Too much comedy is mean-spirited, putting down people who have weaknesses or drawbacks. There is not a mean bone in Christopher Guest's body. By this movie's end we are in love with his entire cast of failures. Guest uses much the same approach to explore the world of dog breeders in “Best In Show.”
Christopher Guest loves Laurel and Hardy, and it shows. He gives credit to L&H's friend James Finleyson for Homer Simpson's "Doh!" which endears him to me. Stan and Ollie were kindhearted souls and that is some of the character that Christopher Guest imbues his characters with.
The amazing thing about this movie is that it is able to tread a very fine line in which you are able to develop an affection for these characters at the same time you are laughing at their lack of talent and self-delusions. This is my favorite Christopher Guest movie, by far.
Spinal Tap is an obvious mockery of rock bands but Guffman touches on the lives of loving people. Stool Boom is a wonderfully clever song and I know all the words...I sing along whenever I watch the movie. I have two copies, one on VHS and the other on DVD; I don't want to be without it, ever. "It's the rule: there's a stool...some for selling, some for keeping." Now I'm going to do a scene from "Raging Bull".
This is the BEST of the Trilogy . Best in Show was not as great . Mighty Wind was OK, but seemed like the most successful of the 3 with an Oscar nod for the song! Totally forgot about For Your Consideration.
The best thing about these Christopher Guest movies is they're improv. There's a bare bones kind of script or layout for the story and they just let the actors loose. Guest says he winds up with about 60 hours worth of footage and takes about a year to edit and whittle it down to 90 minutes.
I wonder if Siskel and Ebert were aware at the time that this movie had no script. Other than the song and dance numbers, the actors improvised everything.
Watched this recently and loved it. I was amazed to see that it lost money on the box office, sometimes great films take a while for people to realise how good they are.
Hilarious movie. I remember seeing it when it came out in the theaters. I was young. I don't think I got a lot of the subtle humor. It's gotten better to me with age. I miss Siskel and Ebert. I watched them devotedly on my Public TV station in Denver, CO.
It was Rob Reiner who invented the whole "mockumentary" genre. But Christopher Guest was the one who directed and made all these other mockumentary films after SPINAL TAP. He really had a lot to take aim at. But afterwards, he got tired of making mockumentaries.
I have the DVD to this gem & many scenes were unfortunately deleted. It must have been painful to delete scenes that seem as funny as the final cut. One scene that, I think, should not have been cut was rendition of “Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine”. This was in the post WW 2 era in which life was good but predictable in the town play. There is an excerpt of this song during the rehearsal scenes for the town play. I think the scene is important because the song precedes the part in the play where Blaine is visited by aliens from Mars. The Martians tell the locals that they’re looking for stuff to do also & start singing “Nothing Ever Happens on Mars” & the locals & Martians realize that “Nothing Ever Happens...” is a universal song. The green, pumpkin shaped head on the Martian (think it’s Eugene Levy) is too much.
And the XI on his alien head as a nod to “it goes to 11” from Spinal Tap 👍Would definitely buy a Criterion or similar release of this flick ! Just to mention, someone looped Corky’s rant at the City Council meeting on YT if you need to get back at your neighbors for some reason. Even if your speakers only go to X , crank it up !!! 😂
Waiting for Guffman, Spinal Tap, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration... it's hard to pick a favorite, they're all equally good and the ensemble cast always delivers!
I love that movie as well. It has a lot of humor just under the surface. Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins said they were frequently cracking each other up on set.
I used to try to watch this show all the time no matter what weird channels and times it was on - this review made me want it see the film and I actually saw it in the theater in its first run, at a small artsy theater called Bantam Cinema in Litchfield County CT. Hardly anyone in there but we were all laughing our asses off!
