[jekylljuice]

A Mighty Wind

Another mockumentary from Christopher Guest, structured quite similarly to Waiting For Guffman and with more-or-less the same cast. This time, the subject at hand is folk music, and the efforts of three have-been (if ever) bands to stage a reunion concert in order to pay tribute to their mutual producer, who recently passed away. One of these bands, the Folksmen, is comprised of Guest himself, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, which did feel just the slightest bit gimmicky (despite the act itself apparently having existed prior to the film), but it was great nonetheless seeing them all together again. Another band, the New Main Street Singers, contains only one member of its original line-up (hence the name), and is managed by an utter twit whose cringe-inducing sense of humour and self-importance makes David Brent look relatively sophisticated. The final band, Mitch and Mickey, consists of an ex-couple, whose traumatic break-up all those years ago has left the former emotionally shattered, while the latter has since settled down and married a catheter salesman. Incidentally, it was their centrepiece song, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" which earned the film an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song back in 2004.

Admittedly, I'm not particularly big on folk music, so a lot of the little in-jokes and references probably went entirely over my head, but then nor am I a huge fan of heavy metal music either, and that's never prevented me from enjoying This Is Spinal Tap on multiple occasions. Although I wouldn't exactly place this in the same league as Spinal Tap, or even Waiting For Guffman (which provided me with a lot more laugh-out-loud moments and had a more relishable storyline all-round), it was still a lot of fun, and the Mitch and Mickey story arc gave things a healthy layer of poignency too. In short, not Guest's best work, but worth watching nonetheless.