Waiting for Guffman

If you are a Christopher Guest fan, and you loved Best in Show then you will get a big kick out of this film. My husband and I stumbled across it years ago and we watch it over and over and never fail to throw back our heads laughing.

If you are a community theatre person, have done any high school theatre, or even seen any community theatre productions then this is the film for you. Christopher Guest steals the show as always!

I'll start off by saying that I love and own This is Spinal Tap. I also thought that Best in Show was really funny and that A Mighty Wind was worthy of a rental. But this Christopher Guest movie just didn't live up to my expectations, which were based on other reviews that called this movie Guest's best. Well, it's not. It's got a few moments in it that made me laugh, but overall the movie was filled with too much boring stuff. Usually these movies will have plenty to laugh about, and there will be an occasional joke that doesn't work well.

But in Waiting for Guffman, there's too much that doesn't even seem to try to be funny. Instead it paints a picture of how boring these characters are, which would work if it were made to be funny, but it isn't. This movie seemed like a good premise for a movie that could have had a lot of funny bits in it, but it didn't take advantage of that.

I had first watched Best in a Show and a friend recommended this one. I loved it. It is excellent and I would suggest it for anyone who loved his other work.

Christopher Guest is best known for having written, directed and starred in several heavily improvised "mockumentary" films including This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and Best in Show, of which Waiting for Guffman is my personal favorite. Each of these films shares a similar plot development leading up to some kind of a much-anticipated performance. Guest and Eugene Levy frequently collaborate as writers, and Guest leads the same repertory troupe of actors from one film to the next including Guest, Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, and Bob Balaban.

Waiting for Guffman is a parody of community theater that takes it title perhaps from Beckett's Waiting for Godot. (Waiting for Godot is an existentialist play in which the characters wait for Godot, a character who never arrives.) Set in small town America (Blaine, Missouri to be exact), it follows a handful of self-deluded residents as they rehearse to put on a community theater musical entitled "Red, White and Blaine." Guest plays the show's flamboyant (as in gay) director, Corky St. Clair, a "relocated" Broadway director. He promises the troupe that a positive review from Broadway producer Mort Guffman could mean a Broadway run for the cast. Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard play the parts of Ron and Sheila Albertson, a pair of married travel agents and amateur performers. Parker Posey plays the delicious Dairy Queen employee Libby Mae Brown. Bob Balaban plays Lloyd Miller, the frustrated high-school music teacher and musical director. Lewis Arquette plays Clifford Wooley, a retired taxidermist. Matt Keeslar plays the handsome and oblivious mechanic, Johnny Savage, for whom Corky has a special interest, Levy plays a dentist, Dr. Alan Pearl. Waiting for Guffman is a true laugh-fest, and don't miss the closing credits.

G. Merritt