Bark like a dog - - Best In Show
Genre: Comedy/mockumetary
Grade = A
Best In Show is the third in a series of films set in a documentary style by Christopher Guest
whose previous two films include This is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman.
The film opens in a psychologist’s office where Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey and
Michael Hitchcock), two type-A yuppie lawyers, are discussing problems they are having with
Beatrice. After a lengthy discussion about how she accidently saw them having sex and hasn’t
been the same since, you learn that Beatrice is in fact their high-strung Weimaraner.
Meg and Hamilton, with matching braces on their teeth, are yuppie clothes horses and catalog fanatics, whose favorite game is to take the latest L.L. Bean catalog and try to name all of the new items in less than five minutes. As Meg gushingly puts it, "We are so lucky to have been raised among catalogs!" Meg and Hamilton are but one couple who have entered their pooch in the famed Philadelphia Mayflower Dog Show, the most prestigious dog show in the country. The film follows the Swans and the other entrants of the show from their homes to and through the dog show, where one of them will have their prized pup declared ‘Best of Show’ - the best dog in the country.
Other entrants include Florida couple Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara) and their Norwich terrier Winkie. Gerry is a mens fashion salesman who dresses as if it were 1977 and everything came in polyester. Gerry also has a peculiar infirmity, he has two left feet. Literally. His other problem is Cookie, although she seems to be your typical sweet housewifer, she seems to know every man they run across a little too familiarly, leaving Gerry very insecure and jealous. Thereafter we meet Sherri Ann Ward Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge), a Anna Nicole Smith double if she were 45 and had one or two too many face lifts, and her wealthy 99 year old husband Leslie. Sherri owns ‘Rhapsody in White’, a standard poodle who has won Best of Show at the Mayflower for the last two years (and yes, she has those two big buns of fur carved out on her rumps). They have hired professional dog handler Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch), who is obviously a lesbian, to bring home the Best In Show cup for the third year straight.
Others include down home Pine Nut, North Carolina fish and bait store owner Harlan Pepper (Guest) with his bloodhound Hubert, and gay Manhattan couple Stefan (Michael McKean) and Scott (John Michael Higgins) and their Shih Tzu, Miss Agnes.
The first half of the film follows the couples as they prepare for and travel to Philadelphia.
Finally, the big show begins and we are introduced to the television announcer for the program -
Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard). Unfortunately for the show, Buck is a sports announcer and
knows absolutely nothing about dogs. “Would that dog be considered the tight end or the running
back in the dog world?” Buck asks his very British co-announcer Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddick)
who knows nothing about American football and who can barely control himself from sneering
at Buck.
