2023, Kids, Movies

Happy Birthday Mel!

41 Comments

YA and I went to some friends’ home to have dinner last week.  They live in an apartment with a security system; you ring their apartment and they buzz you in after you’ve identified yourselves.  When Peter answered the ring, I said “Candygram for Mongo”.  YA looked at me as if I had hot frogs on the loose.

I saw Blazing Saddles at the Grand Theatre in Northfield when it came out in 1974.  I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair a couple of times.  Like Star Wars, I went back two more nights in a row to see it again.  Also like Star Wars (and Princess Bride and Romancing the Stone), I dragged various friends with me on those additional nights.  I’m a huge Mel Brooks fan, starting way back in his early writing days of Show of Shows into his directing years of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and up to 2000-Year-Old Man in the Year 2000. I love that he was politically incorrect about everybody and everything.

Mel Brooks has been on my mind since we had dinner at our friends’ home because, to my utter shock and dismay, neither of them had ever seen Blazing Saddles, they were with YA on the “hot frogs” theory.  How is that possible to be an older adult in America and never had seen Blazing Saddles.  Isn’t there a law against that.  Turns out they’ve never seen Monty Python and the Holly Grail either.  I may have to re-think my friendship with them.  At least they have seen Princess Bride.  I might have had to leave their apartment otherwise!

Yesterday was Mel Brooks birthday…. He is 97.  He’s been retired for quite some time but is still alive and kicking.  He gave an interview yesterday saying that he was glad to still be alive!  I’m not sure there will ever be anyone else quite like him!

Tell me about movies you’ve seen REPEATEDLY.  To the point that you quote them standing in apartment building lobbies.

41 thoughts on “Happy Birthday Mel!”

  1. You’ve hit many of my repeats, VS.
    Adding Airplane!, “And don’t call me Sherrilee!”
    The opening monologue from Patton is memorized.
    Gettysburg. “General Lee. I have no division.”

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  2. I adore Cary Grant. To Catch a Thief and People Will Talk are favorites and I probably shouldn’t admit how often I turn to one of them. Arsenic & Old Lace. Father Goose. Penny Serenade. Holiday. My Favorite Wife.

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  3. harvey casablanca , treasure of the sieria madre, , some like it hot ,you can’t take it with you, born yesterday, cabernet, apocalypse now, the lion king, the misfits anatomy of a murder, the apartment

    it does go on and on

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  7. The Odd Couple is a play by Neil Simon. Following its premiere on Broadway in 1965, the characters were revived in a successful 1968 film and 1970s television series, as well as several other derivative works and spin-offs. My longtime favorite that I invited men who were living together to watch with me. I loved all versions and repeats of the tv show. Would loved to have seen the Broadway version live and in person!

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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  8. Casablanca and Young Frankenstein are my two all-time favorite movies (drama and comedy, respectively). I’ve seen each at least 30 times, I think. A New Year’s Eve tradition.

    Others that get repeat viewings are Silverado (talk about an all-star cast!), Raiders of the Lost Ark, It’s a Wonderful Life (my wife insists every holiday season), Love, Actually (another great cast. Bill Nighy steals the show.), Gran Torino, White Christmas, Miracle, Good Will Hunting.

    My wife is more of a repeat watcher than I am. She has a regular rotation of rom-coms she loves: Pretty Woman, Return to Me, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, While You Were Sleeping, Mamma Mia, The Holiday, and Notting Hill.

    I’ll admit to watching many of my wife’s faves with her when I have nothing better to do, but I don’t make a point of watching them as she does.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Saturday, 9-1, Bridge Square in downtown Northfield, MN. Please come see me and perhaps buy a book or two at RIverwal Market Fair. Lots of food, music, kids activities, and 30-40 vendors of all sorts including me. Looks like a nice day for a road trip if you’re in the Twin Cities and want to experience a little small-town charm.

    My new book, Little Mountain, Big Trouble, is available to order from your favorite bookseller or from me at my website, but I won’t have copies in hand until my next appearacnce in Hopkins on July 15. **End BSP**

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  9. I’m very sorry, VS. I hope we can still be friends but I’ve never seen Blazing Saddles or the Princess Bride. I think I did seem Romancing the Stone once. I’m so sorry. I’m just permanently way behind on movies.

    When I left DNR and returned to my true calling (working with disabled people), I worked with a seven year old boy. He was adorable, simply a little heartbreaker. His mom left him at the hospital, the County Social Services stepped in, and he was put in our care. It was a pretty big deal.

