Review of A Mighty Wind (2003) by Aslum K — 07 Dec 2010

These movies are just SO silly.

[u]A Mighty Wind[/u] is a mockumentary about a concert to honor a fictional dead folk singer / producer featuring all of his reunited peers. There's the Folksmen, a trio, the Main Street Singers, a group that's been franchised over the years and now has new members and management, and Mitch and Micky, a duo that broke up under less than pleasant circumstances. Mitch (Eugene Levy) is half-crazy, but he and Micky (Catherine O'Hara) once had a relationship, though now she's moved on and married a collector of model trains (Jim Piddock). The film is made in the style of Guest's earlier classic, [u]Best in Show[/u] (2000), and like that film, is ridiculous.

The comedy of Guest's mockumentaries is kind of hard to describe, and admittedly, may not be understood by everybody. Basically it's people delivering absurdities with deadly serious expressions. His "troupe" includes some of the funniest and most talented people in the business, including Levy, O'Hara, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and so on, and as a result, everything they do is hilarious. From the bits at the beginning where the Folksmen try to describe their records, to the story of how the new Mainstreet Singers met, to the story of Mitch and Micky are absolutely hilarious, and even though I told myself that this time I'd only laugh if moved to do so (I feared Best in Show was funny to me because the audience was so into it), I found myself rolling at various points. This is a very funny film if you can get into this kind of humor, and should be lauded for that.

More importantly, Guest's style is brilliant. Simple concept, simple execution, much of it looks improv'd, let the talented cast do their thing. Again we see an example of why it really isn't that hard to make a good movie. Guest does these things consistently, and I personally can't wait for the next one.