A Mighty Wind [HD]

Exquisite character-driven comedy, just satirical enough.
Christopher Guest is the anti-Adam Sandler. Guest writes and directs comedies for people with reasonable attention spans, who can appreciate subtly wacky jokes and skilled performances by an ensemble of real comic actors. While he's always in his movies, he's always one of the ensemble, never in a "Look At Me, I'm a Star!" mode. "A Mighty Wind," which he directed and co-wrote with Eugene Levy, is a worthy addition to Guest's filmography--an affectionately goofy sendup of '60s folk music, set against the backdrop of a memorial concert for a folk music promoter. Guest is a master of the ever-so-slightly-askew, presenting his eccentric characters in talking-head interviews in which they matter-of-factly reveal themselves to be totally bonkers. There are so many delightful performances here that it's hard to mention them all, but one should note Guest himself, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer--aka Spinal Tap--as a semi-successful folk trio, the Folksmen; Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara,...

Guest just keeps on going, and going, and going....
Christopher Guest first came to prominence in 1984, as an assistant and star in Rob Reiner's hilarious "This is Spinal Tap".

Guest learned at the hands of the master, and the last 20 years of his career have been spent on mockumentary efforts ("Waiting for Guffman", "Best in Show", and, in 2002, "A Mighty Wind", where he decided to satirize the 60's folk music movement, something he and his fellow Spinal-Tappers had once done as a skit on Saturday Night Live). There are hallmarks in Guest's work. He utilizes a co-writer, the newly popular Eugene Levy (the best part of Steve Martin's recent "Bringing Down the House"), he has a regular cast of character actors that ad-lib their way through zany and satirical situations in all three films, and he conquers the art form of teasing fans and popular culture icons with gentle spoofing, double entendres, hidden meanings, and really great filmmaking.

Although I enjoyed the film in the theater, it really came into its own when...

Mighty entertaining
Let's hear it for Christopher Guest! This man just goes from strength to strength. A Mighty Wind is the flip side of This is Spinal Tap--a gentle mockumentary about the folk era. With a cast that goes for days and great performances too numerous to document individually, the applause has to go to Eugene Levy (with a Thorazine-like brain effect) who is genuinely touching with his fractured mental synapses as Mitch, and to Catherine O'Hara who is utterly believable and affecting as the Mickey half of Mitch & Mickey. Bob Balaban as the organizer of the folk event is humorless sincerity personified. Ed Begley plays a Swedish-born PBS-type producer who breaks hilariously into Yiddishisms; Jennifer Coolidge is howlingly funny as the brain-sharing publicist; Fred Willard is grotesquely funny as the sleazeball music producer whose every idea is gross and/or stupid. Part of what makes this movie work so well is the terrific musical production values. The original songs are so close to the big...

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