When I was a kid, my parents would take me to Playland in Rye, New York. I have great memories of this little non-Six Flags amusement park. I remember the little coaster I went on with my brother, where if you survived it twice in a row without barfing, you’d get a free Playland T-shirt. I remember loving the bumper cars, the Yo-Yo, and especially the Spider. Loved that one. Still do. But when I think back to Playland now, I often think of cotton candy. They had plenty of cotton candy at Playland, and I always wanted some. The funny thing was, after I got it, I’d have a few licks and be disappointed. I don’t know exactly what I didn’t like. Too sweet. Too messy. Too something… or maybe not enough of something. Eating cotton candy was something I looked forward to with great anticipation, and then once I got it, I became displeased and didn’t want it anymore.

The successes of This is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman had me looking forward to Best in Show ever since I heard of the project. In This is Spinal Tap (heretofore referred to as the abbreviated Spinal Tap), Christopher Guest created one of the most memorable comedic characters in modern memory, Nigel Tufnel. Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap gave birth to a new genre of filmmaking—the fake documentary (sometimes called "a mockumentary"; I like to refer to Spinal Tap as "a mock rock doc"). Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Reiner wrote and improvised exceedingly funny satire in Tap. It was fresh, funny, ridiculous, funny, dramatic, funny, silly, funny, and funny. It made fun of rock stars, managers and record label suits, as well as the music itself, and the fans who slobber over it. And it made fun of Yoko Ono. If you can hear "Big Bottom" or "Sex Farm" and keep a straight face, you either should be institutionalized, or should get into comedy yourself (the straight face is a comedy requirement, as proven there by Guest and McKean). How they kept straight faces during some moments is beyond me.

Guest, having succeeded so well in co-creating a character as rich, emotional and achingly funny as Tufnel, obviously admired Reiner’s film (and how it continues to succeed, with its recent super-stacked DVD release and upcoming Spinal Tap tour). Inspired by this new genre, Guest created (directed, and co-wrote with Eugene Levy) Waiting for Guffman, and though it was no great commercial success (nor was there even a wide release, if I’m not mistaken), it certainly succeeded artistically. Guffman, the story of a starry-eyed off-off-off-Broadway director putting together a community theater show with local "talent" was genuine, funny, believable, funny, charming, funny, silly, and… funny.

Perhaps Mr. Guest should have been contented with this single spawn, its format having sprung from the now legendary Spinal Tap. But he was not. Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying (which is why I still clicked "recommend"—judge this yourself).

Best in Show, again directed by Guest and written by Guest and Levy (with improvisation), is not funny. I snickered throughout, but I think I was trying too hard to laugh. If you’re actively trying to laugh at something that you want to be funny, it’s not. I wanted it to slay me, and it didn’t. It didn’t really even come close. It’s a shame, because acting-wise, we’re talking about some historically funny (Second City) people: Guest, McKean, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and the king of understated comedy, Fred Willard. History has proven that these people are funny people. But this film just didn’t work as a comedy. Now, the thought struck me that maybe this wasn’t supposed to be funny. Perhaps this was supposed to be scathing satire sans belly-laughs. Well, one look at the poster stunts that theory: "A comedy from the director of Waiting for Guffman." Oh well.

Best in Show, this time being a "dogumentary," is about "dog people" pursuing their dreams at a dog show—the Mayflower Whatever Whatever Show. The film focuses on five different groups of people who are competing. First is the underdog (pardon me), Guest’s Harlan Pepper, a charming character, a simple, rural man who seems out of place if he isn’t wearing one of those silly hunting caps. Guest creates a appealing guy with an entertaining drawl who’s a timid fish-out-of-water character, but he’s not funny. He’s subtle, he’s cute, he’s likable. That’s it.

Catherine O’Hara’s character, Cookie Fleck, has been around the world more times than the moon (if ya know what I mean). She’s had lots of sex with lots of guys. You could call her an ex-slut. But now she’s married to buck-toothed Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy), and he is her one, true love. And what I’ve just told you about their characters is all you need to know, because that’s all that happens. Time after time, Gerry and Cookie run into Cookie’s former lovers (at one point voluntarily visiting one en route to the dog show), and throughout, Levy conveys these two helpless emotions: discomfort and frustration. Levy’s presence in American Pie was more impressive, and we’re talking about ten minutes of screen time there.

Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock) are insane. They are frantic, neurotic, abrasive, obsessive lunatics who bring their dog along with them to therapy. In fact, the therapy is for him! Their characters are interesting in that they treat their dog in the same way that mothers in South Carolina treat their beauty pageant daughters. If you’ve seen one of those HBO America Undercover documentaries about the horrors of imposing pageant dreams upon toddlers (forcing 4-year-olds to flirt with judges), then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that the Swans are disturbing. Interesting, from a psychological point of view? Yes. Funny, from any point of view? No. Their grating behavior made me wince every time they were on the screen. Posey and Hitchcock certainly went all out to repulse, but to induce laughter? Oops, they forgot to do that. I felt sorry for their pooch, though.

Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof (John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean, respectively) are a gay couple. Again, that’s pretty much all you need to know. Scott is a sometimes slightly amusing flaming stereotype, and Stefan is a loving, bloody bore. Higgins goes over the top to make Scott as flamboyant as possible (when he walks his dog at the show, he’s the attraction), while McKean’s talent was wasted as his character, Whatshisname, is simply forgettable.

The least interesting pair group of the film is Sheri Ann Ward Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge), the stereotypically air-headed, buxom blonde beauty queen and owner of the poodle that always wins, and her dog handler (and lesbian lover?) Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch). Here, we run into another homosexual stereotype, with Christy being a somewhat mannish lesbian. There’s really nothing more to say about them.

Rounding out the cast are Fred Willard and Jim Piddock who play the commentators of the dog show. The ultra-serious Brit, Trevor Beckwith (Piddock) is constantly rendered uncomfortable by Buck Laughlin (Willard), a charismatic guy who’s more out of place commentating on a dog show than Stephen Hawking at an X-Games tournament. Fred Willard is the only thing in this movie that made my snickering rise to a chuckle, asking (among the tamest examples), "Now tell me, which one of these dogs would you want to have as your wide receiver on your football team?" Willard is the only consistently funny thing in the movie, so in that case, there isn’t nearly enough of him in it.

And that’s pretty much it. Best in Show was disappointing. It was charming, unfunny, scathing, unfunny, disturbing, unfunny, stereotypical, unfunny… and besides the few moments when Fred Willard provided comic relief in this "comedy," it should have been a lot funnier.


The DVD

The picture looked fine, and was especially crisp in the dog show sequence with its huge, bright blue floor. The sound was okay, though I suppose the only thing that could’ve taken advantage of the 5.1 channels was the music—but I admit that I’ve completely forgotten that aspect of the movie.

Special features? Well, included are cast biographies and some lame production notes, along with the theatrical trailer. Deleted scenes are provided, and after watching them, I thanked the lord Larry King that they were omitted from the final cut. I didn’t give the Guest/Levy running audio commentary a chance, because my girlfriend was visiting me that week and I was anxious to send this back to Netflix so we could get to see the next movie in my queue (also, I really didn’t feel like sitting through it again so soon). I now feel guilty for not giving them the chance to explain themselves, but who knows? Maybe they spent the whole time goofing off in front of the mic.


Rating

On the 7-point scale that every Dachshund finds most fetching (http://www.epinions.com/user-review-68ED-B482678-39E3C945-prod1), I give Best in Show (movie) a 3, and the DVD a 4.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older