Best in Show | |
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Directed by | Christopher Guest |
Written by | Christopher Guest Eugene Levy |
Produced by | Gordon Mark Karen Murphy |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Roberto Schaefer |
Edited by | Robert Leighton |
Music by | C. J. Vanston |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $10 million [1] |
Box office | $20.8 million [1] |
Best in Show is a 2000 American mockumentary comedy film co-written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy and directed by Guest. The film follows five entrants in a prestigious dog show as they travel to and compete at the show, and stars Guest and Levy alongside Jennifer Coolidge, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Jane Lynch, Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, and Parker Posey.
Much of the dialogue was improvised. Many of the comic actors were also involved in Guest's other films, including Waiting for Guffman , A Mighty Wind , For Your Consideration , and Mascots . The film's score was composed by C. J. Vanston.
Five dogs and their owners, trainers and handlers travel to Philadelphia to compete in the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show.
Gerry and Cookie Fleck are a middle-class couple from Florida who arrive at the Taft Hotel with their Norwich terrier Winky. After having forgotten to pay their credit card bill and short of cash, they are forced to sleep in the hotel's storage room. While traveling to the show, they encounter several of Cookie's former lovers who try to seduce her again, much to Gerry's chagrin.
Meg and Hamilton Swan, a stereotypical yuppie couple from a Chicago suburb, arrive with their weimaraner Beatrice. Their constant doting and neurotic behavior toward Beatrice—for example, taking her to a psychotherapist after she sees them having sex in a position they learned from the Kama Sutra —confuses and upsets her.
Harlan Pepper, the affable Southern owner of a fishing goods store and an aspiring ventriloquist, arrives with his bloodhound Hubert. The Pepper family has raised a variety of hounds for generations; Harlan continues the tradition by raising bloodhounds.
Sherri Ann Cabot is the buxom, overly-made-up trophy wife of her elderly sugar daddy Leslie Ward Cabot. A former two-time winner of the show, Sherri Ann receives help with her standard poodle Rhapsody in White, also known as Butch, from her taskmaster trainer Christy Cummings. An extremely competitive butch lesbian, Christy rigorously trains Butch for the show and rejects Sherri Ann's offers of a beauty makeover. Leslie is oblivious to Christy and Sherri Ann's romantic involvement, as well as everything else happening around him.
Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof are a campy gay couple who take great pride in their Shih Tzu Miss Agnes and are confident that she will win the competition. They share a love of old movies and enjoy making fun of Christy Cummings, but are friendly to the other competitors, especially the Flecks.
The dog show is hosted by dog expert Trevor Beckwith and oblivious "color" commentator Buck Laughlin, whose inane banter is completely lost on Beckwith. During the first round, Beatrice is disqualified when she becomes aggressive and Hamilton cannot control her, which the Swans chalk up to a dog toy of Beatrice's that they had lost prior to the show. The other four dogs advance to the final round. Just before the finals, Cookie dislocates her knee and insists that Gerry take over for her despite his two left feet (the result of a birth defect). Though Gerry is nervous, Winky ultimately takes Best in Show.
After the competition, Gerry and Cookie return home to Florida and enjoy brief fame there. While in a studio recording novelty songs about terriers, they discover that the recording engineer is yet another of Cookie's ex-lovers, to Gerry's unending frustration. Christy and Sherri Ann, now openly in a relationship (Leslie's fate is unclear), publish American Bitch, a magazine for lesbian owners of purebred dogs. After spending weeks on a kibbutz, Harlan fulfills his dream of being a ventriloquist, entertaining sparse crowds with a honky tonk song-and-dance number. Stefan and Scott design a calendar featuring Shih Tzu dogs in costume appearing in scenes from classic films such as Casablanca and Gone with the Wind . Meg and Hamilton are visibly happier together after replacing Beatrice with a pug named Kipper, whom they claim enjoys watching them make love.
