Life’s small irritations: it always annoys me that the TV show M*A*S*H, starring Alan Alda, is so much better known and more widely seen than Robert Altman’s original 1970 film MASH (with Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye, and without asterisks in the title). Altman’s movie is a classic, really brutal and anarchic in a way that the TV show could never be. And who could really prefer Alan Alda to Sutherland, or Larry Linville to Robert Duvall, or Loretta Swit to Sally Kellerman, or William Christopher to Rene Auberjonois, or Wayne Rogers to Elliot Gould? There shouldn’t be any competition.
Daily Archives: March 23, 2005
2 posts
Lists that attempt to categorise the Top Ten, Top Fifty or Top One Hundred of a particular thing (Films, American Films, Horror Films, Action Scenes, Stars, etc) are a staple of arguments between internet nerds, but they also pop up in a wider context. The classic example is when magazines or media outlets run one as a stunt: they choose the Top Fifty of something-or-other, and then hope that news services will pick the story up, thus getting whatever outlet came up with the list some free publicity. At their best, these can be a lot of fun, and a few, such as the lists by the American Film Institutue, arguably serve some legitimate role in raising awareness of classic films. However, every so often you get a real doozy: when Turner Classic Movies in Britain surveyed their readers to come up with the best director, actor and actress that had never won an Oscar, they came up with Demi Moore as the most deserving actress. TCM, of course, still came out a winner – the poll was reported as if it was serious news worldwide.