M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)

MAS*H (Widescreen Edition)
by Robert Altman

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DVD details

Actor: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Tom Skerritt
Director: Robert Altman
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Cinematographer: Harold E. Stine
Editor: Danford B. Greene
Producer: Ingo Preminger
Producer: Leon Ericksen
Writer: Richard Hooker
Writer: Ring Lardner Jr.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); Korean (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

DVD Reviews of MAS*H (Widescreen Edition)

DVD Review: Misogyny and racism glorified
Summary: 1 Stars

I love the TV series MASH, and was genuinely looking forward to watching the film. Sadly both my friend and I sat in stunned silence through the film, which was (1) not funny unless you find a man stepping on a rake and hitting himself in the face hilarious, (2) disgustingly misogynistic (from the way Hotlips was treated - first as a prude who needed to be brought down a few notches, and then as a nincompoop, to the other female characters (nurses in both the MASH unit and in Tokyo, and the prostitutes in Tokyo)), and to top it all off (3) racist and (4) anti-homosexual.

Perhaps some will say I am ignoring the fact that this is a black comedy, meant to be disrespectful and brash. If that is the case, I will happily remain in my cocoon of ignorance.

DVD Review: A life changing event for me
Summary: 5 Stars

There are really three groups of MASH lovers. There are those who read the book and love it. Those who loved the TV series. Those who loved the movie. Each group has its reasons why one is better than the other. I read Hooker's two MASH books and found them funny and in the second one,touching. I enjoyed parts of the TV series, but the movie changed me. MASH is one of those few movies that people know exactly where they were when they saw this movie and these types of movies are very rare. I saw MASH in 1970 as a sneak preview to a B motorcycle movie[see my other reviews]. The house was packed because of the first movie and there were very few women there. The movie started and the music began and I had no idea what the h__l was going on. As the movie went on I found myself lost in every scene. I laugh because I wanted too, the laughter wasn't forced. I can remember each scene clearly even today. But as I was watching the movie, I was thinking this isn't Korea, but a jab at Viet Nam. I slowly realized that I was being shown an anti war movie. A very good anti war movie that wasn't beating me over the head, but softly creaping into my mind. In the late 60s and early 70s there were many anti war movies and they were not subtle at all. People found them to be a big turn off, but not this movie.
Looking back at it now, this movie pole vaulted Sutherland and Gould to superstar status. We began to see movies with * in the titles, i.e S*P*Y*S, which was horrible. WIFFS starting Gould was another anti war comedy, I am joking here it was terrible. But these two did do many very good movies, DON"T LOOK NOW [best sex scene ever} and the LONG GOODBYE.
MASH opened my eyes to power of movie making, from the great script by Larnder, acting, filming, and theme song. I never watched this movie again because of the strong impression it left on me. It colored my view of the TV series and lead me to the books by Richard Hooker. Don't mention those MASH GOES TO whatever series.
The generation now remembers only the TV series and then only a lttle. The kids today may see the TV series on some channel in the afternoon, but go on to something else. This is to bad because this movie still holds up. I have listen to students, who saw MASH at their college or in a film study class, rave about how funny it is and how much better it is than the TV series. They ask me if I have seen it? I smile and and shake my head. I have asked them," Is that all it is ? A comedy?" The answer is always yes. Today with the wars that are going on, MASH is just a comedy? Times are a'changing.

DVD Review: Fans of the series may want to stay away.
Summary: 1 Stars

I was hugely dissapointed in this film, which I purchased soley on my love of the television series. What a mistake. While it makes a nice edition to my collection, up there on the shelf with my M*A*S*H Season 1 thru 11 boxes, it is likely that I'll never watch it again. To be honest, I can't even really say that I watched it once; I stopped the film about 15 minutes after the whole "Frank and Hot Lips over the P.A." bit. It was just becoming to painful to watch. This film has found a home on my list of "Most Over-rated", right along with The Godfather and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I do not mean this review to disparage fans of the movie in any way. My main point here is that I grew up watching the TV show and, after that, the movie just didn't cut it. My biggest complaint is that the jokes and pranks played by Hawkeye and Co. aren't fun and ultimately harmless as they are in the series; the characters as they are portrayed here are sexist, childish, and mean-spirited. The silver lining? Except for the presence of Gary Burgoff as Radar, the movie is so completely disconnected from the series that it in no way affects my love for the TV show.

DVD Review: Not a comedy in 2009
Summary: 1 Stars

I recently rented this DVD to share with my 18 year old son. While I can see how this film made such an impact, I did not find it to be a comedy, though I remembered it as being very funny when it first came out. My son did not see the humour in this movie either. I thought the treatment of women was horrific and I hope things have changed for women in the army since then.
My husband who was a nurse in Viet Nam said the doctors in his unit must have taken this movie to heart since they tried to act as the doctors in MASH. The nurses were not amused then and my family is not amused by this movie now.

DVD Review: GOTTA HAND IT TO ALTMAN, GRUDGINGLY
Summary: 5 Stars

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(...)

Description of MAS*H (Widescreen Edition)

One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, MASH focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifes

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

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