The starring dogs listed are denoted by their registered names. All have earned the title Ch., indicating they have qualified for a championship at conformation shows, with most qualifying for the Canadian Kennel Club Championship—hence the prefix Can. The kennel prefix of one or more breeders precedes each dog's registered name; e. g. in "Arokat Echobar Take Me Dancing", the first breeder is "Arokat" and the second is "Echobar" while the name is "Take Me Dancing". The registered name differs from the dog's call name, which is used to talk to the animal. For example, Arokat Echobar Take Me Dancing's call name is "Peach". [2]
Filming took place in Vancouver and Los Angeles. In a 2000 interview, Christopher Guest reflected, "Originally, we thought it would be easier to go to an actual dog show and film there, but nobody would let us do that." [4] Eugene Levy adds that, "We actually had to stage our own dog show. And that's where the nightmare started. We literally had to put everything together from scratch, get somebody to organize the whole show, get the dogs in, find trainers and so forth." [4]
The greater part of the film was improvised by the actors, with little to no planning. Sixty hours of footage were filmed, as was the case with Guest's previous mockumentary Waiting for Guffman . [5] Levy said, "There is a much wider appeal for this movie than for Waiting for Guffman, which was a funny movie and a funny premise but not as accessible as this film, which is more mainstream. People just love dogs." [4]
Best in Show received critical acclaim. The film has a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 115 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A fine example of writer/director/star Christopher Guest's gift for improvisation comedy, Best in Show boasts an appealingly quirky premise and a brilliantly talented cast." [6] The film also has a score of 78 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [7] It won American, British, and Canadian Comedy Awards. The film is number 38 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". A 2022 review of the best comedy films of the 21st century [sic] ranked this as first. [8]
The film opened to a weekend gross of $413,436 to 13 theatres with an average of $31,802 per theater. After opening to a total of 497 theaters, the film ended its run with a domestic total of $18,715,392. The foreign gross of $2,074,164 brought its total gross revenue to $20,789,556. [1]
Best in Show was the inspiration for the broadcast of the National Dog Show, which has aired each Thanksgiving on NBC since 2002. [9]
To celebrate Halloween 2022, former Victorious castmates Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies paid homage to Best in Show by recreating several scenes from the movie in which they each dressed up as multiple characters. After shooting in May, the results were then posted to Instagram on October 28 and drew praise from Jennifer Coolidge. [10]
The beagle is a breed of small scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for hunting hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the beagle is the primary breed used as a detection dog for prohibited agricultural imports and foodstuffs in quarantine around the world. The beagle is a popular pet due to its size and good temper.
The English Setter is a medium-size breed of dog. It is part of the setter group, which includes the red Irish Setters, Irish Red and White Setters, and black-and-tan Gordon Setters. The mainly white coat has long silky fringes on the back of the legs, under the belly and on the tail. The coat features flecks of colour, and the different colour varieties are referred to as 'belton'.
The Basset Hound is a short-legged breed of dog in the hound family. The Basset is a scent hound that was originally bred for the purpose of hunting hare. Their sense of smell and ability to ground-scent is second only to the Bloodhound.
The Welsh Corgi is a small type of herding dog that originated in Wales. The name corgi is derived from the Welsh words cor and ci, meaning "dwarf" and "dog", respectively.
The American Cocker Spaniel is a breed of sporting dog. It is a spaniel type dog that is closely related to the English Cocker Spaniel; the two breeds diverged during the 20th century due to differing breed standards in the US and the UK. In the United States, the breed is usually called a Cocker Spaniel, while elsewhere in the world, it is called an American Cocker Spaniel to distinguish it from its older English cousin. The word cocker is commonly held to stem from their use to hunt woodcock in England, while spaniel is thought to be derived from the breed's origins in Spain.
The Sealyham Terrier is a rare Welsh breed of small to medium-sized terrier that originated in Wales as a working dog. It is principally a white-bodied, rough-coated breed, developed in the mid-to-late-19th century by Captain John Edwardes at Sealyham House, Pembrokeshire.
Toy dog traditionally refers to a very small dog or a grouping of small and very small breeds of dog. A toy dog may be of any of various dog types. Types of dogs referred to as toy dogs may include spaniels, pinschers and terriers that have been bred down in size. Not all toy dogs are lap dogs.
