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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Sunday, January 10, 2016

entry arrow9:44 PM | Film Log 13: Blazing Saddles



Today I needed to laugh. So I went for a sure thing. It has been a while since I've seen Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (1974) a grab-bag comedy classic that surprisingly improves on memory. When I was younger, its silliness amused me to no end. Now that I am older, I laugh at its sheer audacity, and the brilliant crassness of its humor that -- given the passage of time -- has graduated to become a kind of superlative wit. Even its largely politically incorrect language -- "faggots," "twats," and "niggers" abound -- seem largely essential even now, considering that this was furious satire of the myths of the American Wild West in a time when racism was still an institution. That the film closes in post-modern chaos, revealing itself to be a manufactured Hollywood creation, seems more inspired and telling than Deux ex Machinining. With this, and Young Frankenstein (1974) and The Producers (1967), Brooks had created a brand of comedy that is perfectly of its time, although it eventually became diluted with later forays such as Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). And Madeleine Kahn. Darling Ms. Kahn, the perverse and sweet Teutonic Titwillow, and Oscar-nominated for the role. Comedy has never been the same without her. ★★★★★



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