Christopher Guest is an idiosyncratic comic genius who surrounds himself with actors of equal talent, throws together an outline with help from Eugene Levy, and then lets everyone improvise and play off each other. This is how his cast achieves such deeply embedded personalities and relationships between characters. Guest’s theme in all his films is ordinary people striving to become great, and in the process their failure brings out their humanity, which endears them to us forever. “Genius” is not an overstatement when applied to Christopher Guest’s doppelgänger Corky St. Clair, who ranks among the most memorable comedic characters in movie history and should have won Guest an Oscar. Which shows how out of touch I am with today’s audiences and the dreck Hollywood churns out to satisfy their dumbed-down cluelessness. Guffman was duly praised by the top critics and earned a place on the “must see” lists, but lost its producers a million dollars because they foolishly invested in a sense of shared humanity, something our culture has apparently lost. Bring on the flesh-eating zombies!
The movie is hilarious, yes, but at its climax it makes a subtle and semi-serious point. For most of the story, we see the cast preparing but aren't really shown what the band is doing. Then, on performance night, the dramatic side (both script and acting) are ridiculous, but the music is actually really, really good. The point: You get to excellence not by being loud and self-absorbed like Corky and his cast; you get there by rolling up your sleeves and quietly getting to work, like the timid, low-key Bob Balaban character and his musicians.
WOOOOOW I totally forgot about this movie, it really is one of the funniest movies and certainly the best of Christopher Guest's "recent" line of mockumentaries.
Excellent review of a classic movie! It’s exactly as they describe with very funny, yet not demeaning, stories of these great characters. It helps immensely to have an extremely talented cast! My favorite line, Fred Willard & wife at the dinner table telling Eugene Levy and wife about his “penis reduction surgery!” 😂
2:50 So I didn't recall a last gag and rewatched the end credits. I'm still not seeing the big punchline. The unlikely movie collectibles? The corny MIDI versions of soundtrack music?
@Oggatha Christie Ah, i see. I saw _Waiting for Guffman_ for the first time about 4 years ago. In the time since it first came out, weird movie collectibles have become a recurring gag in comedies so it didn't register with me. If I had seen it in 1996, it probably would have had a bigger impact on me.
I think the best part about all of these mockumentaries is how even though the characters are goofball stupid and hilarious you still want to see their performances hahahah
Loved EBERT (one of a kind) horrific what DRs & the medical community did to him. They made him into a freak show monster - he said so and deeply regretted ever going along with there procedures
I'm still searching eBay for those My Dinner with Andre action figures.
J. Craig Anderson What is worth getting, for desktop office cache, is the Dennis Hopper action figure from Waterworld.
I'll trade you a Dennis Hopper action figure for a Remains of the Day lunch box!
I have that lunch box, believe it or not. I'm a lot happier.
I'll trade you my Reboot lunchbox....
I'd never give it up. It was my birthday gift handmade by my sis!
An incredibly hysterical movie. RIP Fred Willard.
Here here
The part where they're trying to decide where the snipers should go had me fall out of my god damn chair laughing
I arrived in New York with a tube of chapstick and a hula hoop.
Fresh off a destroyer
@@vibes7144 🤣
Too much comedy is mean-spirited, putting down people who have weaknesses or drawbacks. There is not a mean bone in Christopher Guest's body. By this movie's end we are in love with his entire cast of failures. Guest uses much the same approach to explore the world of dog breeders in “Best In Show.”
Christopher Guest loves Laurel and Hardy, and it shows. He gives credit to L&H's friend James Finleyson for Homer Simpson's "Doh!" which endears him to me. Stan and Ollie were kindhearted souls and that is some of the character that Christopher Guest imbues his characters with.
Funny , people say he's not very nice in real life.
The amazing thing about this movie is that it is able to tread a very fine line in which you are able to develop an affection for these characters at the same time you are laughing at their lack of talent and self-delusions. This is my favorite Christopher Guest movie, by far.
@Brix Broox A Mighty Wind is also phenomenal. I love Christopher Guest big time.
@@SimpleManGuitars1973 nowhere near as funny as guffman.
Spinal Tap is an obvious mockery of rock bands but Guffman touches on the lives of loving people. Stool Boom is a wonderfully clever song and I know all the words...I sing along whenever I watch the movie. I have two copies, one on VHS and the other on DVD; I don't want to be without it, ever. "It's the rule: there's a stool...some for selling, some for keeping." Now I'm going to do a scene from "Raging Bull".
