Picking up the torch that someone else lit in "Now Showing", this is the official Christopher Guest (Best in Show and now A Mighty Wind) thread. Feel free to say anything you wish about this great writer/director..... :-D
He's awesome. Best in Show rocks! I showed it to some friends who hadn't seen it and they loved it. I shit you not.
I believe you. He's turned out to be one of the most creative writer/directors in at least ten years. I haven't seen a Mighty Wind yet, but I have seen Best In Show and This Is Spinal Tap.
Would anyone like to say what their favorite of the trio is, and why? Let's get this shit rolling!
A Mighty Wind is my favorite, though I haven't seen Best In Show or This Is Spinal Tap. Waiting for Guffman was good, but kind of dragged at the end. I kinda dozed off for a bit there.
Mighty Wind was pretty piss poor compared to the rest.
I figure you just can't always be spot on when you're mainly improvising. They just didn't have the magic.
Guffman and Best In Show are about the Same level and I held them higher than Spinal Tap, but when you add the Spinal Tap commentary, ST wins out.
My fave is Best in Show because it is so spot on in its humor. Like the Parker Posey/Michael Hitchcock couple. They're Starbucks-drinking-catalog-shopping weirdos who are way too into their dog. The dog is obviously keeping them together. And of course the gay couple. The non-McKean one (I don't know his name) is so stereotypically homosexual and done in a way that it doesn't seem like a cheap shot, probably because of Michael McKean's reactions to him. Fred Willard is terrific as the announcer. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are also excellent. I love the phony party scene before they depart for the dog show. Every single thing about it is hilarious.
Haven't seen The Big Picture yet.
I'm a huge Guest fan. Spinal Tap is my favorite with Best in Show being a really close second.
Plus, I love Parker Posey.
Haven't seen A Mighty Wind yet. Stupid Alabama.
my favorite is waiting for guffman. i liked best in show, but didn't think it was as good as guffman. parker posey makes everything appealing, though.
I feel idiotic. I started a thread about Chris Guest and I haven't seen Waiting for Guffman. That's next on the To Rent list.
yeah. i thought mighty wind was disappointing. funny, but not as good as the other two, which arent HALF as good as SPINAL TAP! (shouldnt they be moving in the other direction?) but, i think that too many of the actors improvising were really trying to go TOO FAR out there and everybody sort of 'steal the show' by being the wackiest, rather than sitting back and letting other people be funny or seeing what happens. and with that subject it REALLY COULDVE BEEN FUNNY?! oh well, maybe they need to beg rob reiner back to the helm. i think i like SPINAL TAP, SHOW, GUFFMAN, WIND (in that order).
I used to watch the first film he directed, "The Big Picture" with Kevin Bacon, all the time. It was pretty funny when I was 10. I think I still like it cuz it brings back old memories.
I love Best In Show... and for reasons that aren't too cinematic... it's all about the amimals!
Nick
I worked in the hotel where Best In Show was shot.
Yay.
Quote from: SoNowThenI worked in the hotel where Best In Show was shot.
Yay.
Are you familiar with the various cleaning products?
Hehe. Actually that scene wasn't shot at the hotel (I'm pretty sure). Our storage rooms never looked that good/clean.
But the Parker Posey stuff in the room was at the hotel. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I think the party (when everyone first arrives) was too. And of course the lobby stuff.
Damn Parker is hot.
i saw her one time on the street. i was at the girlfight premiere in NYC and she was there and i saw her schmoozing with people outside the theater. i would've said something (probably would have screamed out "AIIIR RAAAID!" even though i'm sure assholes like me do that to her every day of her life since 1995 or 6 or whenever the fuck that movie was) but i'm like, she'll be at the afterparty, i'll talk to her then. she wasn't. i blew it.
that's the movie i saw her at. i was referring to dazed and confused. that's where she's like, "AIIIR RAAAID!"
Guest Dumps Mockumentaries
This Is Spinal Tap icon Christopher Guest has disappointed fans by refusing to make any more "mockumentary" movies - because he no longer finds them funny. The actor/director realized he'd made too many comic documentaries when he helped compile Best In Show, the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of his movies in New York. Guest explains, "I had always intended to do just three movies in that format, and then do something else. I don't think I'll go back to the documentary-style genre. Eugene Levy (his friend and collaborator) and I talked about different possibilities. One was a Western. I'm not trying to make blockbuster movies. I don't know how to. I'm just trying to make movies that are funny for me."
