CMFH Film Reviews

2000, USA
Comedy
Review by Deborah Dearth

::Flick Quickie::

Christopher Guest assembles another fantastic mockumentary crew to delve into the seedy underbelly of the dog show world. With co-writer Eugene Levy and previous improv alums Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Bob Balaban, and Parker Posey, it is amazing that this cast can keep a straight face throughout the absurdity, but they pull it off in their greatest farce yet. Within this world of Purina and squeaky toys are a frantic, anal couple who look like they just walked out of a J.Crew catalog, a geeky salesman with two left feet whose wife has a well-known (except to him) sexual history, a southern fisherman who can name every sort of nut, an overly confident breeder and her closeted, gold-digging girlfriend, and the only well-adjusted couple -- two flamboyantly gay men from New York. The dog show commentators play off each other, with Fred Willard as the flighty and irrelevant Buck Laughlin ("And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.").

This hilarious DVD includes deleted scenes, cast and crew profiles, trailers, and audio commentary by the writers.