This is the BEST of the Trilogy . Best in Show was not as great . Mighty Wind was OK, but seemed like the most successful of the 3 with an Oscar nod for the song! Totally forgot about For Your Consideration.
The best thing about these Christopher Guest movies is they're improv. There's a bare bones kind of script or layout for the story and they just let the actors loose. Guest says he winds up with about 60 hours worth of footage and takes about a year to edit and whittle it down to 90 minutes.
i need all 60 hours of it.
One of the funniest films ever made. Love it!
My favorite film. The first time I watched it, I didn’t LOL even once as I was utterly paralyzed by the brilliance.
I wonder if Siskel and Ebert were aware at the time that this movie had no script. Other than the song and dance numbers, the actors improvised everything.
Just like all the other mockumentaries made by Christopher Guest.
Ironical
the Corky character was first developed on a Martin Short cable special in the 1980s.
Roger Ebert died April 4th 2013 Rest in Peace Roger, you and Gene were great film critics
Watched this recently and loved it. I was amazed to see that it lost money on the box office, sometimes great films take a while for people to realise how good they are.
Pure genius.
Love it that I just noticed that Corkys jeans were always on backwards! Lol!
Hilarious movie. I remember seeing it when it came out in the theaters. I was young. I don't think I got a lot of the subtle humor. It's gotten better to me with age. I miss Siskel and Ebert. I watched them devotedly on my Public TV station in Denver, CO.
Waiting For Guffman is pretty much awesome. The music is also actually very good.
It was Rob Reiner who invented the whole "mockumentary" genre. But Christopher Guest was the one who directed and made all these other mockumentary films after SPINAL TAP. He really had a lot to take aim at. But afterwards, he got tired of making mockumentaries.
Hilarious movie. Christopher Guest is amazing.
What is most terrifying? I'm from De Soto, MO and this movie is 100% accurate.
"You are bastard people!"
"A penny for your thoughth..."
"Well, I hate you and your ass face!" 😂
I have the DVD to this gem & many scenes were unfortunately deleted. It must have been painful to delete scenes that seem as funny as the final cut.
One scene that, I think, should not have been cut was rendition of “Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine”. This was in the post WW 2 era in which life was good but predictable in the town play.
There is an excerpt of this song during the rehearsal scenes for the town play. I think the scene is important because the song precedes the part in the play where Blaine is visited by aliens from Mars. The Martians tell the locals that they’re looking for stuff to do also & start singing “Nothing Ever Happens on Mars” & the locals & Martians realize that “Nothing Ever Happens...” is a universal song. The green, pumpkin shaped head on the Martian (think it’s Eugene Levy) is too much.
And of course the soaring anthem, 'This Bulging River'. 😂
And the XI on his alien head as a nod to “it goes to 11” from Spinal Tap 👍Would definitely buy a Criterion or similar release of this flick ! Just to mention, someone looped Corky’s rant at the City Council meeting on YT if you need to get back at your neighbors for some reason. Even if your speakers only go to X , crank it up !!! 😂
Waiting for Guffman, Spinal Tap, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration... it's hard to pick a favorite, they're all equally good and the ensemble cast always delivers!
Best in Show is not nearly as goose the rest.
I have a copy of all four. I used to be a contemporary folk singer, so "A Mighty Wind" has a special place in my heart.
although I do like a lot of metal, and have no real interest in folk music, I find A Mighty Wind to be funnier and more re-watchable than Tap...
For me, Guffman is the funniest with some of the best music, from the sexy "Teacher's Pet" to "Stool Boom" (which I can sing along with).
@@johndean4727 it's too uptight for me. It can be unpleasant to watch.
Man, I miss this show.
Don't forget the "Remains of the Day" lunch pail.
Topped only by "dance belt and a tube of Chapstick"
Yes, the lunchboxes. The kids have such a good time with those. 😂
I love that movie as well. It has a lot of humor just under the surface. Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins said they were frequently cracking each other up on set.
I used to try to watch this show all the time no matter what weird channels and times it was on - this review made me want it see the film and I actually saw it in the theater in its first run, at a small artsy theater called Bantam Cinema in Litchfield County CT. Hardly anyone in there but we were all laughing our asses off!
