a mighty wind c/d

He seems to be the dividing character for a lot of people about the film. Chris Barrus and I thought he stole the movie, and if anything I thought he was underplaying it. So much of it relied on him giving just the right look at the right time.

Spot on about the album cover jokes. The influence of Tap lives on.

I have to agree with Yancey about Levy. The character is supposed to be awkward to the point of antisociality but Catherine O'Hara's such deeply-felt out-of-itness made Levy's face-pulling seem like it came from a different movie (which "worked" to a degree; he is the misfit outcast weirdo who arrives on a bus, but still).

Same here -- brilliantly wound up moment of sheer frustration. Glad I didn't see the trailer beforehand, otherwise the joke was spoiled. And the kicker in the final scene was fun.

O'Hara very good indeed. I dunno, I thought in ways the whole point was that here were two VERY different people now trying to reconnect and find something.

However the punchline of the titular song (won't give it away, see it soon, folks) has me tittering still.

Fred Willard is GOD. They could just film him talking for two hours and I'd dig it.

I also really loved Jennifer Coolidge as the buxotic PR person. She's the new Bobbi Fleckman. And the folk guitar hero poses that Terry Bohner ofthe Main Street Singers was throwing about were absolutely hysterical.

I'm on the thumbs down side w/ Eugene Levy. But the character wasn't exactly a laugh a minute anyway. Maybe I've just had it with Levy after hearing that him say "You got me straight tripping, Boo!" line one too many times on the Bringing Down the House ad.

And Parker Posey was OK, but I don't totally buy her as the MacKenzie Phillips character. She was much better as the shrill yuppie in Best in Show.

I wish they'd done the complete Spanish Civil War Ballad, it sounded great.

and fernwood 2night/america 2night was fucking classic...brilliant talk show parody over a dozen years before larry sanders

I missed a lot of the previews for this, so going into it cold I really liked it - much more than Best Of Show and Guffman. I could have easily watched a movie with just the O'Hara and Levy characters alone. Levy plays it subtler here (well, except for the rolling eyes) and is rather remarkable compared to his usual overwrought performances. Catherine O'Hara rules no matter what.

Oddly enough, the weakest bits I thought were the scenes with Guest, Shearer, and McKean. They were more or less doing their same schtick - which is very good schtick - but didn't really do it much for me.

The most hysterical reactions in the theater here were when the the color worship wiccans were on screen.

Really? I thought that was one of the lamest parts!

This is perhaps the most bewildering thing I've read in a while. I can't see where you're coming from at all.

Argh, I keep saying this since I saw the movie on Saturday. I am probably driving poor Dan to madness.

We went to see A MIGHTY WIND this weekend, and Mickie's character is disgustingly close to my ex-boyfriend's mom, who is a creepy Minnesotan earth-mother type who was always hinting at how she wanted to be my creepy Minneston earth-mother-in-law. She looks eerily like Mickie, sounds the same, and even plays the autoharp. It was too much!

Other than that, the film was hilarious. ME & my friend were the only ones in the theatre, which is The Ultimate Way to see a movie. He kept shouting "Spinal Tap!"

I've had this happen a few times -- it is a joy.

I like Spinal Tap a lot; to me, this movie played with the documentary aesthetic and kept it up throughout the movie. Mighty Wind has stuff (like the shot of Eugene Levy wandering around New York) that couldn't have possibly been captured by a documentary camera. To me, this is annoying.

Did you see a different edit?

Nothing to add to Tom May's assessment; a small joy in three-part harmony.

What were PP's lines? The only other Main Street Singer I can remember apart from the Bohners is the one whose father was an Original Main Street singer, and I only remember that from the trailer (I'm aware she had at least one scene that started with that line, but I'm blanking on what it was).

Okay, I'll go away now. The only other thing I can think of is that Guest and McKean occasionally aren't as funny as they think (or are whimsical where they could have been funny), but I could watch Harry Shearer all day.

Hey, maybe I'll go do that..

the best song isn't even in the movie! mitch and mickey's "when you're next to me":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NGYoyRR6U

I recently enjoyed this film

The naches that I'm feeling right now... 'cause your dad was like mishpoche to me. When I heard I got these ticket to the Folksmen, I let out a geshreeyeh, and I'm running with my friend... running around like a vilde chaye, right into the theater, in the front row! So we've got the schpilkes, 'cause we're sittin' right there... and it's a mitzvah, what your dad did, and I want to try to give that back to you. Okeinhoreh, I say, and God bless him.

To say 'classic' is probably a reach, but it's a lovely movie for anyone who lived through the period or can appreciate the affection the makers obviously had for the characters and the music. The songs are spot-on parodies. They save it each time it starts to sag.

The final 3 minutes felt tacked on and was trying too hard to avoid triteness. They would have been better off to embrace the trite with a big, smooshy bear hug.

The Shur-Flo song at the end makes for the most bittersweet lols I can think of. That is my favorite scene in the movie. I think this one included a lot more 'OUCH' with the funnnies than the other ones...

"ohhhh that's great! i mean without model trains how would they have come up with the idea for the big trains?"

This was on ITV last night, saw it for the first time.

Yeah.

