FilmBlather.com

"There was some abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature."

I've come to feel that each new Christopher Guest mockumentary is a gift to me personally, complete with wrapping paper and a ribbon. His sense of humor is so in tune with mine, his format so replete with eccentric possibilities, that it would take a disaster of epic proportions for me to dislike one of his projects. A Mighty Wind, the latest one, is not only not a disaster, but a contender for the best in the "genre," which also includes This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. I don't know how he managed to assemble so many profoundly funny people for this production, but I'm glad he did.

Some have commented that the film feels like Spinal Tap because it also happens to involve washed-up musical groups, but it probably has more in common with Guffman in the sense that it concerns the planning of a live show. It seems that a legendary comic producer named Irving Steinbloom has passed away, and his son (Bob Balaban) wants to set up a PBS tribute show starring the most famous acts his father sponsored.

One of these is "Mitch and Mickey" (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), a duet who became famous because of a particularly sweet smooch following the lyrics "there's a kiss at the end of the rainbow." The two fought and broke up, after which Mitch put out two more albums, "A Cry for Help" and "Calling it Quits", before going almost entirely insane. Now, he is reunited with Mickey, who has maintained a semblance of normality by marrying a man with a passion for model trains.

Another band to perform is the Folksmen (Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Guest himself), who've aged somewhat better than Mitch and Mickey. They're rather arrogant about their craft, speaking derisively of a revival band called the "New Main Street Singers," calling them a cheap imitation. The Singers, who are set to open the show (which, by the way, is to take place in "Town Hall"), are headed by Terry and Laurie Bohner, who also practice a form of mysticism called "WINC": Witches in Nature's Colors.

There are other colorful candidates. Larry Miller and the underrated Jennifer Coolidge play two publicists who don't even like folk music, and admit to sharing a brain. Michael Hitchcock is a Town Hall staffer who is irritated by Balaban's incessant carping. Irving Steinbloom's mildly deranged daughter is played by the hysterical Deborah Theaker, whom you may remember as Gwen Fabin-Blunt from Guffman.

I'm still not sure how much of the script is actually improvised. The dialogue -- often spoken to the camera -- has some genius digressions that I don't think could possibly have come from a conventional screenplay, such as the fact that Balaban's Joseph Steinbloom founded the Jewish Children's Polo League. They rode on ponies because his mother didn't like the idea of them falling from all the way off a horse.

There isn't very much to write about A Mighty Wind. I have the temptation to continue quoting its most brilliant bits, but that would ruin them for you. Suffice it to say that just about its every element is genius. There are more characters here than in Guest's other films, but the crisp storytelling keeps them straight, and some of the least prominent people provide some of the biggest laughs.

The movie is making fun of these people, but there isn't very much of Best in Show's vicious satire to be found here. The acts seem to be at least marginally talented musicians, and the laughs come not from their ineptitude, but their sense of importance, their attitudes, their quirks. I'm grateful for anything that makes me laugh this hard.