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Subject: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Wesley S Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:25 PM This film has been mentioned here before but I just found the trailer for the movie on line. If you havn't heard about it yet it's Christopher Guests send up of the folk music world. The trailer is a hoot - check it out. www.amightywindonline.com |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Dave Swan Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:40 PM Thanks, Wesley. It looks great. All the usual C. Guest suspects. D |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:41 PM Trailer is looking good--can't wait for April 16th! http://amightywindonline.warnerbros.com/ |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JenEllen Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:52 PM Saw the trailer a few weeks ago, but didn't hear the release date. Thanks for the info, it looks like another winner. All the usual suspects and wicked humour, I can hardly wait. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Jeri Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:00 PM Funniest line from the trailer: "There had been abuse in my family, but it had mostly been musical." I can't wait for this one! |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Amos Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:02 PM The trailer is absolutely hilarious, classic in the genre -- "There was a lot of abuse in my childhood -- mostly musical in nature...." "This is hard for me, because...well, I don't like folk music." "Me, too!!" ROTFLMAO! A |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Wesley S Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:09 PM Does this remind anyone of the recent folk music program on PBS ? I can't wait for the soundtrack. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: catspaw49 Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:09 PM LMAO!! This one looks like another winner and like El Swanno said, the "usual suspects." I'm glad to see both Jane Lynch and especially John Michael Higgins back for another one as well. The cast is always what makes these movies and Guest knows it. To be able to totally develop a character and write your own dialog.....cool stuff. I find myself looking for the "Guest Crowd" in other movies. Some of them like Ed Begley Jr. or Fred Willard and Michael McKean are well known generally, but I get a kick out of finding all of these wacko things with Parker Posey or seeing Jennifer Coolidge's patented bimbo character in "Legally Blonde." The trailer is great.....I think they really have the era and the college-folk thing down from the looks of it. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Jeri Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:18 PM Hey Rick - your fart-o-matic makes an appearance! (I wonder if that's where they got the title.) Did anyone catch the chorus of the title song? There's a mighty wind a-blowin ...just about killed me. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: jimmyt Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:40 PM this looke incredibly funny, but as I play in a "folk Revival "group that started in 1963 and has just gotten back together after 40 years off, We may just need to go with the flow and make it a comedy troupe! Can't wait for this to open! |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Steve Latimer Date: 17 Feb 03 - 03:39 PM Oh my God!!!! Run for the hills folkies. Eugene Levy looks like awful lot like Jerry Garcia. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Rick Fielding Date: 17 Feb 03 - 05:51 PM Ohhh boy am I lookin' forward to this! My favourite film-maker completely destroys folk music....yeahhh! Rick P.S. I hope those Taylor guitars in the trailer, are the one that the bands used currently rather than in the fifties and sixties! Naw, I'm no pedant! |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Wesley S Date: 18 Feb 03 - 01:07 PM C,mon Rick - Don't be so picky. If Woody Guthrie can play a Mossman in Bound For Glory then certainly these guys can play Taylors decades before they became popular. I know - that stuff bothers me too. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Rick Fielding Date: 16 Apr 03 - 09:10 PM REALLY GOOD FILM. Gentler than his other ones, but the promotional people get skewered good. Incredibly accurate....the actors (other than the Spinal tap guys...who already play) have LEARNED their instruments! They went to Mandolin Brothers for historically accurate banjos guitars, tenor guitars, Autoharps and mandolins. Martins and a couple of J-200s for the early stuff....and a couple of Taylors for the new. Best line? (well...of several) Ed Begley Jr's character, who is of Nordic-Jewish background(!!).....has a "Garage Dulicmer Band" when he's a kid! Jane and John Michael's characters aren't as prominent (or prominently written as in Best In Show. Jennifer is scarrrier than ever! There were about eight