Best in Show
Warner Bros.
October 20, 2000
Mockumentary
DVD
B
Guest directed and with Levy co-wrote this movie, and the two of them play two of the main characters in it, although each set of dogs & owners gets moments in the spotlight. I saw this movie at the time and maybe once again in the intervening almost twenty years, and I do think it holds up well, in both humor and story-- all the more impressive considering how much of it was improvised-- but I don't think it has the extra oomph that
This Is Spinal Tap (1984, and reviewed here
https://reviewingeverymovieiown.blogspot.com/2014/11/this-is-spinal-tap.html) has. By the way, I think Begley's reference here to a rock band he can't say by name is a Spinal Tap joke.
I actually forgot which dog won and thought it was Hubert the Hound, but it makes narrative sense for it to be the Flecks' Winky, because that family, especially Gerry (Levy's character), are most the (sorry) underdogs. And the funniest performance here is Larry Miller's cameo as one of O'Hara's many exes, which surprised me because his humor can be hit or miss for me. The "not the same Starbucks" line remains classic.
I had to leave Patrick Cranshaw out of the crowded tags, but I will note that he was then 80 and had been playing old men for about thirty years, like on
Mork & Mindy.
