First Annual WaRoAlMoWe

I think this should be the First Annual Watch-a-Robert-Altman-Movie Weekend, in honor of the great man's life and recent death. What to start with?

• If you think that Army doctors in the Korean War were all sensitive 70s males, watch (the original) M*A*S*H.
• If you like your movies a little off the beaten path, try Brewster McCloud.
• For those of you with a scorecard and a sharp pencil, you'll want to take a look at Nashville.
• The Player will probably be for you if you're into nihilistic self-referentialism.
• Like Westerns? Try an anti-Western: McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

I love Altman's work for the sheer variety of characters (and actors) it used, all of whom stay in character and talk over each other while the plot is unfolding. Altman liked to take a given film convention and see how he could fuck around with it and make it something new and different (inspiring, I suspect, to the Coen Bros.) and everybody knows how much I love it when people do things like that. He'll be missed, but I intend to honor him by re-watching, appreciating, and promoting his work.

Update: Good Altman essay at 2 Blowhards.