Day #11 of the 30 Day Film Meme

[shadowkat]

Day #11 of the 30 Day Film Meme - A Film You Like From Your Least Favorite Genre

Also easy...since I like very few films in this specific genre.

Watch on YouTube

I saw this on the plane from NY to Seattle in 2018 and I was crying halfway through. It's thoroughly charming and held my interest - which is hard to do on a plane flight. There's so many distractions.

Comments

[cjlasky7]

I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of Westerns. I don't really hate them, but the genre's tropes are so set in marble by now that I find it difficult to care about anything happening in the story. (I can discuss the artistry of a John Ford/Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood, but not with a lot of passion.)

I guess the only thing that would truly interest me would be a complete deconstruction of the genre by a comedy genius.

Hey, we've got one of those!

https://youtu.be/cNCNp61wQL8

"You have to remember that these are simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

"Mongul only pawn in game of life."

[shadowkat]

I'm beginning to think Blazing Saddles is for people who don't like Westerns?

We rented that movie along with 2001, Tom Jones, and Death Trap when we got our first VCR. And my family - who LOVES Westerns. (I took a class in college - "Cinema:The Western" - Joss Whedon and I have that in common, we both studied Westerns, and slasher flicks in college, along with a few other film tropes. I wrote a paper on the Wild Bunch, and had a test on Red River (my mother's favorite film - she knows the song and score, and had the DVD and VHR tape and never grows tired of it - mother is from Liberty Missouri, daughter of a cattle farmer, and her parents toured the West, she grew up watching Westerns), and wrote on Jeremiah Johnson. I've read the shooting script to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I am kind of an expert on the Western trope. I even read all the Louis L'Amour books.)

Also in my humble opinion the best Western parody/comedy made is "My Name is Nobody".
Hilarious and fun.

My love of westerns has to do with my parents who loved them. We watched them every Saturday night. And if a movie came out - rushed to it.

Blazing saddles was funny, we enjoyed it, but it was a bit over the top for me. I think? Also, it is very much a New York take on the Western.

It may be that I prefer subtle wit - and that's not Mel Brooks, a master of over-the-top in your face parody and satire. With one joke firing after the next one. Even the characters are jokes or parodies of the trope.