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Home Entertainment Center => DVD's & Blu-rays => Topic started by: Chiprocks1 on July 23, 2013, 04:54:39 pm

Title: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Chiprocks1 on July 23, 2013, 04:54:39 pm

Blazing Saddles
30th Anniversary Special Edition
(http://i.imgur.com/SW1TShG.gif)

(http://i.imgur.com/XHP7OoV.jpg)

Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLNQv19YpG4

The brilliance of Mel Brooks is in his ability to alter the perceived perception of what a movie is and isn't and Blazing Saddles is probably the grand daddy of them all with the constant breaking of the 4th wall. Just when you settle into this "Western", Brooks throws in a sight gag that takes you completely out of it when he injects modern day artifacts onto the set. The other thing that makes this movie work for me is having the 'movie within a movie' angle which I'm a huge fan of. So when the characters break away from their Western and end up at Grauman's Chinese Theatre to watch the very same movie they were and still are part of, it does give one a good chuckle, if not an outright belly laugh.

There are plenty of laughs to be found here with even more quotable lines that have been beaten into the ground over the years. With that said, the movie is kind of hard to watch today for a couple of reasons. You know all the jokes and there aren't any surprises left to be found anymore. But that's not my biggest issue. The movie in this day and age is very Un-PC with the amount of times the N-Word is thrown about as well as the F-Word. No, the other F-Word. Hey, I get it. It was a different time and era back in the 70's. But today, I just think it plays differently than its original intent and it kind of made me uncomfortable watching this today. It's still a funny movie, but those scenes that I just mentioned are going to stick out like a sore thumb today. Still worth a Rent though.

Great cast that includes Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, Dom DeLuise and Alex Karras.

Title: Re: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Chiprocks1 on July 23, 2013, 04:55:05 pm

Blazing Saddles DVD Screencaps

Coming soon...

Title: Re: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Neumatic on July 23, 2013, 05:06:00 pm

This makes such a great double feature with "Django Unchained," which kept reminding me of this film the whole way through in a strange way.

Title: Re: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Chiprocks1 on July 23, 2013, 05:09:03 pm

I haven't seen Unchained yet (currently in Hold List), but I know all about the numerous times the N-word is used. It is after all a Tarantino flick. So let me ask you this since you've seen both. Is it more offensive to use it in an outright Comedy than in a Drama that is staying true to historical accuracy?

Title: Re: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Chiprocks1 on July 23, 2013, 05:31:52 pm

I think it's offensive regardless if it's comedy or not, but in comedy for me, it seem more so. Just my opinion.

Title: Re: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Post by: Neumatic on July 23, 2013, 05:43:26 pm

Well, I'm not talking about the use of the n-word, I'm talking more about the commonality of an oppressed black protagonist (one pre-war, one post-war) that becomes part of the law and eventually uses that position to address a bigger issue.  Blazing Saddles seems to put a weird happy ending on the whole thing when you watch them back-to-back.

They're both fantasy, let's be honest, and in movies you do have to exaggerate things (which is why it's used WAY more than it probably would have been at the time, but what do I know/), but in Unchained and Saddles, it seems that the N-word is used mostly by the bad guys, not just bad guys but usually the most ignorant, backwards-thinking idiots who use it, the stupidest guys in the room in the case of Saddles.  I'm more offended by the use of the N-word in Tarantino's short "The Man From Hollywood" (despite being said by a black actor) because it didn't fit there, but in "Unchained," the way that black people are treated in the movie is just horrific, you're sort of drenched in this negative association between that word and these atrocities that are going on.  It's powerful stuff.

The word... "Unchained" says if you use it you're a racist f_ck, in "Blazing Saddles" it says you're a f_cking idiot.  And most people would agree with that, even before either of these movies came out.  So I'm not offended by that.   It's offensive when you use the word for no reason or for shock value, or to lash out and hurt someone.  That's offensive to me.  Especially because ANYONE in the world who knows the word KNOWS better.  You only use it when you have something potent to say about it (it's the atom bomb of words: it's extremely powerful, harmful, and you don't wanna face that fallout).  And you really don't need to say any more than George Carlin's bit or Richard Pryor's bit.