Best in Show Review
by "David N. Butterworth" (dnb AT dca DOT net)November 4th, 2000
BEST IN SHOW
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
"Best in class." "More bark than bite." "Christopher Guest's film has gone to the dogs." It would be all too easy to make these kinds of obvious asides about "Best in Show," director Guest's latest mockumentary (or dog-umentary--there's another one), but if the performer has learned anything since his "Saturday Night Live" days it's the art of subtlety, and "Best in Show" is far from being a droll exercise of owners who look like their pets. The film follows the pampered pooches and their persnickity owners in competition at Philadelphia's Mayflower Dog Show intercut with that mock-interview style which Guest does so well (see: "Waiting for Guffman"). Going for the blue ribbon are the two left-footed Gerry Fleck (co-writer Eugene Levy) and his wife Cookie (SCTV's Catherine O'Hara)--her randy ex-boyfriends keep showing up; a bickering yuppie couple supercharged on Starbucks (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock) whose weimeraner holds them in high contempt; Guest himself as Carolina fly fisherman Harlan Pepper (his skills include ventriloquism and naming many varieties of nut--peanut, pine nut, macadamia nut); a flamboyantly gay couple (Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins) with their hyper-coiffed Shih Tzu; and, rounding out the field, a win-at-all-costs lesbian handler and her lover (Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge). Outside the ring these able performers are given an additional boost by Ed Begley Jr. as a hotel proprietor, and Fred Willard and Jim Piddock as, respectively, a doltish ringside commentator and his despairing, stiff-upper lipped British counterpart. Guest's attention to detail is uncanny and that makes the deadpan "Best in Show" remarkably assured. You could almost call it the best of its breed.
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David N. Butterworth
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
