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Best in Show

Best in Show

List Price: $19.97
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Funny is an understatement
Review: This is the most hilarious film Iv seen in a long time. Did anyone else know that this movie was 100% ADLIB. That takes talent.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best from C. Guest yet
Review: I admit, I was let down by Spinal Tap for it was only funny once in a while. Waiting for Guffman was the same...funny in parts but not as a whole. Best in Show may be the funniest film ever made for ones with a dry humor. Best in Show ia far far better than Spinal Tap and Guffman for the characters are funnier, the lines are funnier, and the people within are much more familiar to ones we all know than in the previous films which were not that great. Best in Show is the best. Spinal Tap and Guffman all have long streches of bordeom...Best in Show is funny every half minute.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: SO FUNNY! DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND SEE THIS FILM!
Review: This was one of the funniest, best movies I have ever seen period! I laughed all the way through it! Now, if you are not a complete dog lover like I am you might not think it's so funny. But for dog lover's, you must see this film!....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not as Good as Guffman
Review: Maybe I went in with unreasonable expectations...Waiting for Guffman, a movie that shares essentially the same cast & writers as Best in Show, is one of the absolute funniest comedies ever. This second effort, though laugh-out-loud funny in parts, just doesnt reach that same plateau. It could be that too many sub-par scenes had to be added to the movie to give it a feature film length. Too much screen time is given to the hotel manager & dog-show organizer, leading to large stretches of film devoid of comedy. Dont get me wrong, parts of this movie really fly! Christopher Guest & Eugene Levyy are brilliant. Catherine O'Hara does excellent work as well. As has been written by other reviewers, Fred Willard steals the show. And many other actors have their moment to shine, too. It just doesnt sustain that high level throughout the entire movie. I would encourage anyone to rent this movie before buying, to see if it meets their expectations. Its good, but its no Guffman.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: enjoyable comedy
Review: ***1/2 Comedies come in many different shapes and forms. Some, like Eddie Murphy vehicles, feature a main character who is demonstrably more intelligent than any once else around him, so we, in the audience, get to feel superior right along with him. We actually derive comic pleasure out of flaunting that superiority. Another type of comedy is one in which the audience is made to feel superior to EVERYONE on screen. This is the category into which Christopher Guest's clever and zany mockumentaries, "Waiting for Guffman" and now "Best of Show," belong.

So how does Guest manage to pull off this delicate high wire act of making us feel better than the characters on screen yet not having the movie slide over into cruelty and sadism? Quite simply, he makes us see ourselves in the characters at the very same time we are laughing at them. As a shrewd observer of human nature, Guest casts a scathing, yet at the same time utterly affectionate, eye on the bizarre rituals of small town Middle America. In the case of "Best in Show," Guest opens up to us the strange milieu of dog show competitions and the people involved in them. As in "Waiting For Guffman," he has assembled a cast of lovably eccentric characters to both act out the little dramas of their lives and address the audience directly in the form of mock interviews. There is no point in reiterating the specifics of the many colorful characters whose lives we follow in the course of the film. Those you can check out for yourself. Suffice it to say that Guest makes us see many of our own obsessions, peculiarities and insecurities reflected in these people. True, competitive dog shows may not be our own particular cup of tea, but we all fixate on SOMETHING that the rest of the world seems ignorantly unwilling to understand, something we may hide from our fellow men simply because they will not "get it." "Best in Show" lets us laugh at ourselves without our having to reveal our own personal sore spot.

The large and superb cast is called upon to hit just the right comic note, ranging from subtle pathos to over-the-top absurdity - and it is a challenge the actors meet with flying colors. Perhaps to demonstrate his egalitarian spirit, Guest gives some of his funniest bits to Fred Willard as a show announcer who has not a clue as to the finer points of the competition. As the one person not initiated into the mysteries of the proceedings, Willard's character seems more out of touch than the eccentrics who get it all.

On the laugh meter, "Best of Show" doesn't rate quite as high as "Waiting For Guffman." But for its moments of homespun cleverness and charm, it is definitely a comedy well worth checking out for yourself. "Best in Show" indeed!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Genius of Christopher Guest
Review: Although this isn't as cultish as "This Is Spinal Tap" or as laugh-out-loud-funny as "Waiting for Guffman," "Best In Show" once again showcases Christopher Guest's brilliance as a writer/director of "mock-umentaries," as well as his impeccable taste in assembling the perfect cast. Guest takes the least-showy role of soft spoken Southerner, Harlan Pepper (a far cry from Guffman's flamboyant Corky St. Clair), and surrounds himself with the likes of Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy as a woman with a dubious sexual past and her hapless husband; Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as a strident yuppie couple who tear into one another mercilessly over what's best for their beloved dog; Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins as a middle class gay couple who sing their dog lullabyes over the phone; and the hilarious Jennifer Coolidge (in a send-up of Anna Nicole Smith) as a vapid fortune hunter married to an ancient millionaire while maintaining a curiously close relationship with their dog trainer played by Jane Lynch. The movie has a gentle, lilting feel, humorous but not screamingly funny, and takes time to develop these characters fully while exploring the tense and cut-throat world of dog shows. Fred Willard nearly steals the show as a pompous, ignorant commentator. There are so many wonderful moments in this film, you have to check it out for yourself. Not for everyone, I'm sure. The story is fairly basic and, like Guest's other films, this is more a character study than anything else. If you're a fan of his earlier work, this is a must-see.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Almost but not quite...
Review: Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this movie a great deal, but it just didn't have the comic punch I was expecting. I walked into it thinking I was going to be seeing a Spinal Tap about the dog show world, but the improv and writing just wasn't up to that grade. There were some great stand out performances, especially Fred Willard who was hilarious as the announcer. But overall the movie didn't gel correctly. I think Christopher Guest needs to get back with the boys from Tap to learn how to make a good mockumentary

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Did anyone else find this tough to track down in a cinema. I did ( It's amazing how cinemas give distinctly average films repeated showings, and squeeze a gem like this on at about 11:00pm on a monday night)Anyway this is brilliant stuff. It's natural to be wary of a premise like this. A film about a dog show, eh, hmm. It would usually be a variety of "ahhhh cute ikkle doggies" performing a variety of human emotions. Of course with the inevitable love story ( both human and canine). But is it? Hell no it's a subtle poke at some overly doting dog lovers, with great casting and a hilarious script. This film falls into the ever rarer category of actually being better than your expectations. I kid you not, at the cinema I was at people were crying with laughter and rolling about in the aisles. One man was pretty much laughing from start to finish. He must of missed every second joke trying to recover from then one before. This is something special.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: priceless
Review: i like movies and i am not not shy about laughing at the theatre especially if the movie is clever. this movie is hysterically funny. it is virtually impossible to think of a single "dog related" constituency that this movie doesnt spoof. and not in a mean way either at all. from parker posey to guest and levy themselves to the unbelievably innane fred willard, i literally wept with laughter. and i wasn't alone. i'm going to buy this thing and watch it whenever i need something ridiculous to brighten my spirits. SEE THIS MOVIE!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great satire - not quite as good as Waiting For Guffman
Review: The mockumentary style has no better director/writer than Christopher Guest. "Waiting For Guffman" is by far the funniest movie I have ever seen (I wish I knew why it hasn't shown up on DVD yet). A few segments/characters in "Best In Show" get old quickly, but all in all this is a great flick.


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