Last movie you watched......

I think you're right, but I also think it's understandable. If you watch 1,000 movies a year from a critical perspective, and you watch a dozen movies a year for a good time, your expectations and, more important, your wants and needs, are going to be vastly different. I'm not necessarily looking to be challenged when I go to the cinema. I'm looking for a couple of pleasant hours in the dark.

 

Mel Brooks' movies ranked:

1. Young Frankenstein

A perfect blend of satire and gags, this has to be in the top tier of all time comedy films. An all star comedy cast delivers the goods.

2. Blazing Saddles

The best known and most influential of his films because of the groundbreaking racial humor which is losing traction over time. First rate cast for the most part, (sorry Cleavon). Slim Pickens steals the show.

3. High Anxiety

This is an underappreciated gem. It has the perfect ensemble cast of Brooks, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn not to mention Ron Carey (“I don’t got it”). The Hitchcock satire bumps it way up.

4. Spaceballs

The best production values but without his A list comedic cast. Some great gags here, including the cultural differences mocked in “combing the desert”.

5. The Producers

Famous satire and wit which has transcended the original film. I am guessing Mr. Brooks made a ton of money off of this, he deserved it.

6. The History of the World Part I

A lot of funny innuendo in this one. Gregory Hines stood out for me.

7. Silent Movie

'Nuff said

8. Dracula, Dead and loving it.

Leslie Nielsen makes this the best of the worst.

9. Robin Hood, Men in Tights

They should have let Dave Chappelle direct and write rather than give him his first acting job as “Achoo”.

10. Life Stinks

The only thing I remember is that they had a Richard Pryor movie with the same premise.

 

Cleavon only suffers (marginally) by theoretical comparison because he's not Richard Pryor.

And IMO Pryor was too edgy to have delivered Sheriff Bart's lines with a wink and twinkle as Cleavon did.

If Bart is bitter and vengeful, the crass racist lines out of the white characters fall flat. They're not funny.

Maybe later in his career, the mellowed-out post-cleanup Pryor would have been a good Bart.

But in the mercurial fiery early coke-stoked years of his stardom, he'd have made Bart too vicious and menacing.

 

Yes. But rarely has critical consensus been so...uniform...on so many movies. The range used to be wider. I think many critics have similar worldviews at this point.

Music criticism is nearly a lost cause at this point, with critics purposely staking out esoteric territory that suits the interests of whatever trend exists at that moment.

 

Wait, movie critics still exist?

 

There's a good case to be made that music criticism harbours the worst writing on the planet. So much of it is fart sniffing.

 

What about the one about the Polish theater troupe before Germany invades in 1939? Is it 'To Be or Not to Be'?

 

I agree Cleavon is better in this part than Pryor would have been. He was essentially playing the cool, wise cracking, straight man, see Dean Martin. It's hard for me to go back in time and say who would be better, if anybody.

 

Yeah. In 85% of potential roles Pryor would be the pick. But in that one particular role at that particular time, Cleavon was perfect.

It was kind of funny "Saddles" didn't boost Little's profile more than it did. Four or five years later, he was playing a minor role as a bit player on a "Rockford Files" episode -- a guy with five lines in the whole show.

 

He just starred in it. It was a remake and directed by someone else.

Also, he was the producer of the Elephant movie.

 

Brooks spoke at a screening of Blazing Saddles in Boston two years ago and said the reason they didn't cast Pryor was that they could get no insurance for the production if he'd been in the lead.

 

Right, Pryor's health habits and work-attendance habits weren't too good throughout the Seventies. But whether it was intentional or not, I think Brooks was better off with Cleavon Little as Bart.
For instance, in the quicksand scene, can you imagine Bart as played by Richard Pryor just whacking Taggart in the head with the shovel -- as opposed to taking his head off?