Best in Show

It's not often that I laugh out loud at a movie, but this one made me several times. I fell in love with Parker Posey in this movie. I don't really know why since she's completely mean and pretty much unlikeable, but she's just so good. The "busy-bee" exchange with the guy in the pet shop makes me crack-up every time. And what can you say about Fred Willard and Eugene Levy...

It's a mockumentary about a dog show and a bunch of wacky dog owners. Don't expect to be moved in some epiphanatical (I might have just made up a word) way after watching this movie, but if you just let yourself get caught up in the absurdity, you'll probably have a few good laughs.

This is the only Christopher Guest movie that rivals Spinal Tap and Princess Bride for sheer entertainment value, but somehow never gets near the recognition. The plot surrounds the contestants--dogs--and their owners as they venture into the world of competitive dog...OK, it's about a dog show. The owners truly are characters, as one would have to be to be so attached to their dogs. That's really all there is to it, but that makes it funny enough.

You'd never be able to convince me that a mock-u-mentary about dog shows would be funny prior to catching the hilarious scene where Levy and O'hara visit Larry Miller's house on TV...but that's really all it takes to convert any doubters. Spinal Tap was non-stop hilarity, joke after joke whereas Best in Show was had a few more lulls (and by that I mean say 3 minute at MOST where something riotously funny doesn't happen), but the big laughs are even bigger.

The casting in this one is great and even the typically out of place in, uh movies in general Parker Posey does a fine job. In fact, her tirade directed at Ed Begley Jr. and a pet store owner over a lost dog toy is probably the funniest running gag of the film.

What's amazing about this movie to me is how the writers somehow managed to weave a plot, simple as it was, around these great jokes so that it actually felt like it had direction. I guess there's a freedom in having such a minimal plot. Everyone's role is pretty well crafted here and the characters are rarely over-the-top. The realism of how pathetic they seem to the outsider is what makes it funnier than Mighty Wind or the uneven Guffman. I actually encounter wierdos like this now and then. If you like Guest's stuff at all, you should definitely own this one.

Before the lights went out and the movie Best in Show began, the representative from Warner Bros. asked the audience two questions: "Any Spinal Tap fans?" and "Any dog fans?" The audience responded affirmatively in both instances, and such began the movie. If you answer yes to both of these questions, this is a must-see movie. If you answered no, you should still see this satirical romp following the actions of the Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia. The director, writer and star of Best in Show, Christopher Guest, is no newcomer to fake documentaries. As the lead guitarist in the aforementioned This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and the director, writer and star of Waiting for Guffman (1997), he is perhaps the master of the field, exploring a common theme, as reflected in the Guffman tag line: "There's a good reason some talent remains undiscovered." Guest explores this theme further in Best in Show, looking at ordinary people not mockingly but almost tenderly. You understand the characters' fears and insecurities, and you can only see too much of people you know or yourself in them. More importantly, you like these characters. When Eugene Levy's character Gerry Fleck reacts to his wife Cookie's (Catherine O'Hara) past wild sex life, you know that this is a man who loves his wife and whom his wife loves, despite his huge dorkiness and her having slept with almost every man they meet. "Pookie and I work as a team," he says, and they do, singing in harmony about their beloved terrier. The other characters are as banal and human as they can be; the braces-wearing yuppie couple, played with aplomb by Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock, take their dog to a therapist because the dog is depressed and angry about having seen the couple in the Congress of the Cow Kama Sutra position. They wax poetic about having been "raised amongst catalogues," extolling the virtues of J. Crew and L.L. Bean, and describe their similarities as loving "soup, outdoors, snowpeas, talking and not talking." These two are perhaps the most caricaturistic and one-dimensional of the characters in the film, but you feel sad for them for their transference of parental instinct onto their woeful dog. Best in Show has its share of comedic highs, most notably, the interplay between Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard), the hopelessly clueless commentator, and Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddock), the British dog expert. As Buck barrages Trevor with inane and hilarious questions, Trevor brings up the most specific detail about the different breeds and the particular judges. Buck reminds me of my Uncle Bob, the man who doesn't know anything about anything but talks about it anyway, and it's perhaps the funniest part of the movie. This movie is kind to its characters while making fun of them, and the result is hilarity. While I'm curious about the new Tim Meadows' vehicle The Ladies Man, this is the most original and, arguably, the funniest comedy out right now.

You would almost have to have seen the dog show world first hand to understand all the delicious inside jokes, but even if the extent of your dog show experience is an occasional glimpse of the Westminster Dog Show telecast, you'll howl with laughter.

Conformation dog showing is a world of illusion in which everyone tries to make perfect dogs out of something less. Best in Show strips the illusion away in a brutal satire that undoubtedly had every dog person on the planet cringing in horror and delight. "Isn't that just like so-and-so?" and "I'm nothing like that!"

Christopher Guest may have topped his supreme masterpiece "Spinal Tap" with this signature mockumentary in which he skewers all of dogdom. You will recognize Fred Willard's vapid and obnoxious television host as none other than Joe what's his name from Westminster, and the tension between him and Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddock) is a thinly veiled roman a clef of David and Joe at the Big Show.

There are a few gaffs, like the fact at all the dogs at the Show are supposed to be champions before entry, but that doesn't detract from the fun. John Michael Higgins, who steals the show as the uninhibited handler, and Michael McKean are hilarious as the gay couple going out of their way to be outre. Co-writer Eugene Levy (American Pie) is perfect as the husband finding out that his wife Catherine O'Hara might be Miss Congeniality of all time. I also loved Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as the overwrought yuppie couple who project all their angst on their poor dog. Larry Miller turns in a great cameo as one of the countless men in O'Hara's past.

A lot of people didn't get this gem. To them I can only say Bad Dog, Bad Dog! For the rest of us, it's Sit, Stay, and Enjoy!

Christopher Guest is a comedic treasure. Not only does he know just how to "mockument" the truly mundane (in this case, the show-dogs and their weirdo owners) but his characters are always so run-of-the-mill yet bizarre; they're either out of touch or wacky Midwesterner; people you can't help but laugh at. With Best In Show, it feels like he's playing that to the hilt and I think it's my favorite movie of his as a result

This is an ensemble cast in the best sense, a group of people perfectly at home with the material -- clumsy, ordinary and awkward -- yet they utter some of the most ridiculous things. I don't think I could stand to be around any of these people, but they kept me in stitches the entire time. The only person I can really single out is Fred Willard, and it's because (I have no doubt) he was let loose as the competition's sportscaster and improv'd the whole thing. The guy doesn't let up!