Mash review

 Number 616 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Robert Altman's war-comedy film Mash.

Mash follows the antics of three medical officers Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland,) Captain Trapper John Mcintyre (Eliot Gould) and Captain Duke Forrest (Tom Skerrit) during the Korean war. Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman and Rene Auberjonois co-star.

If you don't know the film Mash then you certainly know the subsequent TV show. Sufficed to say, it was one of the most popular American sitcoms with the most watched TV show finale ever. This is all in spite of how Altman absolutely despised the show.

And like how he despised the TV show, i despised the film. Many critics including the distinguished Roger Ebert, regard it as one of the funniest satires of war ever. Evidently, we we were watching different films, as I, far from my sides hurting from laughing, my eyes were hurting from rolling back in my head.

I barely cracked a smile through the two-hour run-time. it wasn't a funny film. Through a modern lens, you could certainly argue the humour hasn't aged well. I'm sure many modern women wouldn't be happy with how Margaret Houlihan was the butt of every joke.

Through every other lens, it just wasn't funny. It didn't help all the characters were really unlikeable. Hawkeye and Trapper were supposed to be loveable rogues, but they're also insubordinate jerks who like to cause trouble. They were obnoxious and annoying. They weren't characters I wanted to laugh with or at. And even the poor victim Houlihan was too much of a wet blanket to be truly interesting to watch.

In some ways, their characters reflected the actors playing them. Sutherland and Gould famously clashed with Altman and his improvisational directorial style - going so far as to try and get him fired by studio execs. Scriptwriter Ring Lardon JR also had his own problems with Altman. This is despite how he won the Oscar for best screenplay. It definitely changes your perspective of the film.

And my perspective? It was an unfunny film with unlikeable characters.

The Dirty Dozen review

 Number 484 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1967 war film 'The Dirty Dozen.'

In March, 1944, Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is ordered to command Project Amnesty - a top secret mission to take twelve convicts, turn them into commandos in an effort to eliminate as many high-ranking Nazis as possible while they wine and dine in a Rennes chateau. Some of the dozen include loud-mouth and hot-headed mobster Victor R. Franko (John Cassavetes,) gentle giant Samson Posey (Clint Walker) the German-speaking Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson,) the black Robert T. Jefferson (Jim Brown,) the psychotic Maggott (Terry Salavas) and Vernon L.Pinkley (Donald Sutherland.)

This was a thoroughly entertaining film and one I enjoyed immensely. It is very much your standard action film with gunfire and explosions galore, but it also had a great and memorable cast of characters. You had the psychopathic Maggott who is disliked and mistrusted by most of the gang and with good reason - he had previously raped and killed a young woman. Terry Salavas created a scary character. I also liked the gentle giant Posey who traumatised by his previous crimes becomes scared of his own strength. Clint Walker really helped to give some humanity to this goliath of a man.

You also had the iconic Charles Bronson and Donald Sutherland - two great actors who share the distinction of never being Oscar-nominated. One of the most striking characters was the rebellious Franko who goes onto becomes one of the gang's loudest voices. Cassavetes received a well-earned Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Tying this all together was Lee Marvin playing the army major forced into an undesirable position, but determined to see his mission through.

Inevitably by having such a large ensemble cast it's natural for some characters to overshadow others. This happened here with big personalities like Maggott, Wladislaw, Franko and Posey dominating screentime over some of the less memorable members of the operation. Nowhere is this more present than Jiminez (Trini Lopez) who, due to Lopez midway leaving production, receives a rather rushed off-screen death. 

No matter, as everything culminates in an exciting conclusion which sees most of our heroes dying (I don't think this is much of a spoiler - this was always going to be a suicide mission) There were plenty great set pieces and special effects.

All in all, I enjoyed the Dirty Dozen. Yes, some of the characters were better characterised than others, but it was still entertaining nonetheless.  

Ordinary People review

 Number 439 on the top 1000 films of all time is Robert Redford's 1981 directorial debut: Ordinary People.

The Jarretts are a wealthy upper-class family living in Chicago. However, mother Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and father Calvin (Donald Sutherland) world is rocked after they lose one son in a boating accident and their other son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) tries and fails to take his own life. Despite help from therapist Tyrone Berger (Judd Hirsch) Conrad struggles to move on from the tragedy. The family slowly starts to disintegrate. 

This was always going to be a depressing film. That much was obvious from the film's summary. What made it so upsetting was its realness. The Jarretts can be substituted for any other family and the story would be the same. The tragedies that befall them could easily befall anyone. As the title would suggest, they are painfully ordinary people.

Ordinary People was Robert Redford's directorial debut. And it was a terrific debut, because he won the Best Directing Oscar. he did well in making the pain and the tragedy of the Jarrett family relatable for a general audience, regardless of how much wealth they hold.

Similar credit should be given to to the principle cast who were all Oscar-nominated except for Donald Sutherland. Moore and Hutton both won, with Hutton beating out his co-star Judd Hirsch. All this is while Donald Sutherland is generally regarded as one of the best actors to have never been Oscar-nominated, so his snubbing was no surprise. 

I do think if it was any other year Hirsch would have been beaten Hutton, but Hutton's considerable acting skills made him the youngest Best Supporting Actor Oscar in history - a record that stills stands to this day - at twenty. Of course, this isn't to disparage Hirsch. Therapists can tend to be played as cold and condescending, but this was not the case with Tyrone Berger. He was a warm and relatable man who soon becomes Conrad's most trusted confidante.

Yes, Ordinary People was a tragic film, but it was painfully relatable. Maybe that's why it was so sad.