the producers. young frankenstein. a history of the world part 1.melbrooks.

i was channel surfing one day and came across a show honoring mel brooks. as i watched, i realized i had never seen a mel brooks movie! i know outrageous!! my facebook friends were outraged.  i decided to check out some of his films from the library and play catch up on life. i must add that i enjoyed all of them, though they didn't make me laugh out loud the whole time, i did appreciate the humor.  also loved seeing so many older actors young.  and last but not least, i was definitely scared of gene wilder as a kid thanks to "willy wonka" but thanks to these movies discovered, he truly is amazing!!

"the producers"- i found it great though a little sad how he hustled the old ladies.  and seriously L.S.D. as hitler, hey man, seriously so funny, really cool, baby, really hilarious, man.  lol. loved him. i would totally go see the musical, "springtime for hitler", i mean the theme song was so catchy!! i also about died when they did the swastika formation on stage. so clever yet so horrible at the same time.

also random note but the nazi playwright was the voice of king triton in "the little mermaid"!

"young frankenstein"-  i thought gene wilder was amazing!  loved his instance on the correct pronunciation of "frankenstein".  but who really stole the show was igor, marty feldman!!! i got was my favorite with his "walk this way" and jokes about his eyes.  his dirty jokes were the best too.  i also loved that cloris leachman was in it, love her, though her character was minor.  i will admit that i missed it but thanks to imdb discovered that gene hackman played the blind man!  i will add i did appreciate the allusion to the blind man in the book.  i was also not expecting the "puttin' on the ritz"

performance with the monster, his singing was superb!  lol.  and all of the jokes about the monster's privacy were too much.  

"the history of the world part 1"-  i was shocked by how x-rated this movie was, i mean some of the jokes!  loved that it opened with a 2001 parody though the humping primates got gross.  but i was impressed by how edgy it was!  the joke about the homo sapiens wedding followed by the homosexual homo sapiens wedding was great, also nice to see that cavemen were so tolerant. gregory hines was great.  i couldn't believe he rolled a huge joint to escape the romans!  but my favorite was the inquisition musical number, such bad yet catchy songs!! i mean seeing the jews being tortured was horrible but that is how it went.  also the esther williams-esque number and sparkler helmets for the menorah! amazing!!!!  it was great but will add i did get bored during the french revolution but other than that great!

frankenstein. mary shelley.

back in october, i decided to do this whole monster books reading in honor of halloween.  i picked mary shelley's "frankenstein" to start.

if you are a hardcore fan of this blog, you may have noticed that i didn't number this one.  it lacks a number because i didn't check it out from the library. i read my own copy.  my copy is ten years old and a souvenir from my time on the delano high school academic decathlon team.  sadly, like any other required high school reading, i did not read "frankenstein." what makes my non-reading even sadder is the fact that i had a class period specifically for academic decathon in which we spent weeks reading the novel and i still did not read it.  in my (our team's) defense, our advisor left us in the asb room to read on our own.  i know we were the nerds/geeks of the school, but we were still teens and some of us were starting to show symptoms of senioritis.  when given the choice between reading or playing with random toys leftover from afternoon rally games, we always chose the later.  (sorry ms. andreas if you are reading this.)

and sorry mary shelley but the 28 year old me got why the 17 year old could not get into the book. it is quite slow to start. at first the book is a series of letters from captain walton to his sister explaining his voyage to the north pole. it all seems unnecessary until we find out that captain walton saw some monster out in the ice and then finds victor frankenstein who then shares the story of his monster making. (side note: i would also like to encourage everyone to stop calling the green monster with bolts in his neck, frankenstein, he is actually frankenstein's monster. frankenstein is the scientist. i think a modern family episode covered this but wanted to reiterate the distinction.)

back to the creature making, i personally found it disappointing. i was expecting a grandiose and grotesque description of how the creature was created start to finish but there wasn't that much detail. i get that shelley prolly did not have an strong bio background but she could have utilized her imagination more . . . though i guess the whole creating life from human remains is original on its own and i, having grown up with frankenstein's monster every halloween, find it commonplace so i may have had too great of expectations . . . sorry shelley for being so harsh.

i was really harsh on shelley a second time, when frankenstein came into contact with his creation for the second time. i was upset cos all of sudden the creature knew how to talk. i was tempted to stop reading right there and then due to that being so far fetch (i know, like creating a monster is so realistic). but i read on and accepted how he was educated. i really wanted things to work out with him and that family. it was so sweet how he did chores for them. so i was extremely sad when the old man was scared of him. i know the creature turns into a monster but he just wanted to be loved.

it's interesting because even with all the killing he does, i did have a soft spot for the creature. he turns into to monster for understandable reasons; rejection by the ones he loved the most and the realization that he would never have a future mate and would be left all alone in this world. (i mean we all sided with carrie bradshaw in the first sex and the city movie when she went crazy for the same reasons!) also if frankenstein would have nurtured his creation at the beginning versus rejecting him, the creature would have never turn into a monster. (there is an early child development thesis in there somewhere). and they all could have lived happily ever after.

maybe i am just optimistic but i really believe that if frankenstein created a mate for his creature, she would not have turned into a monster. i understood his worries about her rejecting the original creature as a mate or her being just as violent the first, but he was only violent due to lack of affection . . . and then not getting his way (but his demand was for a mate would equate as affection as well). i believe she was would have learned by example just like he did. the creature's ability to learn how to care for others based on the example of the brother and sister caring for their blind father proved he was a blank slate with some kind of "soul" versus innately evil and soulless. he would have never attempted to do chores for them if by nature he was evil; he had to have a heart to respond as he did. so if frankenstein set up a loving environment for the mate, she would have developed according. (again a ECD thesis.)

all of this reminded me of kazuo ishiguro's "never let me go" and it's questioning of whether a man-made life would still have a "soul"? being one that doesn't believe too strongly in religion, i believe that yes the creatures created like frankenstein's creature and the children of "never let me go" would have a soul but not one necessarily issued by god. i believe that the essence within humans and animals to nurture their young ultimately is what constitute a soul. one possess a soul, if they show the ability to care for another's life and well-being, which therefore demonstrates the understanding of the sacredness of life. it can be assumed that i am supporting the idea that god gives everything souls when in fact, i believe that we gain our "souls" as we gain knowledge. which i guess is kinda how adam and eve started. but it's not something that is just given via god but developed from our environment. so due to this both frankenstein's "monster" and the clones of "never let me go" have souls and should have been treated as so. also in the future when we do start cloning people, i will still stick to my declaration above.

so i guess mary shelley's frankenstein is a lot deeper than just a monster story. aside from sorting out what is a soul, maybe it's suppose to be a discussion on religion as well? the subtitle is "the modern promethus", i guess frankenstein stole the secret of life from the gods? or is god like victor frankenstein? creating humans and then being frighten by us, abandon us to roam the earth? thus religion is our search to come to terms with what we are, just as the creature sought out frankenstein? all in all, i am glad that i finally read this, it wasn't too much of a page turner for me but has some important underlying themes.

also i wikipedia'ed shelley because i was curious as to whether she received recognition as the writer because she was a woman. it's interesting cos i always think of the past as being prim and proper but there was a lot of scandals in her life. she believed in free love and her sister got knocked up by lord byron. i mean it's the stuff of british tabloids!