Best in Show

Pros: great cast and plenty of laughs
Cons: nothing major

This latest directorial effort from Christopher Guest, who also brought us (and acted in) Waiting for Guffman, is another funny, freewheeling (much is apparently improvised) parody. This time the target is dog shows. While it isn’t quite as good as...

Pros: Lots of funny improv comedians doing what they do best
Cons: Christopher Guest doesn't write and direct more movies

Christopher Guest's latest improv-fest, "Best in Show," takes on the wonderful world of dog shows and comes away with a blue ribbon. While it probably doesn't scratch the surface of the humor of his previous films "This is Spinal...

Pros: Funny, silly
Cons: Wanted more about the dogs

The Best in Show is a mockumentary, which is a movie masquerading as a documentary. "Best" purportedly takes us behind the scenes preparation for a dog show in Philadelphia. It is difficult to explain a mockumentary. Think of an actor...

Pros: it was less than 90 minutes long, there was no sticky film on the theatre floor
Cons: very few laughs, poor character development, minimal plot, SO many missed opportunities for humor

I must have walked into the wrong movie theatre. Yeah, that's it. Best In Show has gotten such great reviews, that I'm certain I must have seen some other movie. The movie that I saw was lousy.

The premise of the movie is simple. An...

Pros: The funniest movie of the year
Cons: Christopher Guest doesn't make movies often enough

I can’t remember the last time I’ve broke into tears after fully loosing my composure in theaters, not since Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) have I laughed so consistently. The film forces a giant smile one your face and doesn’t let up...

Pros: very good cast, plot, setting
Cons: hard to find any

BEST IN SHOW takes its title from the final and ultimate prize at a kennel club annual competition. First there is the prize for Best in Breed - which toy poodle is prettier than all the other toy poodles, then there's Best in Group - is this...

Pros: very very funny
Cons: don't care who wins

When you go to see Best in Show (and you should definitely see it), make sure you pick a theatre that plays the movie LOUD. Why? Two reasons:
(1) expect the theatre to be packed with hysterically laughing people; (2) [not unrelated to the first]...

Pros: A really funny movie
Cons: It was'nt a good plot , but it was funny

Now, is this movie actually better than "Waiting for Guffman"? Mmmm, no. As that group of characters built
toward something together, it had more punch in the end, rather than watching the new bunch take turns
...

Pros: hysterical writing and acting all around
Cons: too damned short!!

There are some movie directors I totally trust, and I don't have to know what the movie is about, I don't have to know who is in it, I don't have to know what its budget was. I know that they will give me entertainment for my five dollars(I always try to...

Pros: --
Cons: --

Christopher Guest (who was never a member of Floopy) helms this wickedly funny comedy about Canine-Americans and the odd humans who love them.

Well, love is a strange word. It's quite apparent that the Fleck's love their Norwich Terrier...

Pros: Very funny characters, 'mockumentary' is interesting
Cons: None.

There is a small, growing sub-genre of film that Writer-Director Christopher Guest is single-handedly contributing to. The mockumentary. Guest was one of the writers of ‘This Is Spinal Tap”, a film that is currently enjoying another wave of publicity. He...

Pros: real documentary style, unrelentingly funny
Cons: a pretty easy target

Have you noticed how most comedies today are desperate? They stop just short of getting on their hands and knees and begging you to laugh and pleading with you to love them. I'm sure that if they could add a sitcom laugh track to tell us when to laugh,...

Pros: Very funny, steady pace, keeps you guessing
Cons: Young kids might have questions

With comedic greats like Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, how could "Best In Show" go wrong? It didn't! Personally, I don't laugh out loud very often at movies, but I did at this one.

This wonderful spoof is a hilarious marriage of...

Pros: A crowd-pleaser - very, very funny
Cons: Some people don't find mockumentaries amusing.

There's something about dog shows that's terribly amusing. I know those who show off their purebreds take them very, very seriously, but for onlookers, like Christopher Guest, the possibilities for comedy are endless. In fact, sanity goes to the...

Pros: It had a short theater run.
Cons: It was released on DVD and video.

If you haven't seen it, be very glad. I saw the DVD last night and I am thankful that I didn't waste a theater trip on this canine woofer.

The humor in this movie is a direct descendant of 1970's Mad magazines except that Mad had better writers. Talk about out of touch. These guys spend all their energy pounding feeble stereotype character jokes from 30 years ago combined with camera aware technique that makes you want to suspend the painful disbelief that you are actually watching this junk (are the writers getting on a bit, they hate everyone including the audience?)

Apparently there was little direction and the actors ad libbed a lot. Boy does it show. Eugene Levy is particularly abysmal amongst a bestial herd of lame or confused actors. His predictable loser character is as flat as a pancake. Considering he co-wrote this thing, he has no excuse for his pathetic delivery, it just looks like he is constantly improvising.

A far better satirical movie would have been one that documented these clowns actually making this movie.