"A Mighty Wind"

Heh heh, jjorge, feel free to join us here:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7094&highlight=

I have also loved all of the Guest movies, and look forward to this one!

Finally saw A Mighty Wind. Enjoyed enormously. Did not find it mean spirited as some said. Admired the recreation of that sort of pop-pseudo-folk music of the Kingston Trio and The New Christy Minstrels that turned so many people off to folk music.

Thought it was just as hard on promoters (deservedly so!) and those terrible PBS specials designed to raise money to support the far superior programs we enjoy throughout the year. Wonder how the drek that is the fundraising show brings in any money at all?

Glad you enjoyed it, plainoldme. A friend of mine thought it was mean-spirited, and when I asked him why, he said it had to do with Mitch, the Eugene Levy character, having spent time in a mental institution. As if that kind of thing could never have happened to an entertainer!

One of the nice things about the film is that it got me interested again in that period. I may buy a CD or two--but I refuse to go to a PBS fund-raiser!

D'Artagnan,
I thought Mitch's background and his appearance made perfect sense,particularly since he seemed to be in a time warp. Someone did a feature on the Christopher Guest repertory company and they way they work is to develop the characters first, then to improvise on plot and dialogue. I was impressed with the dialogue which sounded like so many personality interviews. La Plaza, the public television Hispanic-interest program did a profile of a young Puerto Rican singer who sang Carmen on Boston Common last summer. I was interested because my daughter, a year younger than the soprano, is a Spanish teacher and I thought she could use the profile in her teaching, a sort of inspire young kids thing, and because one of her close friends is an opera singer, albeit a Mozart singer (she'll never perform Carmen). They did a long stretch of the piece while the girl washed dishes and talked on her cell phone, with her back to the camera! That was dumb! The girl was much more interesting than that! Chris Guest would have loved it!

plainoldme,

The beauty of the Guest approach is that he creates an alternative reality, close to the one we know but different enough to be entertaining. I think that's why I find his films so much fun yet I consider the new "reality TV" shows beyond boring. The people in the latter just aren't interesting, IMHO, because all they're about is a yen for fame.

There was an interview with Guest in the NY Times just before the film was released. He mentioned that both Arlo Guthrie and Ry Cooder wanted small rolls in "Wind" but Guest said no, because they're actual musicians and people would know that. That's how pure he is in creating his alternative reality!

D'Artagnan,
In some ways, the exclusion of ry Cooder and Arlo Guthrie was too bad, although i can see Guest's point. Arlo is someone like Guest who sees through pretentions and nonsense. He's also a little like Emily Dickinson is so far as Dickinson said of herself, "I see things slant."

I hate those so-called reality shows because there is nothing real about them. I accidentally (I was trying to find the program It's Your Line in which Drew Carey and his repertoire company cut up) saw part of the first cast away program and thought it served no other purpose than sexual titillation: boring. Furthermore, the goal of the show seems to be the promotion of mean, asocial and antisocial behavior.

I watched a little of Joe Millionaire. Yawn. Also saw the finale of the most bizarre one of all: Mr. Personality. A woman (who I thought was a dog) was courted by a phalanx of masked men ... you know, the sort of thing that happens every day ... in the end, she had to pick between two. Both proposed, down on their knees (right, like men actually do that) in FRONT OF THE HOST OF THE SHOW MONICA LEWINSKY.

Monte Python meets the spirit of Jonathan Swift.

plainoldme:

While I have no respect for the creators and guests on reality shows, I do think involving Monica in that one was a stroke of genius. The perfect tawdry touch to a tawdry proceeding!

I can't imagine how desperate for amusement people are who find that sort of stuff entertaining. I can't imagine looking forward to watching the drivel, day in day out.

I worked briefly at a public radio station when Survivor first hit the airwaves and no one there bothered to watch. As I said above, I saw it by accident looking for Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles.

What's worse in the Fear Factor routine, making people eat awful stuff.
That is perverse.

I've read articles about the reality-show phenomenon that point out that humiliation is an important component of most of those shows. Clearly there's a public appetite for watching that. It's also becoming a problem for the people who create these shows, because potential participants are growing wary of signing up. The ones who wnat to play are the most out-there publicity seekers--not necessarily who the producers want.

So there is hope...

Humiliation isn't fun. We're not that far from the Coliseum, are we?

No, we're not. Nor are we far from bear baiting, punishing people by putting them in stocks in the town square, or public executions. I suppose these reality shows are benign versions of our former entertainments!

Oh, come on, throwing Christians to the lions could be fun. Well, maybe just Bill Bennet or Thomas Kinkaid.

Hmmm ... I'm definitely not getting updates.

I had a problem with ageism. Someone discriminated against me -- nastily and overtly -- in the job market. I think that stocks would be a perfect punishment for her. Put her in Boston Common with her crime written on a board above her.

Lightwizard -- I like the idea of throwing Thomas Kincaid to the lions as well. Maybe Yanni could play Kincaid's farewell song before he joins the melee! Down with swill art!!

I used to refer to all of it as "postcard art." It was always tempting to look on the back brown paper cover of the frame and see if there was a giant stamp.

After all, Kinkaid was betting just like Bennet - on how long his career would last (all the galleries in Orange County have shut down).

Who is Bennet?

There is a shop solely devoted to Thomas Kincaid on Newberry Street in Boston and Kincaid somehow got my hometown library to give him a one man show (the library does small, one artist shows of about a dozen paintings that last a month).

A friend of mine from my retail job -- a working class person who married at 17 -- loves Kincaid. It is really hard when you like a person as much as I (and everyone else!) likes Carol to listen to her talk about being able to afford "the small size" Kincaid print.

Bill Bennett is the expert on public virtue who was recently outed as a high-rolling gambler.

Hey, has anyone seen "A Mighty Wind"?

I saw it D'artagnan. I thought it was very funny. I don't know who is the goofiest Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest or Fred Willard. It made me want to see This is Spinal Tap again.

Glad you liked it, Swimpy. I don't know about others, but it does my heart good to see a quirky movie like this find an audience. Shoot-em-up films with lots of explosions seem to do fine on their own...

Probably one I'll buy on DVD as I bought "Best of Show." There's some great foreign and independent films out right now (I'll have to make it down to the Edward's art theaters in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa). There listed on the Ebert Current Cinema thread.

D'Artagnan,

Thought from the context that Bill Bennet was an artist.