Catch-22 (1970) is another Movies Unlimited purchase. I saw it a while ago, and didn't remember it very well. But when I read the book back in grade school, I was obsessed. I read it every waking hour - walking to school, in class under the desk, while eating, etc. So when I saw it for a good price, I snapped it up.
I'll skip over the plot - the movie is mostly vignettes thast blend into each other, forward and backward in time. It's set in an Allied Air Force base in Italy during WWII. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) doesn't want to fly any more missions. Everyone thinks he's crazy, and of course, crazy people don't fly missions. But if you ask to be taken off active status, well, that means you're sane. Catch-22, the best there is.
Of course, everyone else in the whole stupid war is crazy. Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight) is trading the morphine from first aid kits for Egyptian cotton. Capt. Major (Bob Newhart) is promoted to Maj. Major because it sounds better. He won't see anyone in his office unless he isn't in the office. And so on.
This craziness is all from the book, somewhat compressed. What director Mike Nichols does with it is make strikingly stark compositions. For example, the "Help the bombadier" flashbacks show a close up of Arkin's profile at the right side of the screen, with just clear blue sky for the background. Or the shots of military men in the foreground, with Arkin, naked, in a scrubby tree in the background. Or a sequence of shots of darkened city streets where a different mundane horror is highlighted around every corner. It is an extremely stylish movie - not just an absurdist comedy with a message.
It also has an amazing cast - I haven't mentioned Jack Gilford, Richard Benjamin, Bob Balaban, Art Garfunkel, Martin Balsam, writer Buck Henry, or Paula Prentiss. Hell, Orson Wells even shows up for a couple of scenes. Not all of them are prominent or have full character arcs, but they are all there.
In conclusion, I just now figured out that Capt. Orr (BOb Balaban) was named that because he rowed to safety.
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