[.ca] M*A*S*H

From Amazon.co.uk:
It's set during the Korean War, in a mobile army surgical hospital. But no one seeing MASH in 1970 confused the film for anything but a caustic comment on the Vietnam War; this is one of the counterculture movies that exploded into the mainstream at the end of the 1960s. Director Robert Altman had laboured for years in television and sporadic feature work when this smash-hit comedy made his name (and allowed him to create an astonishing string of offbeat pictures, culminating in the masterpiece Nashville). Altman's style of cruel humour, overlapping dialogue, and densely textured visuals brought the material to life in an all-new kind of war movie (or, more precisely, antiwar movie). Audiences had never seen anything like it: vaudeville routines played against spurting blood, fuelled with open ridicule of authority. The cast is led by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, as the outrageous surgeons Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre, with Robert Duvall as the uptight Major Burns and Sally Kellerman in an Oscar-nominated role as nurse "Hot Lips" Houlihan. The film's huge success spawned the long-running TV series, a considerably softer take on the material; of the film's cast, only Gary Burghoff repeated his role on the small screen, as the slightly clairvoyant Radar O'Reilly. --Robert Horton

Amazon.com Essential Video:
It's set during the Korean War, in a mobile army surgical hospital. But no one seeing M*A*S*H in 1970 confused the film for anything but a caustic comment on the Vietnam War; this is one of the counterculture movies that exploded into the mainstream at the end of the '60s. Director Robert Altman had labored for years in television and sporadic feature work when this smash-hit comedy made his name (and allowed him to create an astonishing string of offbeat pictures, culminating in the masterpiece Nashville). Altman's style of cruel humor, overlapping dialogue, and densely textured visuals brought the material to life in an all-new kind of war movie (or, more precisely, antiwar movie). Audiences had never seen anything like it: vaudeville routines played against spurting blood, fueled with open ridicule of authority. The cast is led by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, as the outrageous surgeons Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre, with Robert Duvall as the uptight Major Burns and Sally Kellerman in an Oscar-nominated role as nurse "Hot Lips" Houlihan. The film's huge success spawned the long-running TV series, a considerably softer take on the material; of the film's cast, only Gary Burghoff repeated his role on the small screen, as the slightly clairvoyant Radar O'Reilly. --Robert Horton

Additional Features:
Wouldn't you know there was as much chaos and conflict behind the scenes of M*A*S*H as in front of the lens? Enlisted: The Story of M*A*S*H, a meaty original documentary that pulls together most of the stars and many of the filmmakers for all new interviews, paints a crazy portrait of the confusion and studio politics that almost shut the production down. The shorter AMC Backstory is mostly redundant, but it challenges screenwriter Ring Lardner's claim that he respected the improvisations of Altman and his cast; according to this documentary, he hated them. M*A*S*H: History Through the Lens contrasts the film's anarchy with the real-life experiences of doctors and nurses from Korean War MASH units. Though a stirring director, Robert Altman is less than inspiring on the commentary track and his sporadic insights largely echo the documentaries. --Sean Axmaker

Suicide is painless:
Dear lord, I could not stop laughing during this movie, everyone from Hawkeye to Hotlips are back in a special edition five star collection restored set, the picture and sound are restored wonderfully, I watched this on VHS when I was 12 and I can appreciate DVD quality, the anti-war message is beautifully satirical, right from the opening theme to the heart warming ending, it is quite a trip

Second Release on DVD?:
Normaly I would give this movie a 5 stars. I mean it is that good. The movie is outstanding. Here is the reason I am giving this only 3 stars: I am puzzled of why 20th Century Fox is re-releasing this movie as a single disc DVD. They should have released the single disc first, then the Five Star Collection edition. Hey 20th Century Fox, why????????

Pretty Exciting:
When my dad was in the Marines back in 68 this was the movie every one loved and it is a good movie.yes it is no where as good to being the TV show but that was unstopable but this one was pure insanity just like the 1st season of MASH plus you get the Football and the shower scene it is pretty exciting. Story 6 Acting 7 Directing 9 Action 10 Entertainment 10 Overall=36/50 wich gets a nice 3.5 stars rate 4 on this.