people in the theatre with us. Two left after five minutes.....will they let you go to another theatre? This wonderful little movie should disappear without a trace after a week. Oh...apparently a reviewer from New York mentioned that were no POLITICS in it.....and he was surprised. He shouldn't have been. This was based more on a "New Christy Minstrels" or Kingston Trio thing. It was filmed a bit like "The Weavers, wasn't that a time"? but definitely was about commercial folk groups......not a Commie in the lot! Rick Rick |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: catspaw49 Date: 16 Apr 03 - 09:53 PM Bless you for that review Rick and I would have expected no less. The attention to detail is among the things that make their work so good and these mockumentaries so superbly done. I could run at least a hundred things from "Best In Show" that are so small but add so much in realism (if you see BIS again, note the interior of the house their Akron friends (Miller and Kash) live in. The new giant TV with the old console TV with a cloth over it and serving as a display shelf). I can't wait to see this.....better yet, I can't wait for it to hit HBO/Showtime or whomever. I want the entire set on DVD too. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Steve Latimer Date: 16 Apr 03 - 09:58 PM 'Spaw, I know what you mean. In "Waiting For Guffman" Guest was wearing that horrible toupee. It was never mentioned. I have to see BIS again, I wasn't knocked out by it, but I had heard a lot about it before I saw it and I was pretty tired that night. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST Date: 16 Apr 03 - 10:36 PM Lots more on the film in thread 58488, "Review, Mighty Wind," started 4 April: Mighty Wind |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Amos Date: 16 Apr 03 - 11:09 PM I saw BIS for the first time last week, based partly on Spaw's enthusiasm for it, and even though I've never been to a dog-show, I didn't need to -- it had me rolling on the floor and sitting up chortling. The way they make real people look so bizarre is priceless!! Or is it making bizarre people look real? Anyway it sure brings out the funniest side of the whackoids who pass as normal on our torqued out planet! A |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Jeri Date: 17 Apr 03 - 06:57 AM Amos, I think the hallmark of Guest's films is that nothing gets TOO far from realitiy and we, the audience, know it. Truth is often stranger than fiction and there isn't a need to provide the extreme elaboration that many filmmakers do - it's guilding the lily. Most of us can identify with his characters - "HEY- I KNOW that guy!" Guest is sly, and a lot of the humor is understated and relies on folks in the audience wanting and being able to see it. That a lot of folks need a comedic version of a sledge hammer to laugh is probably why many don't think he's that funny. Half the fun, for me, is discovering the funny stuff on my own. I'm probably gonna wind up going to see (and be blown away) by "A Mighty Wind" on Saturday. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: catspaw49 Date: 17 Apr 03 - 08:01 AM That pretty well sums it up Jeri. We DO know those people! They are only slightly overdrawn and the fact that the actors themselves have not only developed the character but is giving responses from the character really makes a difference. They LIVE the character. And then the attention to detail is simply amazing. It's quite a troup he's come up with over the years. John Michael Higgins came into BIS after being suggested by Bob Baliban and Ed Begley who had done "The Late Show" (played David Letterman) with him and he was fantastic in BIS. I'm completely hooked...........sorry......... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Peter T. Date: 17 Apr 03 - 08:43 AM Sacrilege I know, but less time on choosing the instruments, and more on the script, might have improved the film. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Amos Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:06 AM Well, Jeri, I expect to be highly amused too, probably Friday night... A |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: PoppaGator Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:54 AM Just discovered that this is one of *two* current threads on "Mighty Wind." I certainly have enjoyed reading BOTH, so I'm posting here in order to bring this one up to the top of the list with the other. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Kim C Date: 17 Apr 03 - 01:38 PM But these go to eleven... |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JedMarum Date: 17 Apr 03 - 02:00 PM ... well, it's one more isn't it? |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 03 - 09:58 PM PeterT, I understand this one was not scripted, but story boarded and improvised instead. Put me in the sacrilege column... Not nearly as good as Guest's other stuff IMO, and it is certainly no Spinal Tap. