Movie Monday: Young Frankenstein

This week for Movie Monday I’m covering another work from my favorite director. It’s Young Frankenstein!

Plot Synopsis: Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is a lecturing physician at an American medical school and engaged to the tightly wound socialite Elizabeth. He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather Victor Frankenstein, the infamous mad scientist; to dissociate himself from his forebear, Frederick insists that his surname is pronounced ‘Fronkensteen’. When a solicitor informs him that he has inherited his family’s estate in Transylvania after the death of his great-grandfather, the Baron Beaufort von Frankenstein, Frederick travels to Europe to inspect the property.

Plot: The plot is pretty good, although if you are expecting anything really serious you’re going to be sorely disappointed. That said there is some some adult themes in this, so children probably shouldn’t watch this.

Characters: The entire cast is amazing, though Gene Wilder as Frederick really steals the show in my opinion. That being said Igor is also pretty freaking hilarious. “Didn’t you used to have that on the other side?”.

Cinematography: This is done in black and white as a nod to the old Frankenstein films, which Young Frankenstein takes many inspirations from.

Music: The music is, as one might expect from a Mel Brooks film, spot on. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.

Overall: A must watch movie.

For those who like: Comedies, Mel Brooks, Spoofs, Hilarity, Awesome Plot, Fantastic Cast of Characters, Great Cinematography, Excellent Musical Score.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but how can you hate all that?

 

Movie Monday: Blazing Saddles

For my Inaugural Movie Monday post, I’m covering my favorite movie of all time. It’s Blazing Saddles!

Plot Synopsis: In the American frontier of 1874, construction on a new railroad will soon be going through Rock Ridge, a town inhabited exclusively by white people with the surname Johnson. The conniving attorney general Hedley Lamarr wants to force Rock Ridge’s residents to abandon their town, thereby lowering land prices. After he sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to shoot the sheriff and trash the town, the townspeople demand that Governor William J. Le Petomane appoint a new sheriff to protect them. Lamarr persuades the dim-witted Le Petomane to appoint Bart, a black railroad worker who was about to be executed for starting a fight. A black sheriff, he reasons, will offend the townspeople, create chaos, and leave the town at his mercy.

Plot: First let me get this out of the way, this is purely a satire. I do not condone the usage of slurs or racial epithets. However the usage here in the film is to point out the obvious bigotry in the usage of such things. Okay with that out of the way, Blazing Saddles is absolutely not for children. However my Dad, who I love dearly and respect immensely, showed it to me when I was 8, so this film had a lot of influence on me growing up. If you ever thought I had a twisted sense humor, or my sense of morality was more than a bit askew, this film might be part of the reason. I always will love Mel Brooks films, because they are almost all funny with few, if any, really sad endings. Blazing Saddles is my favorite of the bunch and I love this film for it’s usage of comedy to show that bigotry is stupid.

Characters: The entire cast is just a mish-mash of comedy and side stitch inducing laughter. However my favorite might just be Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. Or I just might like him as an actor the most. Either way I enjoyed the entire cast, even if we were obviously meant to hate certain characters, they were done in such a way that I really didn’t hate them too much.

Cinematography: This isn’t a Lucasfilm production, in fact the stage props are so blatant sometimes it’s hilarious. Okay you can stop pulling out pitchforks to gut me with, I couldn’t resist doing that.

Overall: If you’ve never watched Blazing Saddles, you need to stop whatever you’re doing (assuming your not at work or something like that) and go watch it right now. Like seriously, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

For those who like: Comedy, Great Plot, Laughing, Amazing Cast of Characters, Their sides aching from laughing so much, Excellent Cinematography, Not being able to breathe from lack of oxygen due to laughing so hard. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but how can you hate all of that?