Everybody dance!
" there was abuse in my family growing up,.....musical abuse ".
Christopher Guest is an idiosyncratic comic genius who surrounds himself with actors of equal talent, throws together an outline with help from Eugene Levy, and then lets everyone improvise and play off each other. This is how his cast achieves such deeply embedded personalities and relationships between characters.
Guest’s theme in all his films is ordinary people striving to become great, and in the process their failure brings out their humanity, which endears them to us forever. “Genius” is not an overstatement when applied to Christopher Guest’s doppelgänger Corky St. Clair, who ranks among the most memorable comedic characters in movie history and should have won Guest an Oscar.
Which shows how out of touch I am with today’s audiences and the dreck Hollywood churns out to satisfy their dumbed-down cluelessness. Guffman was duly praised by the top critics and earned a place on the “must see” lists, but lost its producers a million dollars because they foolishly invested in a sense of shared humanity, something our culture has apparently lost. Bring on the flesh-eating zombies!
The movie is hilarious, yes, but at its climax it makes a subtle and semi-serious point. For most of the story, we see the cast preparing but aren't really shown what the band is doing. Then, on performance night, the dramatic side (both script and acting) are ridiculous, but the music is actually really, really good. The point: You get to excellence not by being loud and self-absorbed like Corky and his cast; you get there by rolling up your sleeves and quietly getting to work, like the timid, low-key Bob Balaban character and his musicians.
RIP Fred Willard
One of my all-time funny movie favorites...
If you want to laugh hard, watch this flick. Rewind value as well.
One of the most underrated comedies ever.
WOOOOOW I totally forgot about this movie, it really is one of the funniest movies and certainly the best of Christopher Guest's "recent" line of mockumentaries.
Excellent review of a classic movie! It’s exactly as they describe with very funny, yet not demeaning, stories of these great characters. It helps immensely to have an extremely talented cast! My favorite line, Fred Willard & wife at the dinner table telling Eugene Levy and wife about his “penis reduction surgery!” 😂
Levy: "No, no, medicine man not go near Dances With Stumpy. No." 😂
Really funny sexual humor without being particularly vulgar.
Siskel nailed it
2:50 So I didn't recall a last gag and rewatched the end credits. I'm still not seeing the big punchline. The unlikely movie collectibles? The corny MIDI versions of soundtrack music?
@Oggatha Christie Ah, i see. I saw _Waiting for Guffman_ for the first time about 4 years ago. In the time since it first came out, weird movie collectibles have become a recurring gag in comedies so it didn't register with me. If I had seen it in 1996, it probably would have had a bigger impact on me.
The last gag is that Guffman didn't even show up.
@@darensparks No, they're (Siskel & Ebert) referring to Corky and his collectibles. "...over the end titles".
David Marks, where are the "corny MIDI versions of soundtrack music"?
the gag was funnier back then because in reality- they do make odd and obscure action figures now (2022) .
Such a funny movie!
Gene Siskell gets one right every once in a while.
One of the all time great comedies
Greatest movie.
I think the best part about all of these mockumentaries is how even though the characters are goofball stupid and hilarious you still want to see their performances hahahah
His hair cut
The Mighty Wind
For your consideration
Best in Show
Are all great mockumentaries too.
I miss those guys.
Come on, Gene... what about Showgirls?
This movie is awesome. The clips they show wouldn't make a bit of sense to anyone who hasn't seen the movie, though.
Funniest movie everr
It's up there.
RIP both of you
Jim’s missing appendix and now Fred Willard. RIP.
I love how you never get to see Corky’s “wife”.
I would've loved to see what Roger would've thought of For Your Consideration.
Loved EBERT (one of a kind) horrific what DRs & the medical community did to him. They made him into a freak show monster - he said so and deeply regretted ever going along with there procedures
Corky! Corky!
Ironical
What's that? What's that? What's that? Gets exaisting
Watch the Nostalgia Critic’s tribute to them, which Ebert described as “The best, funniest video about Siskel & Ebert I've ever seen.”
Christopher Guest has never failed.
Tbh i thought Mascots was a misstep