My views: 12
When my parents first saw this together, my mom loved it and my dad didn't. He bought it for her on VHS soon afterwards, but we didn't watch it for a very long time. I remember having no idea what it was, but thinking it looked really boring. It wasn't until May of 2007 that my mom finally talked me into watching it, and I ended up seeing it a total of five times that year alone, making this yet another of my favorite films that my mom had to initially talk me into watching. My dad also liked it a lot better the second time, and this has since become one of our family's favorites, both to watch and to recite.
This was my first Chris Guest mocumentary, and I'd never seen anything like it before. I was completely unprepared for what I was about to experience, and A Mighty Wind completely blew me away (pardon the pun). I already knew that I was a huge fan of ensemble films, but I had no idea they could be done so well. In this, as in the other Chris Guest mocumentaries, even the people who are only in a few scenes get a chance to shine. This cast is overflowing with talent, both comedic and musical, and it becomes even greater as they play off each other. I still can't believe that it's possible to say some of their lines with a straight face. Even after watching this as many times as I have, I still burst out laughing when Chris Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer start talking about the record with no hole, Jane Lynch describes Witches in Nature's Colors, and Catherine O'Hara sings about Sure-Flo. I also love that, even though they're making fun of folk music, they actually bothered to write quality folk songs for the soundtrack (which I'm of course listening to as I write this), and that they sing them well. This movie reinforced my belief that it's okay to like something both ironically and un-ironically at the same time, which is good because I do that a lot.
Not long after watching this film, I got the other films like it from the library. While I really enjoyed all of them, I didn't think any of them could quite compare to A Mighty Wind. Perhaps it's because I saw this one first, but I find it more charming and less inappropriate than the others. I'm still incredibly happy that this genre exists, and that I can watch other films with basically the same cast in completely different roles. Christopher Guest might be the most versatile actor on the planet, and the rest of the cast runs a close second. When I'm having a bad day, reminding myself that these people exist always makes me feel better.
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