Both Leonard Maltin and Battleship Pretension have recommended the Christopher Guest movies and I’m a fan of many of the actors in his films. I finally decided to give Best in Show a chance, but was severely underwhelmed. There are some very funny moments, but something just didn’t click with me consistently enough to say I loved it. I give Best in Show the rating Decent Watch.
Best In Show was a runner up in my opinion.
A mockumentary that follows several people as they earn entrance and compete in the Mayflower Dog Show all with hopes for their dogs to win the Best in Show prize.
The film is full of funny people like Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Bob Balaban, Will Sasso, Michael McKean, John Michael Higgins, Jennifer Coolidge, Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock, Fred Willard, and Jane Lynch with many others as supporting characters. Of them, Fred Willard and Jane Lynch cracked me up the most.
Willard plays one of two announcers of the dog show who seems extremely out of place at the event. He doesn’t know much about the rules of the event and makes lots of jokes about the event and random analogies that are often very hilarious. Yet, he’s not in the film till about halfway so his brilliant comedic performance is lacking in from much of the film.
Jane Lynch plays the handler of a poodle that has won two years in a row and her expectations are high. Her character reminds me of her character from Glee, but without the network censors limiting her. I always find Lynch to be very funny in most of the roles she ends up playing.
There are other funny moments in the film, but I think the mockumentary style just didn’t really bring me in. It could be the characters just aren’t connecting with me enough for me to care about the jokes. It could be the satire was lost on me as I’m not really familiar with people like this. Or, it could be this style of humor isn’t for me and that’s why it only got the Decent Watch rating.
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