CAN CHRISTOPHER GUEST MAKE A MOVIE ALMOST AS FUNNY AS 'SPINAL TAP'??

YES!

When I saw that 'Entertainment Weekly', in their year-end issue, named the little heard of film 'Waiting for Guffman' one of their ten best movies of 1997 (right up there with 'Titanic' and 'L.A. Confidential', no less), calling it "even funnier than 'This is Spinal Tap'", the first thing I said to myself was, "What do these people know? After all, they named the Spice Girls one of the top 10 entertainers of the year". Then I said to myself, "Well, it can't be any worse than sitting home and watching 'Urban Cowboy' for the umpteenth time on HBO2." So I headed down to my local Blockbuster (Putty Hill Avenue in Baltimore County--does this qualify me for a free rental?), and almost didn't find it. Oh sure, there were thirty copies of 'Men in Black', thirty copies of 'Jerry Maguire', and about fifty copies of 'My Best Friend's Wedding', but only one stinking copy of 'Waiting for Guffman'. Uh-oh. Usually Blockbuster carries at least two of everything, even if it stars Corey Haim or has 'Bikini Carwash' in the title. This did not bode well.....

Well, thank God 'Waiting for Guffman' was a five day rental, because I watched it several times. It was that funny. Maybe not funnier or even as funny as 'This is Spinal Tap', but it was definitely up there. 'Waiting for Guffman' will surely be enjoyed by 'Tap' fans, as it's filmed in a similar "mockumentary" style (unfortunately, Marty DiBergi is not present here), but will also be enjoyed by anyone who's ever participated in a high school, college, or community theater musical with a low budget, lousy songs, even lousier choreography, and talentless would-be actors who take themselves a little too seriously. I was in a play in high school called 'Funky Winkerbean's Homecoming', so you can well imagine I enjoyed it on both levels.

Co-written by Christopher Guest and 'SCTV' alumni Eugene Levy (with songs written by Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer!), 'Waiting for Guffman' stars Guest as Corky St. Clair, an effeminate beyond belief veteran of off-off-off-off-off-Broadway theater, asked by the denizens of his new hometown, the backwater, Hooterville-like Blaine, Missouri (it almost made me miss my old hometown back in New Jersey) to put on a pageant celebrating the town's sesquicentennial. As Blaine's only claims to fame are that it's the 'Stool Capital of the World', and the site of a UFO landing in which the aliens invited the residents on board for a potluck dinner, you can only imagine what the finished product of 'Red, White, & Blaine' is going to look like. But that's not until the end of the film--the fun part is getting there.

The best cast for 'Red, White & Blaine' Corky can come up with (after a hilarious audition scene that was almost entirely improvised by the cast) includes self-absorbed Ron Albertson and his wife Sheila (Fred 'Lt. Bob Hookstratten' Willard and Catherine O'Hara), both of whom are so convinced that they are going to make it as actors that both fail to see how abjectly untalented they are (Ron not only does a terrible Bogart impersonation, but misquotes his most famous line), dim-witted Dairy Queen countergirl Libby Mae Brown (Parker Posey), whose dream if she doesn't achieve stardom is to create a fat-free, healthy Blizzard, hunky garage mechanic Johnny Savage (Matthew Keeslar), who causes Corky to nearly salivate at first sight, grizzled "Old Man Wooley" (Lewis Arquette), who proudly shows off his gun rack handcrafted from a pair of deer hooves, and unassuming town dentist Dr. Allan Pearl (Eugene Levy), whose Johnny Carson impersonation is almost as bad as Ron Albertson's Bogart impersonation. Both Dr. Pearl and his wife are so impressed to be around such "creative types" as Corky and the Albertsons that you almost feel sorry for them when Dr. Pearl is forced to spend part of the musical in a piece of fake fur that's supposed to pass for a beard, and another part stumbling around in a huge papier mache alien head.

As I mentioned before, those of us who have participated in low-budget theater productions before will especially appreciate 'Waiting for Guffman'. Everything that usually goes wrong does go wrong, including the director threatening to quit the play because they're not getting enough money or support, the director and musical director sniping at each other, costumes not fitting at the last minute, actors dropping out the day of the play (Corky has to sub for Johnny, making the romantic scene with Libby Mae something to behold),a near-sighted actor inevitably being forced to remove his glasses while on stage for "authenticity" (I felt Dr. Pearl's pain, believe me), actors slathering the stage makeup on with the enthusiasm of Tammy Faye Bakker--it all looks frighteningly familiar..... The final production of 'Red, White & Blaine' (accompanied by an orchestra so small the trumpet player also plays drums) is touchingly embraced by the townspeople as if it were a production of 'South Pacific'. They ooh and aah over one of the final numbers, a scene celebrating Blaine's alien encounter (to the tune of 'Nothing Ever Happens on Mars'), in which most of the play's budget was spent on the cardboard UFO that drops from the ceiling. An adoring town councilman compares Corky to Barbra Streisand. Dr. Pearl's wife gets misty-eyed during Corky and Libby Mae's duet. In short, it's the greatest event to ever take place in Blaine, beating out even the potluck dinner on an alien spacecraft.

The "Guffman" in 'Waiting for Guffman' is a New York theatrical agent who is supposed to show up at the production, to see if it's Broadway-worthy. Want to know if he shows up or not? I'll give you a hint: the man sitting in the 'Reserved' chair at the front of the audience is listed in the credits as 'Not Guffman'.

The next time you're at Blockbuster (or whatever your favorite video store is, I'm not here to plug any retailers), try to bypass 'Jerry Maguire' or 'My Best Friend's Wedding' for one night (come to think of it, you should bypass 'My Best Friend's Wedding' every night) and give 'Waiting for Guffman' a try. It deserves at least as many copies in the store as 'Red Shoe Diaries 6', and you don't even have to be a 'Spinal Tap' fan to enjoy it.

To find out more about this great movie, visit Castle Rock's official Waiting for Guffman Website!

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