"MASH" #56/54, 1970
Oh Mash. The movie.
I am much more familiar with the TV show. This show was on during many dinners at my house growing up. I gave most of the seasons' DVDs to my dad for Christmas. (I should check to see if there are any he still needs... notes for next December...)
So, I was pretty familiar with the characters - Hawkeye, Trapper, Houlihan, Frank Burns, Henry Blake, Father Mulcahy, Radar. It's just that I didn't recognize any of them except Radar. I think he was the only actor in the film that continued on in the TV series.
There were some well know actors in this, but they were much younger versions of Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Robert Duvall than I am used to seeing.
This movie is worth watching if you have any love for the TV show. I would guess that if you don't like the show, you wouldn't like this movie.
For me, and my dad who watched it with me, it was entertaining.
"The Godfather: Part II", #32/32, 1974
This movie posed an interesting problem. I hadn't seen the first Godfather movie, so how could I watch the sequel before the original? But, I couldn't watch the original because it's in the Top 10, and I was saving those for the end. In the end, I decided to watch part one, then watch part two, and I'll re-watch part one as I'm going through the Top 10.
I figured that was the best way to go about it considering I've already seen some of the movies, but am rewatching them in this process.
So... The Godfather: Part II...
This movie was a really interesting overlap of two stories... current Godfather Michael Corleone going about his mafia business, and a flashback to Vito Corleone's childhood and how he got into the family business back before (and slightly after) Michael was born.
I really enjoyed the overlapping stories. I think it was handeled really well, and I liked the movie as a whole. There was a terrible moment at the end, when Michael could have redeemed and fixed two close relationships, but instead he did not, and he really did the opposite of what I wanted. So, that sucked, but still, a good movie.
"Apocalypse Now", #24/#30, 1979
This movie has a few big names in it. A lot of the stars that I know, were very young in this movie, like Martin Sheen, Harrison Ford, and Robert Duvall, and some of the big movie stars in these movies from the 40's were old in this movie, like Marlon Brando. It takes place during the Vietnam War in Vietnam. Pretty much all of the main characters are in the US Army. The big set up is Martin Sheen is trying to find Marlon Brando. So you follow his adventure through Vietnam. It's alright, kind of weird and all over the place. I wouldn't watch this movie again, but it wasn't an awful one to sit through. I actually spent a lot of the time noticing how much the young Martin Sheen looks like his son, Emilio Estevez. (By the way, Martin Sheen is the father of Emilio Estevez, the guy from Mighty Ducks, and Charlie Sheen, the guy from Two and A Half Men. There's a whole story about the name change and things, kind of interesting, you should read up on it.)
So, back to the movie... I didn't really get the whole movie. I just didn't quite understand what happened in the end. But, I didn't care enough to try and figure it out. So, like I said, it's not horrible, but I won't watch it again. So if someone is begging you to watch it with them, go ahead, and watch it. But, since they most likely won't, you probably won't ever see it.
