Nearly perfect ten: 'Best in Show'

By Leslie Boxer

Daily Arts Writer

From the comic tradition of "This is Spinal Tap" and "Waiting for Guffman," writer-director-actor Christopher Guest brings us the equally funny "Best in Show." Guest's trilogy of mockumentaries are all sharp satires that combine improvisation with wit. "Best in Show," is no exception. It is the story of the prestigious Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia and the dog owners/handlers who make it there.

Guest's forte is accentuating the eccentricities of his characters and letting them become the focus of the films. "Best in Show" adds to Guest's arsenal of characters overly doting dog owners.

There is Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara) and their Norwich terrier, Winkie. The couple, from Fern City, Florida, loves their dog so much that they have written, "G'd loves a terrier," in honor of his trip to the big show. Temperamental Weimaraner owners, Meg and Hamilton Swain (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock), are a bickering catalogue obsessed yuppie couple that sees a dog psychiatrist in the opening sequences of the film.

Other characters include trophy wife Sherri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge) who shares a love of soup and conversation/no-conversation with her much older husband, Leslie. Handling their two-time Mayflower best-in-show Poodle, Rhapsody in White, is Christie Cummings (Jane Lynch), a proud pure-bred lesbian dog handler. In the small dog category is Shih Tzu Miss Agnes and her owners, hair dresser Stephan Vanderhoof (Michael McKean) and his flamboyant lover Scott (John Michael Higgens).

Rounding out the competition is Christopher Guest playing Harlan Pepper, owner of a Bloodhound named Hubert. Pepper, who is a slow talking Southerner that loves to name different types of nuts (pine-nut, macadamia nut, cashew-nut), is a long way from Nigel Tufnel and Corky St. Clair, yet proves to be a comic force.

Best in show, however, goes to obnoxiously inappropriate sportscaster, Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard), who gives the play-by-play at the show. He, like most "Show" cast members, is a veteran of "Waiting for Guffman" and could not have done a better job with his character. He is full of one-liners about the dogs and their owners that work with Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy's witty satire.

The film is hilarious. It is pure comedy and a very quick hour and a half. I cannot possibly do justice to the characters in this brief synopsis so you must run to the theater to catch "Best in Show."