I haven't seen all of Christopher Guest's parodies, or rather the parodies of Guest and gang, which always include Eugene Levy (he of the Groucho eyebrows), Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, and other familiar faces. "Best in Show" was a real winner.
This one is a runner up, close but no cigar. It's about a cheap film that comes to have critical raves. Three actors are buzzed about as Oscar Nominees, but they don't quite make the cut. An epilogue shows us the heights they went on to conquer despite their disappointment -- one teaches acting to a handful of puzzled and untalented students, another is doing a product commercial voice over, the third is an hysterical performance artist. The writers seem able to dig up some humor out of any situation.
But the film has an improvisatory quality that goes beyond that of "Best in Show." People SOUND as if they're improvising. The editor does what he can to keep the pace snappy but sometimes the scenes are more puzzling than funny.
The winner, again, is Fred Willard, playing the same stoop he played in "Best in Show," but this time with a cartoon hair do. The host of a morning TV show, he ambushes the losers at their various tasks -- trying to have breakfast alone in a diner, auditioning for a role in a commercial, or staggering drunk out of the house to empty the garbage.
It doesn't hit the high spots of the earlier film but it's still pretty amusing. Nothing is sacred to these guys.
This one is a runner up, close but no cigar. It's about a cheap film that comes to have critical raves. Three actors are buzzed about as Oscar Nominees, but they don't quite make the cut. An epilogue shows us the heights they went on to conquer despite their disappointment -- one teaches acting to a handful of puzzled and untalented students, another is doing a product commercial voice over, the third is an hysterical performance artist. The writers seem able to dig up some humor out of any situation.
But the film has an improvisatory quality that goes beyond that of "Best in Show." People SOUND as if they're improvising. The editor does what he can to keep the pace snappy but sometimes the scenes are more puzzling than funny.
The winner, again, is Fred Willard, playing the same stoop he played in "Best in Show," but this time with a cartoon hair do. The host of a morning TV show, he ambushes the losers at their various tasks -- trying to have breakfast alone in a diner, auditioning for a role in a commercial, or staggering drunk out of the house to empty the garbage.
It doesn't hit the high spots of the earlier film but it's still pretty amusing. Nothing is sacred to these guys.