Posted on 05/09/2014 7:05:49 AM PDT by rktman
There are plenty of lousy film comedies, but there are only two that I outright hate: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Both were released in 2006 when Hollywood's fury against George W. Bush had reached its peak, and both let the voters who re-elected him in 2004 have it with both barrels.
On its face you would think that Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" chose the exact same targets (rural Red Staters) to humiliate, but he didn't. With his masterpiece (that has just been released as a special 40th anniversary edition Bluray), Brooks managed to craft a hilarious comedy with a social message, and do it without coming off as a cold, mean-spirited Hollywood snob.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“Please baby, I am not from Havana.”
“Brooks was much more successful at that in his brilliant Young Frankenstein, another imperfect, but much better effort.”
Young Frankenstein spends a lot of the film veering between spoof and homage.
Great Review of a Movie from our favorite “Equal Opportunity Offender”!
LOL!
On a side note...Once i had to wait in the ER for nearly two hours, and on the flat screen TV’s in the Waiting Room was an unedited, uninterrupted “Blazing Saddles”.
It was in inner-City Boston and the “Waiters” were laughing their dreads off.
I do remember Song of the South being on TV years ago. Of course I saw it in the theater when I was a kid but remember it well. A combination of cartoon and live actors. It did have slaves singing and dancing and we know they never did any of that in the old South.
Completely agree with you. Blazing Saddles IS overrated - mostly by guys who love scatological humor. That kind of stuff led to the amazingly horrible Bridesmaids - which I endured for 10 minutes.
Brooks always got brilliant comedians to appear in his films. I think that’s what has kept his profile so high over the years.
Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein. Who would have known how funny he could be?
“When you were slaves, you sang like birds.”
No, thank you, ma’am. Fifteen is my limit on schitzengruben.
I’ve said many times that Blazing Saddles is the most quotable movie of all time. I’d bet that half of the movie has been quoted here on FR, appropriately.
In bed with the flu and just re-watched that movie. It is so funny!
And it does poke fun at everyone!!
"You brute! You brute! You vicious brute!"
LOL!!!
My favorite movie of all time!
Oh Lawdy Lawd! He desp’ate! DO WHAT HE SAY! DO WHAT HE SAY!
Bought a copy overseas on the internet and wouldn't trade it for anything. A wonderful, sensitive film about the South with songs that stick in your mind forever.
Maybe Freepers can also get one overseas like I did.
I don’t think you can get old Stepin Fetchit movies either. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.
I remember a few years ago, a cable movie channel was going to show old Charlie Chan movies, and there were such protests from the liberals, that they decided to cancel their plans for a film festival of the old Charlie Chan detective movies.
What gets me about this, is that nowadays, we see so much blatant and open sexual content, some of which is offensive, in my opinion. Yet we are not seeing some older movies and TV shows, which the liberals find offensive. If being offensive is a key criterion, then it appears that being offensive to the liberals overrides everything else. Something which is offensive due to sexual content, offending religions, etc. is okay in modern Hollywood.
“Well, it got so that every piss-ant prairie punk who thought he could shoot a gun would ride into town to try out the Waco Kid. I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille. It got pretty gritty. I started to hear the word “draw” in my sleep. Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, “Reach for it, mister!” I spun around... and there I was, face to face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away. Little bastard shot me in the ass. So I limped to the nearest saloon, crawled inside a whiskey bottle... and I’ve been there ever since.”
It’s true!
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