Very Important Perros

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!

I'll admit that I've never seen "Waiting for Guffman", 1997's critically acclaimed comedy mockumentary about a small town thats that stages a pageant. When the advertising for Best in Show had the tagline "From the Team That Brought You Waiting for Guffman", a fair number of critics out there implied in their reviews that only people that are familiar with the film or its filmmakers and cast would have a good time seeing this film. For shame, critics, for shame times two! Any critic that implies something like that with any film probably doesn't want to share the film's wealth with the rest of the world, but this is one film that I hope people will experience, now that its video/dvd. "Best in Show" is, without a doubt, the best comedy of 2000.

The film begins with a mockumentary style, introducing the main competitors (not to mention screwballs) of the annual Mayflower "Best In Show" competition, where dogs of all breeds come to compete to see who is the top dog. We have the loveable and gullable Harry Pepper (Guest) with his bloodhound, the simple Gerry & Cookie Fleck (Levy & O'Hara) with their terriors, nut-case yuppies Hamilton & Meg Swan (Hitchcock & Posey), the gay dog groomers Scott Dolan & Stefan Vanderhoof (Higgins & McKean), and the airheaded millionare Sheri Ann Ward Cabot (Coolidge) along with her trainer Christy Cummings (Lynch). They all have their minds on one simple object: The Blue Ribbon, which will be awarded to the best dog. And...do I have to tell you the rest?

Director/writer/star Guest's idea of humor is one that assures me that there are comedies out there that are worth laughing at, and that the idiocy of films like "American Pie" or other pointless "teenage" flicks won't take over the world after all. His idea is simple: make your comedy not just funny, but SMART funny. But instead of following in the brilliant footsteps of films like "Zero Effect" and "High Fidelity", he used a rather unusual approach (and as I understand, he also used this approach for "Guffman"). Whether you notice or not, a very large part of the film is improvisation. In other words, what the actors say and do were probably not written in the script, maybe even not even dreamed of by Guest and co-writer/star Levy. But with a gentle hand from Guest, he and the actors pulled off a hilarious theatrical feat that probably would have flopped if handled by other, less adept actors. Now that's smart!

The cast is, of course, what makes improv work the most. All of them are a (comedic) marvel to behold, especially Guest as Pepper. But the real standout has to be Fred Williard as Buck Laughlin, the clueless announcer at the competition who can spin out the most outrageously funny stories and comments that no announcer would even dream of...that is, if the announcer was trying to be funny. Williard can go from talking about the dog to suddenly going on and on about how much he can bench press. There's even a part were he gives out an idea for a new marketing strategy: have sexy women pose in tight shirts and shorts with the dogs and imply something like "have a doggie-style of a time". Its priceless, as is his performance.

I hope that people engage in this 90-minute "dogumentary". The film deserves so much recognition. It did get nominated for Best Picture-Comedy at the Golden Globes, but didn't win. I can't see why. I mean, in the comedy department, it is best in show.

GRADE: A

This is the best of the films (so far) that Christopher Guest has created using his very talented ensemble cast. Previously, they'd made the excellent WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and following BEST IN SHOW, they made the very enjoyable A MIGHTY WIND. As for their latest, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, the less said the better.

The film appears to be a documentary about dog shows and several contestants in particular. You follow these few chosen dogs from pre-show preparations all the way to the big night where one of them is chosen best in show at the fictitious "Mayflower Kennel Club". However, none of these people are real dog show enthusiasts but talent improvisational actors that parody many of the common types of people you meet in the dog show world. Amazingly, even though the characters are rather outlandish, there is a lot of truth to the personalities they are parodying--as decades ago I had some experience with dog shows and this is a VERY cutthroat group of people! My favorites of the dog owners were the incredibly high-pressure and tense yuppie couple who just exuded anger and volatility. I also loved the openly gay couple, as they were terribly funny and clever. However, the best performance probably wasn't from any of the couples but from Fred Willard who played the world's stupidest and least talented announcer in human history. His comments were uniformly inane and often betrayed him as an incredibly stupid person--how he got to be the announcer for such a prestigious show is anyone's guess. The other contestants featured were also quite funny--the high-priced professional poodle handler and its rich owner, the country boy and his hound as well as Winkie's "parents" who could barely scrape together enough to make it to the show.

Despite the improvised style of film making, the pieces all fit together wonderfully and told a very funny and compelling story--one that is NOT for dog owners only. Exceptional acting made this one of the best comedies of the last decade. Clever and consistently funny.

By the way, try to find this on DVD as the extras were actually worth seeing. While a bit painful to watch, I loved seeing Harlan Pepper and his beach ball collection in particular!

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.

Anything by Christopher Guest is good for a laugh and when it comes right down to it, you can really only compare Guest films with Guest films because no one even comes close to his ability. I would place this one up near the top, but again you can't really go wrong watching any of his movies.