Is it just me or did I receive a challenge from Harry Knowles? Ok, that is the best way to inspire me from here on in I am a movie-going machine more receptacle than men [grin].
So with an hour to kill before Midnight Madness here are reviews of Christopher Guest's Best in Show and a discovery series pick: Bunny. At both screenings the director was in attendance but no other cast members.
Best in Show follows a number of dog owners as they travel to the major national dog show. Don't assume a foregone conclusion in the show's outcome or you'll receive a rude shock or two.
Best in Show bills itself as a mockumentary. Unfortunately it commits a cardinal sin for that genres. In a mockumentary the creators must account, explain and react to the fact a film crew is capturing every moment of the action. Best in Show does not do this. Many scenes in it are like any other comic film. While this only bothers purists (which means it bugged me) it also means the film lacks any narrative or editorial voice. Sometimes that is a benefit but here we notice its absence when, well into the show two commentators arrive to speak (one played brilliantly by Fred Willard) arrive on the scene the film improves immensely. I can only speculate how hilarious the film might have been had these two had roles throughout.
The cast is a superb ensemble including Guest himself, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Ed Begley Jr., Michael McKean, Parker Posey and John Michael Higgins. My only casting peeve is that talented comedian Will Sasso is once again wasted in a tiny role as a small town imbecile. Guest and Levy combined to write the screenplay and their comic genius is evident however the wonderful performances are largely lent to stereotypical roles. There's plenty of humour when the stereotypes play off the situation and each other but the lack of depth in the roles means Best in Show is always more of a farce than a satire. The movies in no less funny as result (reports are even circulating that audible guffaws could be heard at the normally dead silent press screenings) but an interesting message about competitiveness and people treating their dogs better than they treat other people is lost in the silliness. There are a few stinging barbs here and there but, for the most part, commentary is lost in favour of zaniness. That said Best in Show is compelling and genuinely entertaining throughout. In the end it stands as a fine contender; but it falls far from Best of Show.
Bunny, from first time American director Mia Trachinger. Briefly it is the story of Nik and Luda a married couple who flee from an unnamed war-torn European country and move in with an estranged aunt in her apartment complex in Los Angeles. Unable to find work they are recruited into a job that seems like it was lifted straight from a Kids on the Hall sketch. They are asked to put on pink fluffy bunny suits and crouch on street corners bouncing up and down slightly as part of a city wide campaign. Although this may seem little sillier than bizarrely decorated life-sized statues of moose placed all over a city's downtown core the plot thickens as we realise city residents are pouring their hearts out to these bunnies who are forbidden from speaking or interacting with other on pain of immediate dismissal. Though some find it initially therapeutic to just talk the bunnies inability to communicate eventually leaves those seeking them more frustrated and hurt than they started. Some corporate doubletalk about "bunnies have to treat everyone equally" is a laughable excuse and the entire concept is portrayed as absurd. This might all be well and good if this were a comedy, comedies have a long tradition of introducing one absurd element into a realistic world and letting humour develop from there, but believe me when I say there is not one single laugh anywhere in this listless, plodding unfortunate tale. The plot is so slow moving and the characters so flat by the time anything did start to happen I no longer cared.
There was a lot of positive buzz around this film and, for the life of me, I can't imagine why. When considered as a first piece from a new director there are a few elements of promise (Trachinger also wrote the screenplay) which can hopefully be built on for the future but, overall, Bunny gets my first pan of the festival.
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