Quick recap: A politician is out to destroy a western town so that he can take over their land. He sends them the scariest thing he can think of- a  black guy.

Biden always knew how to cheer Obama up

Fun (?) fact: At the end of the movie, when the crowd pours out of the studio lot, a random guy in a sweater can be seen just standing there. He wasn’t supposed to be in the movie but director Mel Brooks couldn’t get him to leave. He finally gave up, gave the man a waiver to sign and let him stay.

and there’s Trump and Bannon. god, this movie is more topical than I realized

My thoughts: You know what kinds of movies I hate reviewing? Classics. And do you know what is even worse than a classic movie? A comedy classic, which Blazing Saddles definitely is. Add to that the untimely death of Gene Wilder and you’ve got the perfect combination of a film I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.

So, since I went ahead and lowered expectations for this review accordingly, I can freely say that I didn’t think Blazing Saddles was all that funny. I’m not really sure why. I sound so old saying this but I just don’t think vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity is all that funny. There’s that one scene when Hedley gets so excited he starts humping a statue and I’m sure people fell out of their seats when they saw that, but it just didn’t do anything for me. Trying not to sound too much like a school marm, I will say that the dialogue was snappy and there were some silly moments that made me smile. Not laugh,mind you, but smile. Also, Gene Wilder was wonderful.

I think some of my hesitation from this movie comes from all the racist stuff. I know it’s supposed to be satire but that’s kind of become a big deal again lately and seeing a bunch of white people hating a black guy just wasn’t the humor I wanted. It hit too close to home. It’s not like I can look at those scenes and laugh and think, ‘oh those silly people back then in the west. They were so backwards!’ because that’s literally what’s going on in this country right now. Not everyone, of course, but enough that watching Blazing Saddles just made me uncomfortable. That’s certainly not Mel Brook’s fault and if anything, I applaud him for thinking that we’d be able to watch this movie in 2017 and look at how silly everyone was.

Final review: 3/5. Sorry

Up next: A Night at the Opera