One of my favorite books ever happens to also be one of my favorite movies. Overlooked mostly because it came out the same year as MASH, but a damned good film. Any love?

Alan Arkin, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Orson Welles, Charles Grodin, Art Garfunkel, Austin Pendleton (um), and a bunch of other people who went on to cool things.

They may have changed some of the story, and even characters, but they did something I would have thought impossible: made a movie that managed to capture the insanity and twisted balance of humor and horror found in the book.

Yossarian: Then why are they shooting at me Milo?
Dobbs: They're shooting at everyone Yossarian.
Yossarian: And what difference does that make?

-

Milo Minderbinder: Nately died a wealthy man, Yossarian. He had over sixty shares in the syndicate.
Yossarian: What difference does that make? He's dead.
Milo Minderbinder: Then his family will get it.
Yossarian: He didn't have time to have a family.
Milo Minderbinder: Then his parents will get it.
Yossarian: They don't need it, they're rich.
Milo Minderbinder: Then they'll understand.

-

Yossarian: He was very old.
Luciana: But he was a boy.
Yossarian: Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.

-

Colonel Cathcart: You're a disgrace. I'd like to know how you got to be a Captain, anyway.
Yossarian: You promoted me.
Colonel Cathcart: That has got nothing to do with it.

Loved the book, I had no idea there was a movie.

I need to check it out.

It's great. It's from about 1970. The visuals on it are actually incredible...some of the best I've ever seen. Definately check it out.

This thread needs to be titled "Books: Catch-22".

The book is awesome beyond words, but it's been discussed on the board before and I never really hear/read anybody mention the movie.

On that note, though, God Knows is another masterpiece from Heller. Anybody who enjoys Catch-22 should check that one out. Something Happened is good, too, but not as immediate or as intense.

God Knows is fucking hilarious

Watched it again tonight. Somehow both the funniest and most tragic film I've ever seen. Maybe as intense as the book.

I watched MASH tonight. It's a great movie, but I seriously can't believe that it overshadowed Catch-22 to such a degree. I honestly don't think it even compares to that other film.

my favorite book ever....i probably need to rewatch the movie cause it's been a few years and i have a better understanding of book to movie transitions

Just watched this again tonight.

Apparently, Joseph Heller was so pleased with the added dialogue (stuff not in the book) that he said he wished he had thought of it himself.

i never knew there was a movie.

i haven't read the book yet, but i've always wanted to.

Watch it. End of discussion.

I just watched this recently. Great movie.

I think this could benefit from an HBO miniseries... what do you guys think?

I'm still pretty alone on this, eh?

Watched it and Mash this eve (I know, but everybody's out of town so what are you gonna do?), and I still think it's the better of the two. I'm starting to think I can use this thread as a way of tabbing how many times I watch this film, because I ALWAYS feel the need to post on it afterwards. It'll be like my own personal catch22.fm.

I totally forgot that I made the post about needing to watch this movie.

but I need to watch this movie, I do like the book, I did recently re-read the book again though.

Maybe I'll try and find this movie some where.




*waits another 3 years, to post again to say that I haven't watch the movie yet*

See you in three years.

MASH is so much better than Catch 22. The latter was a hotly anticipated adaptation of a bestseller by a director who had just made one of the biggest hits of the decade, the former a low budget work by a no-name director with a bunch of no-name actors, so by all rights Catch 22 should have been the one to overshadow MASH. But it just doesn't have the undercurrent of anger that Altman put into MASH, nor does it capture the spirit of the book. And it's not nearly as funny.

Totally disagree. It doesn't have any of the occasional moments in MASH that could have been lifted out of a Burt Reynolds chase movie (the colonel ordering MPs after his stolen jeep, their vehicle breaking down, and him....punching them in the face?!), and its surrealist and twisted setup is far more appropriate for theatrical behavior in characters than MASH, where Sutherland comes across as almost artificial in his more realistic location. And I agree with Heller that they did a good job of creating something that held a lot of the chaos of the book without trying to capture something that simply couldn't be captured cinematically, and that the added/changed lines were as good as the stuff in the book.