I think I can live with that. It'd be nice if he revisited the genre in like 20 years.
Better now than when people start asking, "When is he going to stop doing mockumentaries?"
The Big Picture was pretty funny. I'd like to see him doing more fiction fiction. I hope he's not doing a parody of westerns or a comedy western, as I think a few of those films go a long way.
he should do a parody of a comedy.
Guest Takes on Hollywood
Moving away from the mockumentary form, filmmaker Christopher Guest will next tackle Hollywood's awards season. Source: FilmStew.com
Christopher Guest, the writer-director behind films such as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, is headed to Hollywood. Daily Variety reports that the satirical filmmaker will make a comedy about the shooting of a bad movie which goes on to mock the Hollywood awards season in For Your Consideration, which Warner Independent Pictures plans to release in the fall of 2006. Shooting begins this October in Los Angeles.
Guest will stick with his regular roster of actors for the project, including Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael McKean and Fred Willard. In addition, Ricky Gervais, the Golden Globe-winning star of BBC's The Office, will join the gang of the Castle Rock Entertainment-produced film. The story will focus on three actors shooting an indie film, Home for Purim. The actors' lives are radically shifted when awards season buzz begins to build around their performances.
Posey, O'Hara and Shearer will play the actors whose lives are about to be changed, while Guest will play the director, who has shot 18 television pilots - none of which were picked up to series. Levy stars as an agent, with Gervais playing the head of the small, specialty studio that is producing Home.
While his Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show were shot as mockumentaries, Guest will focus on shooting a movie-within-a-movie for Consideration, which will be largely improvised. Guest will both direct and co-write with Levy, who also co-wrote Guffman, Show and A Mighty Wind with Guest.
Karen Murphy will produce the film with financing coming from Shangri-La Entertainment. Mark Gill and Michael Andreen will be overseeing for Warner Independent, while Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer will shepherd for Castle Rock.
Quote from: FilmStew.comMoving away from the mockumentary form
Hardly. Sounds like the same Guest formula to me. It could get tiresome, but at least he doesn't produce as much as Allen. And he's found something that works. I can already envision how this is going to come off, and it sounds hilarious. Hopefully, it'll maintain the sentimentality of A Mighty Wind and eschew the missteps of Best in Show. That, at least, will ensure some form of success.
i'll be really interested to see Gervais in this. and to see a 'non-mockumentary'. sounds like a good premise if they don't kill it.
edit: i didn't read this before.
Quote from: onomatavivaHopefully, it'll maintain the sentimentality of A Mighty Wind and eschew the missteps of Best in Show
scratch that, reverse it.
Quote from: onomatavivaHopefully, it'll maintain the sentimentality of A Mighty Wind and eschew the missteps of Best in Show
Very much agreed. There's definitely potential in the story. I rarely feel comedies are worth my time if they don't have a dramatic footing (at least slightly), which Guest took a shot at in
Wind. Hopefully this one'll hit close to home, if that synopsis is any indicator.
Quote from: onomatavivaQuote from: FilmStew.comMoving away from the mockumentary form
Hardly. Sounds like the same Guest formula to me.
No doubt, all that's really going to happen is that we're not gonna have interviews. It will totally look and sound like the other flicks. Though I wonder how much 'Big Picture' territory is gonna be covered (again).
Christopher Guest Goes To Netflix With New Film 'Mascots'
via The Playlist
Netflix has announced that in 2016, the mockumentarian will deliver "Mascots." The film will take audiences into the 8th World Mascot Association Championships, where men and women compete to win the prestigious Gold Fluffy Award. So yes, sounds like chance for Guest to assemble a new batch of oddball characters, operating in their own unique fringe atmosphere, and seeing what they do with their outsized ambition.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FJ5RqKWG.jpg&hash=2ead01a19c712eee10e986e6cab18fb9c1d6595e)
cool.
anyone saw his hbo show? that got cancelled quick.
That's because it was really bad. Somehow managed to blend the worst of British and American comedy in one dated package. It felt like it'd been shelved since 2004.