A Mighty Wind

[Pedro]

I love the sentimentality of this movie, especially when faced with the awful, mean-spiritedness of something as bad IMO as Best in Show.

You just made a fuckin' war for yourself that you can't afford.

[ono]

Whoo!

In the words of Family Guy's mighty Joe Swanson ... "BRING IT ON!!!"  ;)

(Including the requisite winky-smilie because yes, I am kidding ... not about Best in Show sucking, but about ... aw, fuck it.)

BRING IT ON!!!  

[Pedro]

Ok, I'm not gonna say that Best in Show is not mean spirited.  In a way, it defenitely is.  But many of the characters are obviously exaggerated.  This mean spirited humor is directed towards obsessive strange people.  What's wrong with laughing at them?  It's at times quite absurd.  How  is laughing at Parker Posey blowing up at hotel attendents mean?  And how is that unfunny?!

[ono]

Humor is subjective.  My biggest problem, though, with Best in Show is the way in which they exaggerated qualities in each of the characters that truly brought out the worst in them.  The whole schtick with the dog who needed the stuffed toy was so tired, and it was a pathetic way of looking at these two characters.  I've never seen anyone who'd ever like that, or take things to that extreme, whereas at least with A Mighty Wind, I found it more believable.  And it's more fun when we're laughing with people instead of pointing and laughing at them.  Not to say we don't laugh at A Mighty Wind's characters, but I at least liked those characters.  I didn't like the ones in Best in Show.  Even Willard was off with his dog show commentator bit, though a few times I did crack a smile.

[Pedro]

Humor is subjective.  My biggest problem, though, with Best in Show is the way in which they exaggerated qualities in each of the characters that truly brought out the worst in them.  The whole schtick with the dog who needed the stuffed toy was so tired, and it was a pathetic way of looking at these two characters.  I've never seen anyone who'd ever like that, or take things to that extreme, whereas at least with A Mighty Wind, I found it more believable.  And it's more fun when we're laughing with people instead of pointing and laughing at them.  Not to say we don't laugh at A Mighty Wind's characters, but I at least liked those characters.  I didn't like the ones in Best in Show.  Even Willard was off with his dog show commentator bit, though a few times I did crack a smile.

Humor defenitely is subjective.  I guess I'm a sick person because i defenitely enjoyed the "laughing at them" feeling in Best in Show.  It's not really supposed to be believable....it's a mockumentary, for chrissakes.  Something the whole genre can do is view absurd characters with a feeling of realism.  The juxtaposition of those elements is what makes Best in Show work for me.  With A Mighty Wind, though it's still great, it seems a bit more believable.  Now, mind you, this isn't really, bad, just a lot less humorous.

[ono]

Humor defenitely is subjective.  I guess I'm a sick person because i defenitely enjoyed the "laughing at them" feeling in Best in Show.  It's not really supposed to be believable....it's a mockumentary, for chrissakes.  Something the whole genre can do is view absurd characters with a feeling of realism.  The juxtaposition of those elements is what makes Best in Show work for me.  With A Mighty Wind, though it's still great, it seems a bit more believable.  Now, mind you, this isn't really, bad, just a lot less humorous.

The problem with you saying it's supposed to be a mockumentary is you forget that we're still supposed to believe in the characters.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see This is Spinal Tap yet, but I've heard a lot about it.  You take that, or a film with the premise of something like Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (also unseen by me as of yet), and you see why these films are acclaimed: the characters.  You see why audiences can believe that people like this actually exist: because they are sympathetic.  To me, the characters in Best in Show were not.  It's that simple, really.

I found plenty of humor in A Mighty Wind.  So did the packed house I was with when I saw it that second time.  There's the subjectivity of humor, and the effect of an audience on how you interpret a film.  You laugh more when everyone else is laughing with you.  Likewise, you find things funnier when the spirit behind them is jovial and jocular instead of pejorative.

[Pedro]

Humor defenitely is subjective.  I guess I'm a sick person because i defenitely enjoyed the "laughing at them" feeling in Best in Show.  It's not really supposed to be believable....it's a mockumentary, for chrissakes.  Something the whole genre can do is view absurd characters with a feeling of realism.  The juxtaposition of those elements is what makes Best in Show work for me.  With A Mighty Wind, though it's still great, it seems a bit more believable.  Now, mind you, this isn't really, bad, just a lot less humorous.

Likewise, you find things funnier when the spirit behind them is jovial and jocular instead of pejorative.

I guess that's the place where you and I differ.

[ono]

Likewise, you find things funnier when the spirit behind them is jovial and jocular instead of pejorative.

I guess that's the place where you and I differ.

Perhaps.  But you'll also find that my favorite comedy shows are The Critic, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien (and South Park in certain doses).  Hardly your run-of-the-mill "nice humor."  A lot of it has to do with how it's executed, which is a little more intangible and subjective, which, as I said before, is where I thought Best in Show failed.

[Ravi]

The problem with you saying it's supposed to be a mockumentary is you forget that we're still supposed to believe in the characters.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see This is Spinal Tap yet, but I've heard a lot about it.  You take that, or a film with the premise of something like Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (also unseen by me as of yet), and you see why these films are acclaimed: the characters.  You see why audiences can believe that people like this actually exist: because they are sympathetic.  To me, the characters in Best in Show were not.  It's that simple, really.

The characters in BIS, particularly the Posey/Hitchcock couple, are exaggerated versions of people that do exist in real life.  You don't really believe a record company released LPs without center holes, did you?

I found plenty of humor in A Mighty Wind.  So did the packed house I was with when I saw it that second time.  There's the subjectivity of humor, and the effect of an audience on how you interpret a film.  You laugh more when everyone else is laughing with you.  Likewise, you find things funnier when the spirit behind them is jovial and jocular instead of pejorative.

I can laugh equally hard at good examples of both types of humor.

AMW definitely had its moments, but for me they weren't a continuous thread of personality development like in BIS.  With mockumentaries, I think it is okay for the makers of a mockumentary to have an affection for the "subjects," but I don't like if the film is overly loving of them, like I felt AMW was.  I rather like the condescending tone mockumentaries like BIS occasionally exhibit.

[cine]

Did anybody see the Folksmen perform on Conan?? Really funny segment.

[ono]

I'm posting, though, primarily because The Folksmen from A Mighty Wind are on Conan tonight (so you'll see it on a rerun tomorrow on Comedy Central and next week late at night), along with Christina Ricci and Michael Rapaport.