MASH is A CLASSIC.. both of Altman's, and of American cinema!

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2006)

~I don't THINK I'm giving away any "crucial plot twists", i.e. spoilers, but jeeussst in case I may be, in someone ELses estimation, it's marked as such~ ;)
If only CBS's most beloved half-hour series of all time had carried over and kept some very important characters, "Spearchucker", "Painless", "Volmer" all spring to mind immediately, I would have loved it all the more.
This movie, MASH, was truly one of the motion picture industry's finest hours. Right up there with "Patton", "All the President's Men", "Network", "The Godfather", "It's a Wonderful Life", and so on. Nothing in this movie is in need of improvement.. okay, with the possible exception being that it was NOT LONG ENOUGH! I was so ready for more at the very moment it ENDED! It's a good thing though, too, that Robert Altman, its genius creator, did not even court the idea of a sequel. The film spoke for itself, at just the right time and place in our history, and did not need one iota of follow-up. It was like a complete individual. Having said what it set out to. It was whole. It was what happened. Real. It was hilarious. It was tragic. It was masterfully performed by every last cast member, right down to the brand new face of Bud Cort, the orderly that Dr. Schmucko i.e. Frank Burns,(played to a "T" by Robert Duvall), chewed out in post-op, in his first role.
MASH was not a bloody, gory, dismal, "Glory, Glory, Hallelulia" war epic. No, it's a.. it's a sort of "A Day in the Life of..." sort of movie. In this classic case, "...of a MASH Unit" ~ The inner workings of a U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, just behind the front lines, and the twisted, funny, volatile, incredibly tight, intertwining relationships that are formed under inconceivably difficult circumstances, in a place where comedy, and camaraderie are crucial essentials to their often grueling day-to-day survival! A place where the unit's #1 priority is patching pieces of people back together without losing pieces of their MIND! .. Crisis, and comedy are strange bed-fellows, and here.. here is a CLASSIC example of them fighting it out, side-by-side, and making hilarious, and at the same time, thought-provoking, memorable music together~
A CRAZY bunch of people, thrown together in a CRAZY situation! .. A film BRILLIANTLY portraying what it set out to!
I have YET to spot, within the movie, as many times as I've seen it,{over 20 I'm quite sure}, the young David Ogden Steirs,{much later "Charles Emmerson Winchester III" in the classic series of M*A*S*H}. Although the series was detested by Altman, and it did turn an approximate 2-year war,{sorry, "Police Action"}, into 11 years of non-stop, Top-20 entertainment, I have to disagree with those who contend it 'glorified war', and I loved it.
The two stars, Elliott Gould, and Donald Sutherland, were brilliant and priceless every moment.. and Gary Burghoff was such a scream. If only they would have carried over a bit more of his naughty, maverick spirit into the series.
This movie was the best that it gets.
...That-is-all...