Movie Talk

Patton Oswalt was a guest on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast recently and I was surprised to learn what a cinephile Oswalt is. Maher has slightly better than average knowledge of old films, enough for the two to have a conversation. The two talk about Robert Altman a bit and Maher refers to Altman's 1970 film, M.A.S.H., as "mean-spirited". That's an interesting way of putting it. It's on The Criterion Channel now and I watched it and I'm not sure "mean-spirited" is the term I'd use but it's certainly obnoxious to anyone watching it from an Asian country. It was obviously all shot in California and mostly it feels like we watch Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper (Elliott Gould) goofing off. It's barely more than implied that they're saving lives as field medics, I guess to sanctify their smugness. I guess it's supposed to make up for them humiliating Sally Kellerman's "Hot Lips" in the shower, too. If anyone's wondering if the Japan depicted in the film comes off in any way authentic, the answer is a resounding no. The foreign countries just exist on some hazy periphery while Sutherland and Gould strut around the centre stage.

The constant gong stinger is plenty obnoxious all on its own.

Maher and Oswalt got to talking about Altman by talking about Philip Marlowe and the Marlowe movie Altman made starring Elliott Gould, The Long Goodbye, which I also watched recently (and liked better than M.A.S.H.). They also talked about Howard Hawks' 1946 adaptation of The Big Sleep and Oswalt weighed in on the two cuts of that film; one which hews closer to the original novel, and one made a year later that replaces more expository scenes with scenes of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall having exciting dialogue. Oswalt champions the recut version as an example of the studio knowing better than the film's original director. Personally, I like both versions and to really enjoy the 1946 version--well, either of them, really--one really needs to have read the book. It's famously one of the most convoluted plots of all time in any case. It always amazes me that they changed nothing about the plot involving Carmen Sternwood's nude photos being used for blackmail except the fact that she's not naked in them. So she basically threatens to murder someone over pictures of her wearing a dress. All this is presented to the audience like it's perfectly reasonable. I do like Martha Vickers as Carmen. She really justifies Bogart's line to the butler, "You ought to ween her, she's old enough."