A lap dog or lapdog is a dog that is both small enough to be held in the arms or lie comfortably on a person's lap and temperamentally predisposed to doing so. Lapdog is not a specific breed, but a generic term for a type of dog that is small in size and friendly towards humans.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is an all-breed conformation show, held annually in the New York metropolitan area.
For Your Consideration is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Christopher Guest. It was co-written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and both also star in the film. The film's title is a phrase used in trade advertisements to promote films for honors such as the Academy Awards. The plot revolves around a group of three actors who learn that their performances in the fictional film they have not even completed yet, Home for Purim, a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, are supposedly generating a great deal of award-season buzz.
A puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies can weigh 1–1.5 kg (2.2–3.3 lb), while larger ones can weigh over 7 kg (15 lb). All puppies display primary altriciality and healthy puppies grow quickly after birth. A puppy's coat color may change as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in breeds such as the Yorkshire Terrier. Puppy refers specifically to young dogs, while pup may be used for other animals such as wolves, seals, giraffes, guinea pigs, rats or sharks.
Fortune Dogs is a manga series by Shuji Kishihara and Yasuharu Tomono serialized in Nakayoshi, about the lives of 48 puppies. An anime television series was produced based on the manga.
Dog boy was a term used to refer to adult male prison inmates in the Texas Department of Corrections for prisoners who would mimic an escape to be hunted down by prison bloodhounds and mounted guards as a training exercise. The bloodhounds in Texas have been considered to be the best for at least the last century by various government agencies and search and rescue organizations. More recently, the term inmate kennel men has been used as a substitute for the term. During the 1800s, inmates who handled the dogs were known as dawg boys. In some cases, the exercise was cited to be carried out for the "entertainment for the guards and their guests," which has drawn controversy over the practice. This was covered in The New York Times.
The Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka, also known as the Bolonka Zwetna in Germany, or known simply as a Bolonka is a rare toy breed of the Bichon type, developed in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia, from the ancestors of smaller dogs such as the Bichon Frise, Toy Poodle, Shih Tzu, Pekingese and French Bolognese. They include the white variety, the Franzuskaya Bolonka. The name of the breed means French lap dog.
The National Dog Show is an all-breed benched conformation show sanctioned by the American Kennel Club and the Kennel Club of Philadelphia, which takes place on Thanksgiving each year and has been televised on NBC since 2002.
The bloodhound is a large scent hound, originally bred for hunting deer, wild boar, rabbits, and since the Middle Ages, for tracking people. Believed to be descended from hounds once kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert, Belgium, in French it is called, le chien de Saint-Hubert.
Ch. Salilyn 'N Erin's Shameless also known as Samantha, was an English Springer Spaniel, best known for being Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in February 2000. Her sire was Ch. Salilyn's Condor, Best in Show winner at Westminster in 1993, Samantha became the first offspring of a previous Best in Show winner at Westminster to take the same prize.
Ch. Rancho Dobe's Storm, also known as Storm or Stormie, a Doberman Pinscher, best known for being Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in both 1952 and 1953. He was the grandson of the 1939 champion, Ferry v. Rauhfelsen of Giralda. Born in California, he was sold to his New York–based owner Len Carey at the age of three months. At the age of sixteen months he won Best of Breed at his first adult dog show, something he would repeat in all 25 of the shows he was entered into, becoming undefeated in breed competition.
Ch. Jafrak Philippe Olivier,, also known as Philip, was a male Giant Schnauzer who won the title of Best In Show at Crufts in 2008. He had previously won the Working Group in 2004 and 2005.
Ch. Tashtins Lookin For Trouble, also known as Miss P, was a female beagle from Enderby, British Columbia and Milton, Ontario, who was named the 2015 Best In Show winner at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Miss P has 20 Best in Show wins in the United States, and was the second beagle to win Westminster's Best in Show after Uno, who was her great-uncle. She died in her sleep in October 2021 at the age of 10.