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST,Ray Bucknell Date: 18 Apr 03 - 09:23 AM I saw it the day it opened. There was a total of four other people in the theater, all of whom stayed through the actual film but left before the credits and thus missed the couple of rather good songs that played through to the bitter end. The movie was largely disappointing to me because I'd been expecting to get such a kick out of it and feel it simply fell short. I loved the album covers (there are some that look just like those in my collection!) and the Asian guy in the New Main Street Singers, and some of Ed Begley's lines were perfect, but all in all I left thinking I must have missed something. Or maybe Guest missed something. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST,Q Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:13 PM Another review, by A. O. Scott, from the NY Times: Mighty Wind |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: open mike Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:47 PM hope it comes to our smaller town soon! I hear Guest is an accomplishe4d mandolin player, and used to play way back when...with who? anyone know? |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Jeri Date: 18 Apr 03 - 07:06 PM Dunno, but I mentioned the movie to a guy (musician) at work who said Guest had once been in a string band. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Ely Date: 18 Apr 03 - 07:15 PM My mom and I were falling all over ourselves to pledge during the PBS folk concert so we could get the DVD (the Kingston Trio doesn't sound any different--they were fabulous), and I'm DYING to see this movie. I've got a dumb enough sense of humor--nearly laughed myself into an aneurysm at _Best in Show_, especially at the Weimaraner people--that I'll probably end up in convulsions. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: denise:^) Date: 18 Apr 03 - 11:33 PM Didn't I read somewhere that Christopher Guest played in a band with Arlo Guthrie when they were teenagers? I might be wrong, but that's what I remember... Denise:^) whose memory gets more sporadic and creative as the years go by...! |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Willie-O Date: 19 Apr 03 - 03:32 PM Ah well, what's another nail in the coffin? Everyone seems to have been seeing it in empty theatres. The free pre-release screenings brought in a lot of folks like me who otherwise would have ended up buying tickets! (Obviously they didn't screen it in Toronto, Rick, cause Warner Bros would have dropped by your radio show and brought you a bunch of passes to give away.) I wanna go see it again... W-O |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: BH Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:57 PM More of a send up of PBS than anything else, I felt. It had its moments---few and far between for laughter. Begley and Levy steal the film for me. Fred Willard and his "shtick" is proving awfully tedious to me at this point---how long has he played this one note now? 30 years? Thankfully there was little music in the film---it was a comedy of characters and they could have been in any field. Mel Brooks or Woody Allen at their least successful efforts are ahead of this. The send up of PBS was right on though---right down to the bald headed or toupeed performers singing to a standing ovation ---I just waited for the "pitching" for a dontation. Bill Hahn |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: denise:^) Date: 23 Apr 03 - 03:57 PM Yes! I *did* read it: "In a high-school folk band led by his classmate Arlo Guthrie, he played a mandolin owned by Arlo's father Woody." It's in Time magazine: "Confronting My Inner Folkie." I feel much better now... Denise:^) |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: GUEST Date: 23 Apr 03 - 04:00 PM You have something against baldheads Bill? |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Rick Fielding Date: 23 Apr 03 - 05:00 PM It's really disconcerting having two threads on the one film. Can't the Clones put 'em together? I Think Bill makes a good put about it sending up PBS better than folk music. I'm a HUGE Guest fan, and I think the film was decent, small and funny at times.....but the problem for me is that (Like Woody Allen) he's running out of jokes. Fred Willard was screamingly funny as the Air Force guy in "Tap" and a real hoot in "Best.." but he's done it. Period. In "Wind" he's over the top, really dumb, doesn't realize it......but it just ain't funny anymore to me. So many of the reviewers (none of whom appear to know much about folk music) have focused on "who" the characters are based on, and this just seems silly and unneccessary to me. Guest was a folkie at one time, he knows his subject, so there's a little bit of everyone who was part of the "commercial" folk music scene in the film. He's only focusing on the "mellow pop" aspects of the revival, so no one should wonder where send ups of Seeger, Dylan, Grossman, Lomax etc. are. Yup, it's a good attempt, and I enjoyed it, but Bill's right, it's like those awful PBS shows......but with a few jokes. Cheers