'Best in Show' is among the best mockumentaries

Best In Show (2000)
Starring: Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Jim Piddock, Parker Posey, John Michael Higgens, Jane Lynch, and Michael Hitchcock
Director: Christopher Guest
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

I first came across this film while channel-hopping, and I thought I was documentary or maybe some reality show. I was astonished at what I was seeing. Yeah, I know people forget the documentary crew is there as time goes on, but these people pitching a fit in an airport with their dog were almost too much to be true. Then, I started seeing familiar faces, and I realized I was watching a movie from the makers of "This Is Spinal Tap", "A Mighty Wind", and other "mockumentaries." Like the two great comedies I just mentioned, "Best In Show" is a fabulous bit of comedic movie making.

"Best In Show" follows a number of show-dog owners as they take part in the Mayflower Dog Club's "Best In Show" competition, where dogs of all breeds come to compete to see who is the top dog and walk away with the Blue Ribbon. There's the lovable country boy Harry Pepper (Guest) with his bloodhound, the simple Gerry & Cookie Fleck (Levy & O'Hara) with their terriers, nut-case yuppies Hamilton & Meg Swan (Hitchcock & Posey) with their hunting dog, the loving gay couple Scott Dolan & Stefan Vanderhoof (Higgins & McKean), and the airheaded millionare Sheri Ann Ward Cabot along with her trainer Christy Cummings (Lynch). From the trips to the show, through the pre-show party, the show itself, and a wrap-up detailing "where they are now", the film stays solidly grounded in the pretense of being a documentary, never breaking style once.


Several of the actors portray their characters so naturally that it's easy to believe their the real thing, such as McKean as the low-key gay hairdresser and Piddock as the consumate professional dog expert who is stuck doing show commentary with an idiot TV announcer (Willard). Other actors, such as Levy and portray such hapless characters that it's impossible to not feel sympathy for them. Finally, we have naked satires, like Hitchcock and Posey's ever-bickering obnoxious yuppie couple and the aforementioned Willard. The mix of these types of characters interacting and moving through a story more realistic-feeling than any of the previous mockumentaries from this same general crew makes this an engaging and constantly hilarious movie.

The DVD version of the film is also excellent. It's got about an hours worth of excellent additional scenes that weren't in the film. These are all great, previously unseen bits... unlike the dreck that is often present as "extras" on DVDs. These scenes were cut for length, not because they were crap. It's also got a commentary track by Guest and Levy that's actually interesting to listen to, and that sheds all sorts of light on how Guest and his actors make these sorts of movies.

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Big-time dreams in small-time theater

Waiting for Guffman (1997)
Starring: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Catherine O'Hara, Lewis Arquette, Bob Balaban, Don Lake, Larry Miller, Paul Benedict, Michael Hitchcock, and Matt Keeslar
Director: Christopher Guest
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A documentary crew follows the casting, staging, and performance of a musical created by Corky St. Clair (Guest), an actor who has failed his way from Broadway to small mid-western town, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the town's founding. When he learns that a New York theatrical producer, Guffman, will be attending the performance, he inspires dreams of major stardom in the small-town amateur actors (Arquette, Keelar, Levy, O'Hara, and Posey) who are performing the play.


"Waiting for Guffman" is a hilarious mockumentary that pokes fun at community theater, smalltown life, and the desire that lurks withine every performer or creative person--no matter how meager their level of talent--to be a star.

From beginning to end, "Waiting for Guffman" is packed with quirky characters and well-done jokes. In some scenes, the jokes are coming so fast, or simulataniously, that you have to watch the film twice to get all of them. (My personal favorite part of the movie is not so much a gag as commentaries that arise from the film... the orchestra plaing the musical's score is almost at a professional level, as opposed to the actor's who are plainly under-rehersed on opening night. The orchestra was being led by a man who kept wanting to have more organization and less touchy-feely, free-form theatre workshop activities during rehersal time.)

The actors are great and very believable in their parts. Christopher Guest, as the effeminite director/playwright, and Parker Posey, as a teenaged fast foodworker, are particularly remarkable and convincing (which is saying something in the case of Guest's character, because it is truly an odd one0, but Fred Willard and Eugene Levy deliver the lines that get the biggest laughs.

An astonishing to me is that this film (like Guest's other films "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind") are mostly improv'ed. The backstory (and in this case the history of Blaine gives rise to much of the film's humor), general plot, and general nature of the characters is worked out, but most of the scenes themselves are unscripted. In "Waiting for Guffman," the only scripted things onscreen is the musical "Red, White, and Blaine", everything else in it was improv'ed and much it was done in just one take.

It's very cool, very remarkable, and very well-performed stuff.

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