Rating: 
Summary: Not quite "Best"
Review: Christopher Guest has a rare misstep in "Best in Show," the follow-up to comedy classic "Waiting for Guffman." While "Best" is still a fun and frenetic mockumentary, it isn't up to the standards of its sibling mockumentaries -- it's a little too repetitive and over-the-top.Welcome to Philadelphia, the home of the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. Among the crazy dog owners are Starbucks yuppies Hamilton and Meg Swan (Michael Hitchcock and Parker Posey), gay couple Scott and Stefan (John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean), ventrilogist hick Harlan Pepper (Christopher Guest), and buxom airhead Sherri Ann (Jennifer Coolidge) and her lover/trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch). Front and center is two-left-footed Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy) and his wife Cookie (Catherine O'Hara), whose sexy past keeps coming back to haunt her. All these people converge at the dog show, and face difficulties ranging from wrenched knees to televised lesbian smooches to lost squeaky toys -- and some of the dogs are getting a bit crazy as well. With an obnoxious commentator watching over it all, they all strive for the ultimate prize. Poodle, Norwich terrier, bloodhound, Shih Tzu or emotionally scarred Weimaraner -- who will be best in show? "Best in Show" does for dog shows what "This is Spinal Tap" did for old metal -- it makes affectionate fun of them. Christopher Guest returns to mockumentary turf in the moderately funny "Best in Show" -- it's flawed, but still far above the average comedy. The biggest problem with "Best in Show" is that Guest tries too hard. The jokes and goofiness are over-the-top, belying the mockumentary format. And the jokes get a bit repetitive. How many times can Cookie run into old boyfriends? Isn't the gay humor both cliched and overdone? But, the humor itself is quite funny, with plenty of strange lines like "We have so much in common! We both love soup... and the outdoors... snow peas... talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about." No flaws can be found in the veteran mockumentary cast -- these people look like they're having a good time. Hitchcock and Posey are chillingly good as the couple who met over J. Crew catalogues in a Starbucks, while Coolidge is deliciously dumb as a bisexual Anna Nicole Smith clone. McKean and Higgins, despite being cliched, play their roles with unadulterated delight. Fred Willard's vulgar commentator is over-the-top stupid, but still amusing. Despite repetitive humor and the occasional dud joke, Christopher Guest's follow-up to "Waiting for Guffman" is an amusing look behind the scenes of dog shows. It's not "Best in Show," but it's one of the best of breed.
Rating: 
Summary: Movies Can't Get Funnier Than This!
Review: Each and every character offers up constant laughs. Trying to pick your favorite character is as impossible as trying to decide which dog is the cutest. I'm hoping for a sequel, Best in Show for cats.
Rating: 
Summary: Dog Show Pressures Lend Edge to Guest's Clever Mockumentary
Review: All of Christopher Guest's comic mastery as our premiere mockumentarian is on full display here, yet I have never warmed up to this movie the same way I did with "Waiting for Guffman". I think there are two reasons. First, the diversity of characters in "Best in Show", spread across socioeconomic classes and geographic distances, doesn't produce as inherently likable or close-knit a group as the good citizens of Blaine, Missouri. Second, the concept of a first-person interview movie will inevitably feel less fresh the second time around, especially when many of the same actors are being cast. These concessions aside, this is still an extremely funny movie with an edginess that makes "Waiting for Guffman" feel all the more innocent.
The plot revolves around the fictional Mayflower Dog Show, a Westminster look-alike, being held in Philadelphia, and the eccentric gallery of dog lovers vying for the blue ribbon. First, we have Gerry and Cookie Fleck, played by Eugene Levy (who like "Guffman", co-wrote the witty script with Guest) and Catherine O'Hara, with their Norwich terrier, Winky. In Levy's hands, Gerry is a blood brother to his previous Dr. Pearl but this time, his character has two left feet...literally...and a satisfying moment of victory Pearl could never experience. O'Hara ebulliently makes Cookie a likeable nymphomaniac with a heart of gold. John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean play an affectionate and flamboyant gay couple, with their Shih Tzu, Miss Agnes. While Higgins lays on the double entendres pretty thick, McKean actually provides a nice balance to their relationship, and the combination makes for more than a "Birdcage" knock-off.
There is also the yuppie couple from hell, high-strung and high-maintenance lawyers Meg and Hamilton Swan, played with uncompromising fury by Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock, who spoil their Weimaraner, Beatrice, mercilessly. Posey, in a severe turnabout from her lackadaisical Dairy Queen waitress in "Guffman", is particularly strong and edgy at playing the neurotic harpy in search of the elusive bumblebee squeaky toy. With her collagen-injected lips and heavily suctioned breasts, the comically zaftig Jennifer Coolidge plays an Anna Nicole Smith-like trophy wife who comes out of the closet to her hyper-competitive trainer, portrayed by Jane Lynch, with their poodle, Rhapsody in White, in tow. And Guest downshifts from his previous Corky St. Clair significantly to play soft-spoken Harlan Pepper, a red-haired bait-and-tackle shop owner from the backwoods of North Carolina, who loves his devoted bloodhound, Hubert. For all the comic brilliance generated by the actors playing the dog owners, the show is stolen by the comically irrelevant ranting of Fred Willard, who plays a most idiotic sportscaster who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Everyone exhibits sharp improvisational skills, as the press notes indicate that the actors were only given a script outline and encouraged to shape their characters onscreen with no rehearsal.
