M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)

Robert Altman the great director of M.A.S.H gives an interesting perspective in a 1977 interview with Roger Ebert in the book Awake in the Dark. He said "the problem is that people insist on getting everything straight. On having movies make sense, and on being provided with a key for unlocking complex movies.
"It's the weirdest thing. We're willing to accept anything, absolutely anything, in real life. But we demand order from our fantasies".
That is so true because at first watching the movie and having been in the military i was like there is no way they could punch a higher ranking officer, sexually harass anyone let alone a superior, have mustaches and haircuts like that and wear the clothes they wear and i wasn't one of the uptight guys in the military by any means.
Then about halfway through i thought to myself I'm finding it hard to accept a haircut and a mustache that's in a movie, yet i could watch the bloodiest war film and not question it or for that matter watch war any night of the week for real on the news. When you think about it what should be harder to accept?
Maybe we shouldn't accept just anything in real life and have it be our fantasies that run wild.
Speaking of fantasy, i was done writing this review hours ago and i got this idea. M.A.S.H could've been in the minds of me, my friends, or other guys in the military during all the hurry up and waiting. The movie could be two guys that are in this unit who talk and have conversations about "oh i'd like to do this or i'd like to punch that guy" and we could be seeing their imaginations and their conversations played out for us.
The fact that I'm still analyzing it shows how great a director Altman was and what a good movie can do. I can't wait to see more Altman films.

One of the first and best anti-war, tell it like it is, movies. Started a great tv series.

The movie is wonderful, but what I appreciate most about this film is that it inspired the TV series, which is my favorite series of all-time. I watch the episodes over and over again and never get bored with them!

I just love, love, love this film. It's been one of my favorites since the early 1990's when I snagged it off cable on video tape. This 5 start DVD collection is tops in that not only is the transfer of the film fantastic, but the special features within are fantastic too. I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary on the making of MASH and how they had to go to great lengths to keep their vision of the movie intact and they succeeded handsomely IMO.

One of my favorite scenes is when they raise the walls of the showers while Major Hot Lips Hoolihan was inside and she falls and her outburst afterwords is just priceless, also the scene before that where she makes out to Major Burns and it gets broadcast all over the camp, also a priceless scene.

True, the film is based on the book of the same name, but about the Korean War and MASH the movie, is as much about Vietnam as it was about Korea as far as the war is concerned. I love the grittiness of the film, the overlapping dialogue and such, all ground breaking stuff back in 1969-1970.

Overall, this deluxe DVD package is well worth the price for what it contains.

In the opening moments of this joyously, soberly brilliant film, an instantly engaging balladeer serendades and assaults us with these outrageous lyrics, while we watch helicopters ferry their grim burdens of wounded men back to a medical unit behind the lines in Korea. This comic and absurdist film captured and helped form the blithe irreverence of the 60's counterculture. Along with Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, which is of course anything but a comedy, MASH is the truest reflection of that period of American history on film. Its spirit is caught perfectly in one short take. A player on the bench of the football team whose coach, an Army colonel, is much too serious about everything, takes a hit on a joint with a bland expression of carelessness and amusement. He's not taking anything too seriously, and we know he's right. Ah! If only everything had worked out that simply! Thank you, Robert Altman, for showing us how to laugh at the merchants of death.