hey everyone, not much discussion of this movie going on, but i love it! what's everyone's fave scene? mine is the briefing before the mission to ferarra with dreedle's WAC. that whole scene, from yossarian's first moan, to danby passing out is the funniest thing i have ever seen!!
your turn...
He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!
That scene was pretty damned funny.
I always liked the end sequence...with Yossarian in the hospital then paddling madly away for Sweden in that tiny little raft as the camera pulls back and away from the island.
wow, finally a reply. yeah, the end is good, too. i also like how they work in the flashbacks with snowden.
He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!
The scene with the WAC at the briefing is probably the funniest moment, but closely followed by the medal ceremony, where Yossarian is nude and is told by Dreedle (something like) "Yossarian, you're a very weird person".
Favourite lines:
"He died; he was very old."
"But he was a boy."
"He died. You don't get any older than that."
"The new phone book's here. The new phone book's here. This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now."
Put a bit of Celatape on the FRIDGE!
Jerk!
Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate.
I have to agree with you on that, the end is my favorite scene, although the briefing mentioned in the first post is definitely up there. This may sound like heresy, but I like the movie's variation on the ending more than the way it ended in the book, although it's basically the same. It just seems liek the movie's ending is more in keeping with the concept of a dangerously sane man doing things that seem completely insane until you view them in terms of the book/movie's insane setting.
shareI can't believe no-one mentioned the scene where Yossarian takes the jacket off Snowdon and his entrails spill out over the plane. For me that was the only part of the film that did genuine justice to the book. Don't get me wrong I like the film a lot, it's just that the book is probably my favourite novel.
shareWow, that's a hard question to answer. There are so many good scenes in this movie, and so many that are repeated in different ways. For example, I love the two different versions of the "Making a Deal to Go Home" scene at the beginning and the end. The Snowden scenes might be some of my favorites though, especially the way in which each version starts at the same closeup and ends just a little further on in the action. Plus there were so many references to the Snowden affair (what with the nude scenes) that it was a wonderful way to build up anticipation. I really have to admire the way in which the movie's writer handled such scenes and the interweaving of the past, present and future plot lines. It truely captured the sense of the book, in which you get glimpses of the action over and over throughout the text before you finally get that sudden revelation.
I'm trying to think of other scenes that were done so well. Geesh, all of them really. The moment when Yossarian meets his girlfriend (whose name I can't remember) and finds that she's working for Milo. That confrontation scene after Yossarian finds the dead whore's body. Orr soaking wet and dripping while he serenely reads a magazine at the Colonel's office. What a wonderful dead pan performance. I have to say that my least favorite scenes were: Major Major - terribly preformed and horribly cast. I also hated the briefing session with the general's wife, which everyone else here seems to have loved.
I could also just bunch it all up and say I loved every scene with Alan Arkin. His performance was at times so subtle that he really developed, for me, a new layer to Yossarian (who happens to be one of my all time favorite characters in literature). In hopes of not sounding trite, I saw Yos. in a new light just like I saw Boromir in a new light after Sean Bean's performance. I guess I never got the quietness that Alan Arkin protrays in the books...probably because, as I read here, we see so much of the inner Yossarian that it is hard to imagine seeing (or not seeing) his inner thoughts flash across his physical face.
Anyways, excellent movie.
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I just saw this movie, and I'm totally blown away by it. Great, great stuff.
My two favorite parts are the mess hall scene when they are all talking about 'them' (hillarious) and the scene with Nately and the old man.
But this is such a brilliant movie, it's hard to choose.
I preferred the old man scene in the book as I imagined him completely differently, but Art Garfunkal was well cast as Nately and so was their old man so thumbs up.
I thought the planes taking off at the beginning was incredibly well filmed and the bit with Yossarion in the cockpit with (damn it can't remember his name) smoking was realised brilliantly.
I thought the Man in White and Doc Deneeka parts could have been done a lot better, and they all could have shown a bit more surprise when Hungry Joe (was it Hungry Joe in the book? Wasn't it Kid Sampson?) gets chopped in half.
Oh yeah and the Snowden bit was brilliant.
But my favorite scene, the one that chilled me the most, was with the old woman in the whore house after the MP's smash everything, when she turns around and goes "catch 22", phew!
The moaning scene where they threaten to shoot Danby. "Doesn't anyone know what a chair is?"
