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Dr. Strangelove, MASH the Movie, Animal House, The Wolf of Wall Street

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
5 replies | jump to latest

What do they have in common?

NUMBER ONE: EPISODIC COMEDY

Each movie consists for the most part of "individual comedy scenes" that can be chopped out of the movie and watched on their own.

STRANGELOVE: The President's call to Dimitri. Colonel King Kong's speech("Boys it looks like this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies") Buck Turgidson's speeches("I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed but 10 to 20 million deaths, tops!)

MASH THE MOVIE: The Hot Lips scene; the Painless's suicide scene; the trip to Tokyo; the shower scene; the football game.

ANIMAL HOUSE: first Delta house party scene; naming the pledges scene; Golfing scene; horse killing scene; Toga party; Road trip; student council trial; final parade.

WOLF OF WALL STREET: Matt McConaghey scene("Those are rookie numbers"); Jonah Hill discusses marriage to cousin scene; introduction of Rob Reiner scene; discussion of hooker expenses scene; discussion of dwarves scene;,too stoned to drive scene; FBI interrogation scene("Little man"); crashing the helicopter scene(both versions); sinking the yacht scene.

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NUMBER TWO: "BOYS CLUB"

These four movies are about "guys." The military/political guys in Strangelove(postulating a post nuclear world of 10 beautiful women per man to pro-create); the military surgeons in MASH the movie; the frat brothers in Animal House; Leo, Jonah and their gang of wayward young guys in WOWS. And the women? Sex objects and girlfriends in the main, from the bikini woman with General Turgidson in Strangelove to the women in MASH, Animal House, and WOWS.

NUMBER THREE: "MEAN"

Those movies find the funny in "mean." The men in Strangelove are OK with blowing up most of the world. The surgeons in MASH(justified by their life-or-death jobs) are cruel in their pranks(they drive Major Burns mad, break Hot Lips.) The Animal House frat guys are nicer than they look but Otter and Boon make fun of people and the horse killing stunt is a mean one. The Wolf of Wall Street guys are out to ruin people's lives and break their bank accounts and they're just plain unfeeling about things like dwarf tossing.

That's four great, un-PC, male-oriented, funny, sexual movies. Long may they live!

[–] Ace_Spade (9350) 4 years ago

I replied to the episodic nature elsewhere...

As to point three, I think most comedy finds funny in mean. John Cleese has talked about this a lot (as have many people). Most jokes have somebody as the butt. But, yes, I agree, many films go further to the dark side.

Strangelove (one of the best comedies of all time) goes super-dark because of its satirical bent. That lends to the depths of the horrors of humanity, and it finds great comedy there.

MASH strikes out at war through its satire, another great one for that reason. It, Animal House, and Wolf of Wall Street all have that frat boy sensibility though (with the ill behaviours of their characters - as in leaving Hot Lips exposed in the shower). I think it works best in MASH.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

MASH strikes out at war through its satire, another great one for that reason. It, Animal House, and Wolf of Wall Street all have that frat boy sensibility though (with the ill behaviours of their characters - as in leaving Hot Lips exposed in the shower). I think it works best in MASH.

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What I like about your response is that while I "set up the premise"(the four films being "identical")...you refined it. They AREN'T identical, and each one has its own way of going about what it is doing.

MASH the Movie seems the meanest of them all now. The movie was trying to make the point(I and others think) that these surgeons were confronting bloody life or death situations every day that MADE them mean, and in 1950-something Korea, women were to be "used" and abused. Its a tough movie that way and it was weirder when it came out in "peace and love 1970."

[–] Ace_Spade (9350) 4 years ago

Thank you for that compliment; my favourite discussions are ones like this: interesting, dissecting movies, and building on ideas.

MASH is a great, complex picture, yeah. I dig your theory here: it's showing that to get through Korea, you had to be like this. To deal with it, it takes a certain mental armour. And then on top of that, Altman has the satire of just mocking the concept of war: it's like a bunch of frat guys playing football, for instance.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Thank you for that compliment; my favourite discussions are ones like this: interesting, dissecting movies, and building on ideas.

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Its my kind of approach. Taking different approaches to things, comparing opinions than fighting over them.

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MASH is a great, complex picture, yeah. I dig your theory here: it's showing that to get through Korea, you had to be like this. To deal with it, it takes a certain mental armour.

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I think so. The movie was famous in 1970(and I saw it that year) for mixing some intense shots of bloody operations under primitive conditions(including blood spurting from a neck) with the rough and sexual comedy of the rest of the film. Also though the film was specific to Korea, it was meant to emulate the Vietnam war then raging and sending American men to die. (Though my father, who was in the Korean War, found it rather accurate to that place and time.)

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And then on top of that, Altman has the satire of just mocking the concept of war: it's like a bunch of frat guys playing football, for instance.

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That's right. These guys -- and a good number of the women -- have strived to recreate within the war zone "the conditions of peace time frolic." Like the football game ("Hey, their ringer just spotted our ringer!") to martinis and olives in the tents.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

A couple of other points on MASH the movie(I always call it that to avoid confusion with the more gentle and censored TV series). It has been said that surgeons posess the qualities of homicidal psychopaths: no physical revulsion at sticking knives into people and opening up bodies to expose guts. Surgeons save lives, psychopaths take them but --the same hardened mindset about blood and gore. Its another reason that Hawkeye and Trapper John are fairly cold characters.

And yet: Hawkeye and Trapper John are compassionate, too. They take out Frank Burns because he blamed a young fellow for a patient's death and ruined the guy(at least momentarily.) They go to Tokyo to save a life of a general(I think) and also save the life of a child.

And about the women, mainly nurses, in MASH. Yes, they are sexual partners, but not sexual objects. MASH the movie shows a number of women quite voluntarily WANTING sex with the men(doctors, after all) and has a "Playboy philosophy" take on men and women in war. (A lot of them have spouses back home, what happens in Korea stays in Korea.)

But there can be no doubt that they break down the officious Hot Lips and convert her into a pretty pliable sexual partner for Tom Skerritt and...well, its not very feminist, but it fits the movie.