Blazing Saddles

Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little in a classic scene

Yes that's right, I'm back baby! After 3 months of inactivity your number one compendium of silly reviews is back in action! At least for this post. We'll have to see if I can keep it going this time...

In 1974 Mel Brooks released two fantastic comedies that were both stunning successes. Young Frankenstein was a spoof of old Universal monster films and, the one we're interested in today, Blazing Saddles. Blazing Saddles is a biting satire of the Wild West and America's attitudes towards it. Particularly in regards to race. However, it must be said, the film is seemingly open to misinterpretation as these reviews from Amazon.com show:

Racism, sexism. Every ism thrown together so as to almost induce vomiting (I don't recall any dry heaving or anything, but if you say so). I heard before watching that this movie was "politically incorrect" (Why do I suspect that you watched this film with the intention of being offended, just so you could complain about it? I hate people who do that.). That is not the half of it! (Yeah! There's all the jokes and the plot and everything too.) This is clearly only meant for the enjoyment of white men (That'll be why it was directed and co-written by a Jewish man with another co-writer being that infamously white racist comedian Richard Pryor then?)  who have no sense of social equality or for the brainless of any race or sex, i.e. the kind of people who enjoy watching Family Guy. (To be honest, Family Guy makes fun of everyone and everything, so it is social equality in action. If it gave other 'races' [there's no such thing by the way, the Human Genome Project found there was as much genetic variation between individuals of a 'race' as between the 'races'. See? I'm informing as well as being fatuous and silly.] an easier ride because they are a different colour, then they'd be racist. Also, what you have done is generalize lots of people by what they watch, which makes you better than your common-or-garden racist how?)

This one's actually from amazon.co.uk, but they've still misinterpreted it:

If you like racist jokes you must definitely see this (The jokes aren't racist. The whole point of the film is to point out the racism that was prevalent in the West, but was completely ignored by the Western films of the time. Every single joke you claim to be racist is actually making fun of the racists. Why do you think the hero of the film is black? Surely if the film were truly racist then all the black people would be stupid, lazy and spend much of their time eating fried chicken. Clearly you missed all those bits where the hero beats the white men by being cleverer than them.) I don't so I rated this with 2 stars. It has nothing to do with the quality of the DVD or with the service rendered by the vending company. This latter was impeccable.

There are other reviews which make the same mistakes, but they're a little repetitive so I'll change tack and just go with someone who thought it was generally crap:

This Movie is so Not Funny! (That is a matter of opinion. Looking at this film's position on all-time funny lists I'd say that the vast majority disagree with you) I sat down and watched this flick with some friends who loved it and i have to say what a waiste waste of my time it was (You really should finish sentences you know... Also, dear reader, bear in mind that his friends 'loved it', I'll refer back to this later on.). This movie tried so hard to be funny but was not funny at all (Again, this is rather subjective, but this is comedy and everyone is different so I'll let it go. Could you at least say why it wasn't funny to you? Y'know, like in a review?). I know a lot of rebiews reviews were good about for this movie, so the film maybe may be good to the older crowd who are in there 40's and 50's (I suppose I should praise you for at least accepting that some people may find it funny...) but for the hip young generation (I know I'm fairly uncool, but who the fuck says 'hip' these days apart from middle-aged parents?) and sophisticated one like mine (Learn to properly spell/type and format a sentence before you go around calling yourself 'sophisticated' eh? For those interested, the correct grammar would have been 'but for a hip, young, sophisticated generation like mine') in the teens and twenties this movie is pure crap (But you yourself stated that your friends loved it. Assuming your friends are of a similar age you have successfully destroyed your own argument. You're an idiot. An actual idiot. You can't spell, you fail to grasp even slightly the concept of correct grammar and you consistently fail to recognise that your beliefs are not representative of all members of your generation). Nothing good about it at all (Except much of it...). I just can not believe people find Blazing Saddles such a great comedy (Because they have better senses of humour than you?). Oh well I hated the movie. (And I hate you.)

I think that'll do for this time. I'll try to get the next one out within the week!