MovieChat Forums > MASH (1970) Discussion > MASH 1970 ~ Good film, but .....

MASH 1970 ~ Good film, but .....

posted 10 years ago by guyinnanaimo
7 replies | jump to latest

I had never watched this film before, it just didn't seem that appealing to me.
But I taped it from HI-FI and watched it this morning, and was impressed with the CASTING and ACTING of the major players, and especially the 'introduced' actors listed at the movie's start.
According to the trivia listed, most were selected by Altman with little acting experience, and almost all did an incredible job.
I think Altman did a superb job in most of the film {there was more blood than an Tarantino flick!}, but a major problem to me was that time-filling football game ~ it absolutely ruined it for me, and therefore I had to downgrade my overall rating, to say a 5.5 out of 10 in my books.
Too bad.
And maybe I was a bit callous, after all it's almost 50 years old.
'You can't HANDLE the truth!'

[–] Brunswick84 10 years ago

I disagree. I loved the football scene. In fact I think MASH is one of the great football movies because of that scene.

[–] snepts (11123) 5 years ago

Pretty funny they had a Black character called Spearchucker. Sounds pretty politically incorrect, but considering the tenor of the film, really, who cares?

[–] Dr_Herb_Doofenshmirtz 10 years ago

Too bad Altman didn't include some shoot outs between DEA agents and Columbian drug lords.

[–] guy_in_west_houston 10 years ago

Finally watched it for the first time, and I agree - the football scenes were a time-filling movie within a movie. Way too much time devoted to a storyline that had nothing to do with any main characters.

[–] jellyree 10 years ago

IGNORE

[–] shieldsdraeger 7 years ago

The football game was lighter than the rest of the film and maybe a bit long.
Since there is no combat footage in the film Altman termed the game his combat
metaphor.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I've always felt that MASH the movie works like Dr. Strangelove, Animal House, and much later, The Wolf Of Wall Street.

There is a "plot" of sorts, but for the most part, the entire movie is a "stringing along" of stand alone comedy episodes, any one of which could be pulled out of the movie and played as a comedy short.

So the football game follows : Hawkeye introduction(stolen jeep); Trapper John introduction(martinis); the Hot Lips/Frank Burns microphone reveal, Painless' suicide ceremony, side trip to Japan("the boys from Dover"), hot lips shower reveal ("Then goddammit, give up your goddamn commission!"), etc as a stand alone sequence.

The football game is pretty off the wall, too, with one of the first uses of the "f" word; the joint smoking, the shot given to the opposing player; "our ringer spotted their ringer" and "Oh my God, they shot him!"