I've sometimes started crying at the end of this movie, when Mitch leaves without telling anyone.

it's great, it's my favourite guest movie and one of my favourites of the decade full stop.

yeah that's an oddly affecting scene abbott. eugene's portrayal is a little too realistic

> This was on ITV last night

and was 15 minutes later than the advertised time so the tivo didn't record the end. arse.

ah, I set mine to run for 1 hr 30 mins based on the scheduled time and a bit, and it shut during the credits.

So, if there were any funny/extra bits, didn't see them.

Harry Shearer is doing his Smithers voice in this, it's a bit distracting.

probably on record above but <3 this so much

this is Fred Willard's finest hour.

"This flame, like all flames, represents the light and darkness. It also represents the uncertainty of life and its delicacy. It also represents a penis."

"This is not an occult science. This is not one of those crazy systems of divination and astrology. That stuff's hooey, and you've got to have a screw loose to go in for that sort of thing. Our beliefs are fairly commonplace and simple to understand. Humankind is simply materialized color operating on the 49th vibration. You would make that conclusion walking down the street or going to the store."

<3 Jane Lynch, the only thing that made Glee bearable

The Eugene Levy character just makes me feel like killing myself.

I said on a Doctor Who thread, but there's an interview with Tom Baker from a local news programme on the Revenge of the Cybermen disc (an edited version has been on another disc before) and damn if that isn't Eugene Levy's performance, right there.

I love that my dad, an actual folk singer, loved this movie.

That's interesting, as something that I felt was lacking is that it didn't seem to be about folk music in the way that Spinal Tap is about heavy metal. Though I come from a position of very little knowledge of folk.

this is Fred Willard's finest hour.

― Sun Tea (Pillbox), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 6:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D421N6xlisg

back in nineteen seventy mmmrghhrgjh

You don't want to be on a cruise ship when dysentery breaks out. Truer words were seldom said.

I can't do my work!

So glad to get the Blu-ray of this in the Warner Archives sale last weekend.

I finally saw this on Hulu! I liked it! It did seem a bit thin, not much in the way of conflict, but it was a charming film and not only was the music well-done, but the humor on point as always. Balaban had me in stitches with his helicopter producer antics.

the scene at the end with Mitch and Mickey doing their song for the first time in 40 years surprisingly affecting.

sad we didn't get to hear the full Spanish civil war history song with Spanish translation!

I should watch this again. Mascots popped up on Netflix and had us in stitches.

I didn’t dig this much apart from Fred Willard, should watch again

Ends with an antediluvian joke where the joke is just that Chris Guest’s character is a trans woman but still sings bass, iirc

it was actually Harry Shearer but yea

All of the music was sung/played live which is pretty impressive.

There is a thread on here somewhere about the treatment of LGBTQ characters in Guest's films and the above bit was not beyond reproach.

Where’s the real mayor? Someone shot the mayor, but they did not shoot the deputy.
Incidentally, the D.A.’s office called. They can’t find any witness, so he’s in the clear, Your Honor.

Speaking of Your Honor, I was at a swinger’s party the other night and a fellow says
to me “I’d like to meet your wife,” and I said “Your Honor!”

Watched Mascots for the first time last night and it was surprisingly delightful.

Huh thought Mascots was very very bad. Eugene Levy has a lot to do with the artistic and comedic success of the earlier films.

the transgender "joke" definitely was uncomfortable, since it was fairly obvious Shearer's character is the butt of the joke. Can agree it was antediluvian but I will admit around the time that film came out, my reaction probably would have been different than it would today, as back in 2003 I didn't know anybody that was transgender or know much about gender dysphoria or the trans community at all.

kind of a bummer note to end the movie on, yeah.

I had low expectations, and it's better than most of what's on Netflix. Mostly it was nice to see the regular players again, especially since we've been rewatching Party Down and some other shows where they pop up a lot.

Finally saw this recently. It might not have been quite as laugh-out-loud funny as Guffman or Best in Show, but it had a warmth to it that I really enjoyed, and there are some great bits -- Bob Balaban completely misunderstanding basic stagecraft and concert setup, warning the audience about the plants in the lobby, Jennifer Coolidge's line about model trains, Ed Begley Jr as a philosemitic Swede public tv producer who can't stop dropping yiddish into conversations, the spanish civil war song, "wha happened" etc. The rehearsal scenes especially felt very much like a real band reuniting for a concert. My grandparents were very much in the Chicago folk scene and I grew up hearing the music and stories, so it felt very close to home for me. I thought they captured a very specific slice of that scene very well -- not so much the Dylans and Dave Van Ronks, but the Kingston Trio type bands (I loved that the Folksmen sneered at the commercialism of the New Main Street Singers while only being a notch or so less commercial). "Eat at Joes" felt very real. These seemed very much like the bands that would do a hastily thrown together multi-act reunion concert for public tv, whereas the more *serious* acts probably wouldn't.

Mixed feelings about the Eugene Levy performance - I got the sense that he was supposed to be either acid burnout or nervous breakdown, but it was a little hard to tell if it was that or if he had had that same weird stilted speech when he was young. A bit one-note and underdeveloped.

The titles and cover shots of Mitch’s solo albums are hysterical