GOTTA HAND IT TO ALTMAN, GRUDGINGLY:
At the same time, Robert Altman's "M*A"S*H" came out. It, too found an audience, and truth be told many who enjoyed "Patton" enjoyed "M*A*S*H". It was just plain funny, and the anti-military theme was subtle. Altman walked a brilliant tightrope between a pro-American and unpatriotic premise. There is no doubt that Altman intended it as an anti-Vietnam movie. It was written by former Communist Ring Lardner, Jr. Lardner had been Blacklisted, and this fact featured prominently in the politics of the film's aura. It was based on a sexy paperback novel about surgeons in Korea. The film was set in Korea, yet made every possible attempt to convey the image that it was actually Vietnam. Many of the movie's set pieces were deliberately Vietnamese in nature and costume, for that very purpose. To the extent that it was unpatriotic, it subtly described "regular Army" officers as unyielding, intolerant Christians, utterly blinded by stupid jingoism. The draftees, however, are funny and attractive as they drink and love their way through a bevy of good-looking nurses, all while saving lives in the style of comic Galahads. Altman showed genius as a filmmaker. The movie avoided real controversy because it was just so darn good. "M*A*S*H" spurred a television show that ran for years. In the 1970s it played for its time and audience. Re-runs, however, strain its credibility beyond Altman's original themes. Two doctors played the "bad guy." The first was a complete buffoon. Frank Burns was prominently identified as a Republican. He is given zero good qualities. He is ugly, a bad doctor, a coward, a racist and all-around mean SOB who cheats on his wife with Major Margaret Hoolihan, who at least is given some character. She is half-Vixen, half-Fascist, naturally Republican, a patriotic American in the "worst way," who worships the idols of war. Over the years the writers gave Margaret a little development. Very little. Burns was replaced by Major Charles Emerson Winchester, a Boston Brahmin, naturally a Republican whose father "knows Truman. He doesn't like him, but he knows him." Winchester, like Hoolihan, is allowed a touch of humanity when the liberal writers felt charitable, but generally was available for all possible bashing. Two hero-doctors anchor the show by showing their intelligence, medical skills and tolerance as direct contrasts to the war effort. The CIA is lampooned, and a military effort that in reality featured MacArthur's Inchon campaign, perhaps the most brilliant invasion in history, is also played as foolish. In the end, the TV show and the film avoid being really and actually unpatriotic because they do feature an emphasis on the basic goodness of the American spirit under stress, but you will not catch me tuned in to those old re-runs(...)

As fresh (and controversial) as it was in 1970:
This is one of the finest films ever made, 'countercultural' or otherwise. It's antiwar, antiauthoritarian, irreverent, sacrilegious, and utterly without anything conventionally regarded as a Redeeming Feature. It is, in short, a great, great piece of cinematic art. When it's over, not a sacred cow is left standing. And its antiwar satire, though full of wonderfully crass and tasteless comedy, is also quite serious and spot-on. If you haven't read the book by 'Richard Hooker' (Dr. Richard Hornsberger), do so. It's a good book, and it's very different from the TV series you're probably familiar with if you were alive during the 1970s. The original tale centered on three surgeons, not two, and it wasn't (as the TV series became) a vehicle for the smarmy phildonahuing of sensitive-'70s-guy Alan Alda. In fact the book and the movie are both 'racist' in the same sense as Mark Twain's timeless _Huckleberry Finn_ -- that is, not at all, but also not exactly designed to slip in under the radar of the PC Police, who wouldn't recognize _real_ racism if it bashed them in the heads with a billy club. (Likewise 'sexism'.) In developing the TV series, developer/scriptwriter Larry Gelbart toned a lot of this stuff down, but here in the film you can see it in all of its original glory. And then some. The film actually partakes more of the spirit of Joseph Heller's great _Catch-22_ and, along those lines, develops the Hooker novel's mild irreverence to the level of a take-no-prisoners martial art. (The film officially takes place during Hooker's Korean War, but just as with Heller's nominal World War II setting, everybody knew the Vietnam War was the unofficial target. And at an abstract level, _M*A*S*H_ is a better screen adaptation of _Catch-22_ than the film version of that novel itself.) Even other satire isn't immune from 'meta-satire'. This film was produced at a time when other countercultural books and movies regularly relied on Christian imagery (_Cool Hand Luke_, _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_, _The Omega Man_) to turn their central heroes/antiheroes into savior-figures. Here, Robert Altman and Ring Lardner, Jr., had the temerity to skewer even its artistic allies by turning the Painless Pole (John Schuck in his first major film role) into the central figure at a suicidal 'Last Supper'. (Even here, in thus expanding on Painless's suicide, they took a lead from the book's own irreverence. In the novel, the guys paraded around the South Korean countryside with a longhaired and bearded Trapper hanging from a cross.) _Nobody_ is safe around this cinematic buzz saw. You probably already know who's in it, but I'd better give a quick nod to the marvelous performances by the Big Three: Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce, Elliot Gould as 'Trapper' John McIntyre, and Tom Skerritt as Duke Forrest. (I particularly call your attention to Skerritt, who seldom gets the credit he deserves for this role because -- under the influence of the TV series -- people tend to think the movie is mainly about Hawkeye and Trapper.) Everybody else is wonderful too, and I won't try to mention the entire cast by name here. In general this rambling masterpiece isn't susceptible to easy summarization. So rather than try to tell you about all of the cool stuff, I'll just tell you to see it if you haven't done so already. The DVD release is wondrous to behold. The movie is restored to perfect color and clarity and presented in widescreen format. The second disk has lots of cool features including cast interviews and stuff about the making of the film (and its groundbreaking cinematographic 'techniques').