Missouri, and gets off some good Blountisms (about New York: "If you can make it here, you can make it here") throughout. Recommended. Aud: P. (K. Lee Benson)