Best in Show

Rating:
Summary: Guest is the Best!!!
Review: Christopher Guest is shear brilliant, a comedic talent for the ages. My adulation for his unique and always-clever works cannot be expressed within the course of a lifetime. He has the most intriguing directing style I've come across, hands down. Pure improv, allowing each cast member to sit and vent/contemplate for 10 minutes at a time, and then later goes back to edit and seal the final masterpiece. This movie caused many belly-laughs and moments where I was chuckling so hard, zero noise was coming out. The premise for this movie and his other mockumentaries have been fantastic, no other person would have the gusto or the skill to go forth and expose these all-to-common real life scenarios like Guest has. He has consistantly created characters who are unforgettable (the mark of a great comedian) and his ability to improvise is astounding; vocabulary constitutes a big part of successful comedy, and Guest obviously has a stunning array of one-liners and collected phrases that seem to come out with picture-perfect timing. Moving onward to members of his cast: Michael Mckean does such a great job of expressing himself on screen, he accomplishes this by speaking in a relaxed, yet semi self-crazed tone. "She tries to be so self-possessed but look at the face, she's full of fear." Parker Posey plays the Mrs. Swan role with absolute ability, her reactions are wild, "I got in a position that was very painful, emotionally, for me. It's called 'congress of the cow.'" Fred Willard made the last half of the film memorable and hilarious, his commentary is original and breathtaking. Fred often gets critized, but I'd like to see anyone else come up with the lines that he instinctly lets fly. Now back to Guest: his knowledge of flyfishing made me fall out of my chair, "You could use a Disco Midge, a Beadhead, a Patch Adams." While driving in his RV he unleashes a flurry of comedy all by way of making you believe this is an old boy who loves his dog and knows his nuts! (Please see the additional scenes, there is extra footage of him talking about "phantom hill" and "turtle woman"). My favorite portion of the DVD happens to be the additional scenes. From "Harlan and Arrowheads" (which is a gut-buster) to "Stephan at the Salon", can you ask for anything more? Mckean is so god-damn-funny that it makes one ponder how this bit didn't wind up in the theatrical version? "The French don't know anything about shampooing. If you're wondering about a shampooing sink go straight to the Dutch!" haha. Or "We bought out the Chinese. Not the nation, but you know, that little chapter behind the wall." ah haha. As an afterthought, Guest ought to release a DVD featuring a ton of behind the scenes shots and deleted skits, from all of his films. It would sell like hot cakes.