Just watched the film having read the book - thought it was a very good interpretation, but they left so much out! (Though I guess they couldn't have fit much more into a 2 hour flick) I agree about the briefing scene but I was looking forward to so many scenes from the book that just didn't appear in the film - like the one where the Chaplain is interrogated or the one where they all get p*ssed in the bar and then go out and crash a jeep.
All good stuff though, Arkin was best choice for that role
I watch the film for the first time only about half an hour ago, having asked for it for my birthday (friday).
Its brilliant I think, but the book as also amazing but i think they are fantastic in thier own rights.
Yossarian was a bit more assertive than i pictured him to be after reading the book. But still enjoyable to watch.
It was werid for me to see Jon Voight as milo, i have never seen him so young!
Martin Sheen was one of my favourites, I like the actor and i think he was the most animated.
Hungry Joe was hardly in it, i wish they had done more with McWatt and the peir scene. Also the Doc being ignored should have been more explored
But they are good films in thier own right. But after reading the book so many times the film just seems to go by so quickly!
The brief scene with Orr and Chaplain Tappmann (Balaban & Perkins) before Tappmann goes in to see Colonel Cathcart (Balsam)
shareMy favourite scene is at Snowden's funeral, when the Chaplain looks toward the tree and says he thought he saw something. Then Major Major looks over and says there's a naked man in the tree. That made me look into the tree to see a naked Yossarian. I hadn't noticed him in this scene because his naked body melds into the tree so well. Definitely made me laugh.
shareThe climactic sequence when you realize that Snowden isn't suffering from a minor wound. If I'd read the book first, this might not have hit me so hard, but I was unprepared for it and it blew me out of my seat. At bottom, this is both a black comedy and a horror movie. And this was the moment of greatest horror.
shareI thought the scene where yossarian had to pretend to be the dying soldier was very funny in a dark way.
"his name is yossarian"
I like one of the earliest scenes in the movie, when all the characters are in the mess hall. I especially appreciate the exchange between Yossarian and Dobbs.
Dobbs: "You admit it!"
Yossarian: "I admit I'm being persecuted."
"By who?"
"By them!"
"But who, specifically, is 'them?'"
"Every one of them!"
"Every one of who?"
"Every one of who do you think?"
"I haven't any idea!"
"Then how do you know that they aren't?!"
Yes, the rapid-fire exchanges in this movie between characters I think was its strongest point and are definately 2 of my favorite scenes:
"There's no one here."
"Where?"
"In Major Major's office."
"When?"
"When....when you go to see him. What I mean is, you can't see him. When he's there. When he's in his office. I've tried several times."
"Well, when can I see him, ever?"
"Yes! Yes, indeed you can see him....when he ISN'T there. That is, he'll see you all right, but only in his office and only when he's not there. The other times, when he's in, he's not....there. To be seen. Except when he's out."
HA!
Also, LOVED the scene between Nately and the old Italian guy. Actually, what I like most about that is the "crazy" segue into it from the scene b/t Yossarian and his Italian girlfriend:
"Because....you're crazy!"
"YOU'RE crazy!"
"You're ALL crazy!"
"But why are we crazy?"
;-)
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"
alright, well I haven't seen the movie, but my favorite parts in the book....
The part where Doc explains Catch-22 to Yossarian
The freaking court room seen with Metcalf and the superior. Holy hell.....yeah, the sort of "rapid-fire" exchanges are the best. When characters go back and forth, talking like total bass-ackward buffoons. I love it. Catch-22 is definitely my favorite book ever.
The scene were Orr reveals to Taplin just where he has been the past three days.
" I think we better keep our super-natural episodes down to minimum, what with a war to win and all." Lt. Col Korn
Most of my favorite scenes have been mentioned from this great movie, but there is just one little small moment that kills me every time...
When Milo (Jon Voight) starts ordering the destruction of the camp from the control tower, and Yossarian is on the runway, and things start blowing up, and Gen. Cathcart (Martin Balsam) drives up in the jeep and explains to Yossarian what is happening. Then, Yossarian aims the gun at Cathcart, pulls the trigger, and it goes "click". But check out the look on Balsam's face...it is HILARIOUS. And even more hilarious that right after this near-death experience, he simply, corporately says "I want to see you in my office later."
Great movie!!