In the commentary, Guest mentions sixty hours of footage were produced to make this ninety-minute laugh fest. The effort was worth it, as there is not a moment wasted in this comedy. I only wish it inherited some more of the heart of "Guffman" to relieve us from the more scabrous parts of the script. The DVD unsurprisingly has several deleted scenes, all worth seeing for the contextual information they provide about the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Considering the subject, the satire should have been better
Review: This was an entertaining enough film, but considering the thoroughly bizarre nature of the dog show subculture and how it is a huge bullseye for any satirist, I was disappointed to find as many hits as misses in this mockumentary.
I enjoyed watching it, but by the end I found myself thinking of all of the wasted potential. The real dog shows are simply insane beyond the comprehension of normal people. The various breeds of dogs border sometimes on the freakish, and their handlers often are close behind. This is all just so ripe for the picking, yet this movie too often falls back on familiar and sometimes tired cliches. For me, it kept the movie from being hilarious instead of simply amusing. Too bad.
Rating:
Summary: A genre of its own, you gotta get into it
Review: The first time I saw this movie, I had no clue what the heck it was supposed to be. I had only bought it because it was on sale and had O' Hara and Coolidge in it.
So I guess that after a short while I felt like one of the previous rewievers. I felt like turning it off. But I stuck to it 'til the end and found the movie wasn't that bad at all. It's just a style you rarely see. I have watched it 3 times in a little over a year. You just have to accept it's not a regular movie and then you can enjoy it, well, at least I did.
I am going to buy "A Mighty Wind" next.
Rating:
Summary: A fun time was had by all
Review: I really enjoyed seeing "Best in Show." I have to admit that it's not my favorite of Christopher Guest's films; "Waiting for Guffman" is his best. Still, it's a warm and funny look into the world of dog shows, with a little quirky charm thrown in. Of all his movies, I think this one appeals to the broadest audience.
Rating: 
Summary: not boring, just un-interesting.
Review: I watched "best in show" over the weekend. Actually, I was going to rent "A mighty Wind", but reviewers on amazon said best in show was better, so I picked that one out. It's bascially a mockumentary about a national dog show, the dog owners and their dogs. I guess it could have been ok, but it was very un-interesting. After about 30 minutes I gave up on it. If I would have had absolutely nothing better to do, and was bored out of my mind, I probably would have watched it. It wasn't a bad movie, and I wouldn't say it was boring, it was just un-interesting. It was cool to see christopher guest playing a southern backwoods sort of character who raised a bloodhound. Keep in mind, This Is Spinal Tap is my favorite movie. I have seen it dozens of times. I thought about it, and one thing about Spinal Tap that made it better, was that in between the interviews, there was actual concert footage of them playing, which was cool. Obviously, people not interested in rock music would probably not care for it. I love dogs, and I even watch the national kennel club dog shows on tv each year. So it wasn't like I wasn't interested in dogs at all. In best in show, there really wasn't anything like the concert footage in Tap. I wouldn't reccomend this one.
Rating:
Summary: This Show's A Winner
Review: If anything, director Christopher Guest can be referred to in the annals of film history as "the king of the mockumentary" with his work here as well as "This is Spinal Tap" and other such ventures. This film is consistently laugh-out-loud funny. The story centers around a group of eccentrics who congregate to a prestigious dog show in Philadelphia. The movie does not so much focus on the dogs but the quirks of their owners, though I'm sure anyone whose been to a dog show would pick up some inside jokes. Guest assembles a great ensemble cast (Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean,etc.). I thought a particular stand-out was Fred Willard as a clueless television announcer. This film would probably rate five stars if I had ever been to a dog show or participated in one, but I do know someone who breeds show dogs and he's not that far off from the eccentrics portrayed in this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Two thumps down!
Review: This movie is totally not funny!
terribly lame movie.
Warning:Do not rent this movie or buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Very Funny
Review: The movie Best In Show is a classic in the mockumentary genre. It is the kind of movie that one can see over and over again and still laugh and laugh. Try not to just fall in love with the two gay guys. McKeanen and Higgins were fantastic as the couple. Of course, there played the cliches, but still they did it so wonderfully that one did not necessarily mind that they were not breaking into any new territory.
O'Hara and Levy were just a perfect married couple. She as a woman who is experience in the ways of adult entertaining, and he, a two left footed goof. Ohhh not enough good things to say about them.
The only "downer" character to me was Guest. I just did not particularly find him to be that enjoyable. He was much better in Waiting for Guffman.
The amazing part to me about this movie is the fact that there is essentially no script. Just an outline of how the movie is to go, and the actors and actresses take it from there. How wonderful they do.
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