This post may cause controversy, but I watched M.A.S.H. last night and I have to say I was not that impressed. Not even close to being the best Altman movie, and only a passable movie overall, even with the triple whammy of Gould, Sutherland, and Duvall. The horrible sexism made me CRINGE. I'm not saying that Altman was endorsing that or anything, but it was played for laughs, and it wasn't funny. They torment Hot Lips until they eventually break her spirit. I know, she's a bitch and everything, but no one deserves what they do to her. And don't give me any crap like "but that's how it was back then", because Altman very deliberately inserted a scene in which Duke reveals his racism to Trapper and Hawkeye and they push him into the dirt because of it. How likely is it that two white guys would have been that enlightened in the 50's? And still be such sexist dicks? Actually, this movie did not really make me laugh at all. It's a black comedy, sure, but I didn't think Hawkeye and Trapper's hijinks were even near as funny as they were on the TV show. And the long ending sequence with the football game is BORING. It really feels like a tacked-on ending. Altman admits that the film isn't linear and doesn't have a plot, so he should have gone with that and not stuck on a cliched underdog comes from behind sports ending.
DB-do you want to post a "he said"?
p.s.-worm, thanks for the CD. I'll review it later.
I would just argue that the cruelty of the doctors' humor is of greater importance than whether or not it is funny. Frank and, initiallly, Hot Lips represent the humorless, self-glorifying attitude that leads to war in the first place -- and although the film is nominally set in Korea, it is obviously a Vietnam metaphor -- the blood and guts are not left to the imagination. The doctors break Hot Lip's spirit in order to save her, if anything, since the only way to shield themselves against the insanity around them is to be insane. I think is one of Altman's best, a ragged, mean-spirited parody of wartime camaraderie with indelible performances all around. I never liked the show.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of Robert Altman...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thesuperficial.com/
Genghis Conway (Thanks Guphy for clueing me into this website)
Well its no Popeye...
ReplyDeleteYou will probably like the much better sequel: Aftermash
OK, DB, I'm still processing "never liked the show". Well, I guess you probably didn't have an overwhelming crush on Alan Alda, so OK. I value your viewpoint on the Frank Burns, Hot Lips thing, so I guess if I tried to not look on them as humans, but as symbols, that would help a little bit. But, did you think it was funny? You laughed? The docs are a little ham-handed with the jokes, I think. And you didn't adress my criticism about the football game. Don't you agree it came out of nowhere? Why should we even care which team wins. I guess I can just chalk it up to the absurdity of war concept, but I think it's the weakest illustration of that concept in the whole movie. I will give Altman credit for the fact that the juxtaposition of the GRAPHIC operating room scenes and the light banter is still shocking after 35 years.
ReplyDeleteI like the movie and the TV show, in different ways completely.
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the Alda crush becky. I once had a dream that he was my boyfriend and we lived in Paris. and I love his show on PBS.
head
Alan Alda- the only famous person from Tujunga. Born and Bred evidently!
ReplyDeleteElla
Not the first time Alan Alda's fine-ness has come up on this blog, but I'll chime in again to agree that he is FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete-BR
It's a very sexist movie, from the "nurse who doesn't get her tits in the way" line to the very cruel humiation of Hot Lips in the shower. If they didn't also "break" Frank Burns, then it would be inexcusable. They drove Burns crazy by ridiculing his sense of blind patritoism and adherence to a vague order system, and they drove Hot Lips to the brink by stripping (ha!) her sense of patriotism and revealing it for what it was.
ReplyDeleteThe ragtag football angle was inserted for the purpose of "beating them at their own game." Football as a metaphor for war, the chaotic, freespirited MASH unit against the orderly Army team. Which way is better? Free thinking or blind following? It's all rather ham-handed and very 60s, and I'm with you on the not funny (aside from a few scenes). Also, I agree the best episodes of the show are better than the movie.
speaking of sexist (or is it sexy?), did anyone else catch the new pics of a wheelchair-bound altman with his hand very high up the back of la hohans thigh? that's right, l. lo is in the new altman flick.
ReplyDeleteoh duh. conway already linked to a picture of that way earlier today.
ReplyDeleteyep, Alda describing the ins and outs of, most often, science.
ReplyDeletewhat more could you ask for?