Robert Altman: The Early Years
Upon hearing of Altman's death late last year I knew I would have to make myself watch more of his films. I had only see 3 of his movies and really enjoyed all of them. So I set myself upon a mission to find and watch as many movies of his as I could.
I remember watching the MashTV series as a kid. I didn't get all the nuances of the show but I still thought it was funny. Until now I had never seen the original movie though. This movie has quite a different feeling than the TV series. Firstly, I don't recall ever hearing a gunshot or explosion at any point in the movie. If it weren't for the casualties coming in I wouldn't have known there was a war going on in the background. Apart from one instance the doctors don't seem to be under any stress whatsoever, even in the middle of surgery they are having a good time and trading barbs. The pristine green football field that is used for too long in the second half of the movie also comes out of nowhere. Are these guys near the front lines or on a college campus? By the end of the movie I was getting a little disappointed in that this movie had nothing to do about war until I heard the final announcement over the hospital's P.A. system. Throughout the movie announcements were made about war movies that were going to be shown for the staff. The announcements were very sarcastic and stressed how unrealistic these movies were for those caught up in an actual war. The final announcement of the movie was a self-referential announcement about the movie Mash itself. It was only then that I realized that this entire movie was a work of absurdity, it had as little to do with real war as any of the other movies they had mocked. My opinion of the movie flip flopped immediately and decided it was a very good film. 7.5/10
One of my old college roommate's father worked on the set of this movie. Set construction I think. What I didn't realize until I read about this film on IMDB is that it was filmed in my home province of BC in Canada. This has to be one of the grittiest Westerns out there, a real precursor to Unforgiven. It shows how dirty and uncomfortable life probably was for those living out on the frontier. It also shows the main gunslinger, here Warren Beatty, with a definite sense of fear in him. He's human. Julie Christie is also great as the not-afraid-to-speak-her-mind madame of the brothel who is McCabe's partner in nearly every sense of the world. The big shootout scene at the end is fantastic and very realistic. People get hurt. People are scared for their lives and hiding. Not as exciting as Young Guns but the tension is much higher. 7.5/10
I knew nothing about this movie going into it and was completely blown away. If you like David Lynch's Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive you'll probably like this. The film follows a woman with severe psychological problems, possibly multiple personalities, through a vacation at a lonely cabin in the countryside. The crazy thing with this movie is that it is all shown from Cathryn's (played by Susannah York) point of view and I was never quite sure what was real or not. Some characters appear to just be figments of her imagination but I was never totally sure. Hard to follow at times but I found this fascinating. 9/10
A struggling writer makes a deal with the devil; he agrees to ghost write a novel for a bigger-than-life character who claims to have murdered Ernest Hemingway. As the writer hears more and more stories he begins to believe less and less in their veracity. The hype surrounding this shocking new 'autobiography' pressures the writer to press on with his plan while his own literary intentions get pushed to the side.
Movie Review: Mash (1970)
I remember watching the MashTV series as a kid. I didn't get all the nuances of the show but I still thought it was funny. Until now I had never seen the original movie though. This movie has quite a different feeling than the TV series. Firstly, I don't recall ever hearing a gunshot or explosion at any point in the movie. If it weren't for the casualties coming in I wouldn't have known there was a war going on in the background. Apart from one instance the doctors don't seem to be under any stress whatsoever, even in the middle of surgery they are having a good time and trading barbs. The pristine green football field that is used for too long in the second half of the movie also comes out of nowhere. Are these guys near the front lines or on a college campus? By the end of the movie I was getting a little disappointed in that this movie had nothing to do about war until I heard the final announcement over the hospital's P.A. system. Throughout the movie announcements were made about war movies that were going to be shown for the staff. The announcements were very sarcastic and stressed how unrealistic these movies were for those caught up in an actual war. The final announcement of the movie was a self-referential announcement about the movie Mash itself. It was only then that I realized that this entire movie was a work of absurdity, it had as little to do with real war as any of the other movies they had mocked. My opinion of the movie flip flopped immediately and decided it was a very good film. 7.5/10Movie Review: McCable & Mrs. Miller (1971)
One of my old college roommate's father worked on the set of this movie. Set construction I think. What I didn't realize until I read about this film on IMDB is that it was filmed in my home province of BC in Canada. This has to be one of the grittiest Westerns out there, a real precursor to Unforgiven. It shows how dirty and uncomfortable life probably was for those living out on the frontier. It also shows the main gunslinger, here Warren Beatty, with a definite sense of fear in him. He's human. Julie Christie is also great as the not-afraid-to-speak-her-mind madame of the brothel who is McCabe's partner in nearly every sense of the world. The big shootout scene at the end is fantastic and very realistic. People get hurt. People are scared for their lives and hiding. Not as exciting as Young Guns but the tension is much higher. 7.5/10Movie Review: Images (1972)
I knew nothing about this movie going into it and was completely blown away. If you like David Lynch's Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive you'll probably like this. The film follows a woman with severe psychological problems, possibly multiple personalities, through a vacation at a lonely cabin in the countryside. The crazy thing with this movie is that it is all shown from Cathryn's (played by Susannah York) point of view and I was never quite sure what was real or not. Some characters appear to just be figments of her imagination but I was never totally sure. Hard to follow at times but I found this fascinating. 9/10Book Review: I Killed Hemingway - William McCranor Henderson
A struggling writer makes a deal with the devil; he agrees to ghost write a novel for a bigger-than-life character who claims to have murdered Ernest Hemingway. As the writer hears more and more stories he begins to believe less and less in their veracity. The hype surrounding this shocking new 'autobiography' pressures the writer to press on with his plan while his own literary intentions get pushed to the side.
posted by Jason at 11:52 PM
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