Saturday Night Film Comment

I know, I'm 11 and 46 years too late to offer my perspective on 'Waiting for Guffman' and 'The Magnificent Seven.' I don't suppose being born in 1972 is a good excuse?

Nonetheless, these are the most recent movies I have seen and compelled I was to write about them. First up, Guffman.

Maybe the mokumentary thing is the 'soupe du jour' for the comedy genre, but is there anyone out there that does it better than Christopher Guest? 'Spinal Tap' (directed by Rob Reiner), 'Best in Show' and 'A Mighty Wind' are part of Guest's repertoire and each one a consistent deliverer of sublime humour - if not pure hilarity. It's hard to tag the word 'genius' to anything (it's so hard to determine what is genius, right? Except if you're Oprah. She seems to believe she cornered that market), but Guest is as close to deserving it as anybody. In any event, what matters is who does the genre best, and Guest is among the most prolific.

The usual suspects were present in Guffman. Canadian SCTV alumni duo Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara star in the film, as does the under-rated Fred Willard. The cast consists of several 'I know that face' actors (such as Larry Miller and Don Lake) and manages to show new dimensions to their craft. Without getting into the details of the plot - though I will say watching Corky St.Clair do his Cockney dialect is worth a million dollars on its own - it's enough to scream 'rent' this film. It really is that funny, with a thick undercurrent of dark humor added. Behind the laughs are people who define lost hopes and dreams.

The thing that captured me about the second film I watched, 'The Magnificent Seven', is that in these cynical times, where moral equivalence defines our value system, this film provided some shivers in its straightforward exploration of good versus evil. Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen made you believe that -for a price of course - being good is beyond the realm of cool.

Everyone wants to believe that somewhere their lurks the supreme being that will defend all things pure; usually that person is thought to be Jesus (insert your faith here) or God. But in pop culture, The Bat-Man, Spider Man, Super Man (and to a lesser extent. Green Lantern and Captain Marvel) are the preservers and defenders of justice, liberty and altruism. In a larger sense, people in servitude or under the thumbs of a terrorizing dictator, all pray for America to step in and save the day. Like it or not, America is the Bat-Man of mother earth.

Adapted from the Japanese classic the 'Seven Samurai,' the M7 are a collection of American cowboys and mavericks (an all-star cast which included the great Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn and James Colburn) who set out to help Mexican peasants brutalized by a local rogue bandit Calvera played by Wallach. While watching it, I could not help but wonder if The A-Team (in fact, George Peppard could have been easily been cast as one of the M7. Interestingly, Robert Vaughn would eventually become a cast member on the show) was a crude borrower of this film. It was very easy to root for the good guys.

For me, this film restores the concept that some things are just worth fighting for...bastard people.