Rick |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Frankham Date: 23 Apr 03 - 06:32 PM One of the reasons that it will not hurt interest in folk music is that in the whole film, there was not one authentic folk song. They were contrived and clever rewrites of the commericalized pseudo-folk song writing of the 60's. But real folk music? Fuhgeddaboutit. I think that this might be one of the key points of the film. Frank Hamilton |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: BH Date: 23 Apr 03 - 06:46 PM Well, Rick, looks like our boat does not have many passengers yet---maybe after more people see it we can sign up some more passengers. Bill Hahn |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: WFDU - Ron Olesko Date: 23 Apr 03 - 07:08 PM The Titanic? |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JudyR Date: 23 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM Sounds like the point *was* the whole vacuousness of that era or aspect of folk music. And they also have to appeal to a fairly wide audience. The average person either barely remembers or hasn't heard of Seegar today (sad to say), and certainly wouldn't know Grossman. It would be just one big in-joke among us -- delicious as it would be. (and some people are their own parody -- how on earth could you send up Dylan more than he has of himself? It's sorta like why they say parodying the 60's always falls so flat -- the 60's were their own parody. As I found when I tried to write about my own experiences then, and somehow never quite nailed it). So, I'm still wondering if the film is funny. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Rick Fielding Date: 23 Apr 03 - 09:14 PM Judy, did you find Guffman, Tap and Show, excrutiatingly funny? If so, you'll probably find a few laughs in "Wind". Rick |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JudyR Date: 23 Apr 03 - 09:21 PM I tell you Rick, I must be the only one who found BIS funnier than Guffman, but I bet that's because everybody had set me up with these great expectations for Guffman, Maybe I need to see it again. But Spinal Tap -- ahhhhhh. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Apr 03 - 10:05 PM Nope Judy....I think BIS was the best of the bunch. Spinal Tap, great as it is, lacks a lot of the "refinement" of BIS and there are just plain more characters you KNOW in BIS. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Distendo Date: 23 Apr 03 - 10:06 PM Well, the Varsity was crowded last Friday night when we went to see it in Toronto, SARS or not... Much merriment. Not as hilarious as "BIS", but some moments of brilliance. I am still chuckling at the concept of "Norwegian fisherman have been using hand lotion for hundreds of years..." I heartily recommend it. |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JudyR Date: 24 Apr 03 - 03:33 AM Thanks, Catspaw. I feel vindicated now (and a little less crazy -- a friend couldn't believe I loved BIS more than Guffman!) I'm really looking forward to this (he, he, "Dulcimer garage band!") (and I won't read any more of David Hadju). |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Rick Fielding Date: 24 Apr 03 - 10:47 AM Catspaw said: "there are just plain more characters you KNOW in BIS." Not in MY life, Spaw! The inarticulate rockers, pushy promo people, guitar nerds etc. THOSE folks are all around me! Now Heather and I are "Cat" people of course....so we don't know too many middle aged ladies of 'hefty' proportions who wear those absolutely HUGE outfits to try and make them "V" shaped. We know even fewer who trot along the street yanking pomeranians with them. I'm always worried that one of the nice ladies will trip, fall and squish her little fuzz ball to death! Cheers Rick |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Amos Date: 24 Apr 03 - 10:53 AM We're slated to see it this weekend. Dunno what to expect -- BIS had me gasping for breath -- "I KNOW that guy....!" -- and Tap made me chortle. I am saving Guffman for the next time I have a serious illness...:>) A |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: JedMarum Date: 25 Apr 03 - 12:25 AM BIS was the best of the lot. I love AMW, too ... it did not have the very very funny scenes that BIS has - but was a wonderful film, and had me seating with a big grin throughout! Great banjo, too! Long neck Vega ... appeared to me to be the Deering version (tuners, wood) but I could be wrong. And what was with the Ovation?? That was worth a smirk all by itself! |
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Subject: RE: Christopher Guest Film 'A Mighty Wind' From: Steve Latimer Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:16 AM I'm going to wait for the video. I still see the order as This is Spinal Tap, Guffman, Best In Show. I'm with Rick, I "know" more of the people in the first two than the third. However, I think that there is just way more to work with in the first too given the egos and eccentricities of rockers and actors. |
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