The Genius of a Christopher Guest Movie

My wife and I have been watching "Schitt's Creek" the past couple weeks. We are taking it slower than other shows we have binged because we want to savor the show. We heard all the good reviews, my mother in law is a humongous fan, and we are in the midst of season three and the show is totally worth the hype, and more than lives up to it. It is an excellent show with tremendous acting and writing and likeable characters. It is truly a great TV show.

I am not here to review "Schitt's Creek" today. I will do that when we finish. In watching this show, my wife and I have been revisiting Christopher Guest's movies because Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are the stars of "Schitt's Creek", and they have been in all of Guest's movies. We plan on going through Guest's whole catalog in the next couple weeks. These movies have been our quarantine date night movies. Two weeks ago it was my pick, and I picked "This is Spinal Tap". Now, I know that Guest didn't direct this movie, Rob Reiner did, but "This is Spinal Tap" is where Michale McKean and Christopher Guest made their mark. They were writers and stars of this movie. Levy and O'Hara are not in this movie, but do our personal mission, we had to go to the beginning. And boy oh boy does "Spinal Tap" hold up. This is a perfect parody of an aging rock band. I watch this movie now, and all I see is the Metallica documentary, "Some Kind of Monster", but that was supposed to be a serious movie. "This is Spinal Tap" is a straight up comedy, and man does it hit a homerun. Guest, McKean and Shear play the main three guys in the band, and they are oblivious to their actual downfall. They think they are stars, even though they get poor reviews and shows get canceled at the drop of a hat. The on stage performance is just as ridiculous. "This is Spinal Tap" is the rock movie parody. I love a movie like "Walk Hard", but there would be no "Walk Hard" if not for "Spinal Tap".

This past Friday my wife had the pick, and she chose "A Mighty Wind". Two weeks, two musical parodies. "A Mighty Wind" is Guest at the top of his game. This one has all the people you have come to expect in one of his movies, and they are all tremendous. Guest, Shearer and McKean reunite, this time as the folk trio The Kingsman. They are so talented and so funny and so musical and it comes across great in both movies. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are in this movie, and they are the unequivocal stars. The movie hinges and rides on their story and relationship. It is crazy to watch this performance, then turn around and watch them on "Schitt's Creek". It is totally separate. But Levy is dynamite in "A Mighty Wind". He is Oscar worthy. He embodies the 60's folk singer, and where I would imagine one would have been in the early 2000's after going through what he did. O'Hara is almost equally as good. She loves him, but she has to move on. She needs to better herself. She needs to live a normal life. But she so desperately wants to be with him. It is opposite their dynamic in "Schitt's Creek". She is Levy's provider. He is lucky to be with her. It is not like that at all in "A Mighty Wind".

This all leads me to Christopher Guest. He is clearly a genius when it comes to making these "mockumentaries". He has a pitch perfect tone. The joke writing and improvising is perfect. The actors are professionals. Everyone seems to be having a great time making these movies. They are so much fun to watch. And that is why I think Guest is so great, but also underappreciated. He hasn't made a movie in awhile, with the last one being "Mascots" on Netflix I believe. I hope he decides to make more movies. I want to see these people work together again. It will be a bummer to not see Fred Willard in the movie, but Guest can still get most of the original crew back together at some point. I'm glad my wife and I started this new thing. I'm glad we added this to our date night. This week will be "Best in Show", and I am so stoked to revisit that one.

Bottom line, these movies are awesome, and Guest is a great actor, writer and director. He deserves all the accolades he has achieved and so much more. The dude is a genius. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.