    He was naughty, of course. You can’t blame him for it at all. Anybody his age and with his experiences would be naughty. He couldn’t get around on his own but he sure could make his opinions clear. One thing that would calm him down was the adorable Pixar movie “Up.” He had autism and he loved to watch that movie over and over. He would say Wheee when Mr. Fredrickson used the chair lift to go down the stairs, he said Awwww when Mrs. Fredrickson died and when Kevin had babies, and he loved the little Boy Scout (small mailman) and the dog, Doug. When the movie ended, he wanted it started over at the beginning again. I got used to that movie playing all the time. I think it’s still one of my favorites.

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    3. YouTube reaction videos are quite popular. People watch movies or listen to songs for the first time. You could record yourself watching Princess Bride and then post it.

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  10. Harold and Maude, Shawshnk Redemption, A River Runs Through It, Babette’s Feast, Big Fish, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. These are films that come immediately to mind, but I’m sure there are others.

    I have seen Blazing Saddles, twice. Didn’t much care for it the first time, so at the insistence of a friend, and to see what I missed the first time, I saw it again. I still didn’t see it. I suppose that’s almost worse than having never seen it as far as a qualification for friendship?

    O.T. Just returned from Philip’s memorial service; it was quite lovely. The last time I attended a funeral in a Russian Orthodox Church was in Moscow in 1964.

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  11. Well, there is the aforementioned Hair from yesterday…

    Monty Python & Holy Grail, but this is partly because there were two boys (Nephew was with us at the time) who were quoting it all the time around the house. We saw Spam-a-lot on stage first year we were back.
    A friend used to watch Life of Brian every Easter…

    Audrey Hepburn movies – if I didn’t see them twice right away, I would have liked to, and have seen some multiple times over the years – Charade, B’fast at Tiffany’s, The Nun’s Story, Two for the Road, Funny Face…

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  12. The movie ‘All that Jazz’ is my repeat favorite. And I know I’ve said before how I have the soundtrack on my computer and I play it during heavy theater times.
    And ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is a favorite.
    The Music Man, Singing In the Rain.
    With the TV we got in December, we have Pluto TV which has lots of movie channels (with commercials) so I see bits of lots of movies. And it seems like they pick a movie and it will be on 14 times in a month, then they’re on to another one. So any of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies are worth watching again.

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  13. Oh gosh….where to start? At an actual movie theater I saw “Jaws” twice, “Rocky” three times, and the original “Star Wars” trilogy at least 2 or 3 times. When I still had TCM as part of my cable package I was able to watch many of my favorites over and over……”Casablanca”, “The Great Escape”, “Bringing Up Baby”, numerous Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Alfred Hitchcock movies, “Some Like It Hot”, “The Apartment”, etc. I still own quite a few DVDs including “The Princess Bride” (numerous quotes), “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Indy Jones and the Last Crusade”. I have seen “Blazing Saddles” but it’s not one I watch repeatedly. With streaming, I can watch my favorite Pixar movies over and over. I especially like “Up”.

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  14. OT-there are construction workers on our street putting in new gas lines, as well as phone utility workers from several companies on nearby streets,
    and the gas guys on our street came to us and asked if we could help them with a lost, elderly beagle who appeared by their trucks. She followed me into our back yard, where we secured her, and I phoned animal control and they came and got her. They will phone the vet office listed on her tag and get her home.There is too much going on here!

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  15. I don’t think I ever saw Blazing Saddles. I saw Young Frankenstein once and I liked it, mostly because of the cast. But once was enough.

    There are a few movies I’ve seen twice or three times possibly and I’ve probably seen The Wizard of Oz more times than that—by happenstance rather than by choice.

    So far I’ve seen The Booksellers three times and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

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    1. Trust me. Princess Bride fans will enjoy this. And it might be that Trail Baboons can talk Krista into watching and recording First reaction.

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  17. I have seen Young Frankenstein many times and love it. Blazing Saddles didn’t grab me in the same way, though I liked it well enough.

    A movie I can watch over and over is Galaxy Quest. It’s a funny movie, but one in which you connect with the characters on a number of different levels.

    It’s a Wonderful Life never gets old. Nor does Fiddler on the Roof.

    I also watch The Lion in Winter now and again. The performances by Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and Anthony Hopkins are riveting.

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