Very well executed

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Absolutely Fantastic

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Waiting for Guffman, the ensemble-driven mock-u-parody of community theater, differs in one engaging way from writer-director-star Christopher Guest's other inspections of American culture at its most banal. Principally, Guffman follows a group of people who (think they) are on life's upslope, building toward a great achievement of teamwork in showbiz. Guest's other movies with the same cast--viz. Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration--are far more concerned with portraying the pathos of the has-been. In Guffman, Guest's character, Corky, is the only has-been, and then only if you count '10 years living in New York and failing auditions' as achieving something in show business. Guffman's characters are small town people at their most stereotypical ordinary selves, people yearning for a brush with the magic of being a part of a really good play. Consider Parker Posey's performance as Libby Mae Brown, the Dairy Queen worker. Posey tells you everything you need to know about the listless ennui of being stuck in a place with nothing to do and no way to grow with a couple of wordless moments where she looks away, her eyes reverberating what is not being said about the failure of dreams. Or take Bob Balaban's portrayal of the quietly suffering music teacher, deposed as the director of the town's annual play in favor of the terrible infant that is Corky (who has lived in New York, after all). The scene where Balaban's character reacts to Corky's reappearance at the helm of the production is a master class in comedic character acting in the most tissue-subtle way that it can be delivered.The thing about the failure of never-weres (as opposed to has-beens) is that the failure brings no sanction, no shame. Americans are raised on tales of "The Little Engine That Could" and Abe Lincoln's failed political campaigns before he became the greatest President in history. In America, if you aren't yet anything, and you try, we root for you. If you fail and try again, we find ourselves rooting twice as hard. This striving of small town nobodys towards the stardust of Broadway, home of another Abe, Abe Guffman, gives this film an emotional resonance fundamentally different from Guest's many other projects (even Spinal Tap). The result is that by the end of the film, we're not at all tired of the characters, or annoyed or sapped by their failure to get discovered. Guest could assemble a new script and make the sequel, could make a "Guffman 2," and it would succeed with both his core audience and with a general audience, because everybody (in America, anyway) loves to see a first-timer try to make it big, whether it is their first attempt, or their tenth.

"Waiting for Guffman" (1996): THE FINEST assemblage of straight-faced comedians in all of history, create one of THE funniest movies EVER. "Waiting for Guffman" is about humans with more than enough faith...AND self-delusions. Christopher Guest is the driving force, both in front of and behind the camera, and along with Eugene Levy, portray a small town's population creating a small play about their small history, which is a VERY BIG deal to them. Guest's consistent theme (throughout his films) is about humans who don't have enough insight or talent to spot the lack of it within themselves. There is an incredible blind faith, tenderness and embarrassing, misguided drive within these people. And yet, within their little world, they support the dreams for one another, and move through their lives with solid delusion. "This is Spinal Tap", "Best in Show", and "A Mighty Wind" are other great examples. Guest also has the sense to call back his actors for further projects. This is brilliant work.

I love these Guest/Levy put-ons, and Willard is always great. So is O'hara in this. But come on, this is not in the same league as their others. It isn't even nearly as good as Drop Dead Gorgeous. I know that is by a different troupe, but it is a great comparable. The part leading up to the show is good. The show is interminable. It kills the movie. After the show ends, things get better again, but that huge dead-spot in the middle makes it impossible to give this more than a five. Once again, the people who give these mediocre movies a "10" seem to be missing an oar. Take this comment: "the character of Corky ... at first glance he can seem like an annoying gay stereotype. But good ol' Christopher Guest has a trick up his sleeve...listen VERY carefully and you'll hear him mention his wife (just once in the whole movie). I don't actually think for a minute Corky is homosexual, he just acts exceedingly camp. ... We should realise that Christopher Guest is one step ahead of us!" Hello!?!? Guest is two steps ahead of this guy I'd say. Corky CLAIMS to have a wife. Somebody else in the flick, maybe it is Mrs. Pearl, says nobody has ever seen her. Hello!? That is the joke. Get it now?

Waiting for Guffman wasn't the first Christopher Guest/Eugene Levy collaboration (as writers I mean, it's a Guest movie all the way) I had seen, but I think I probably would've reacted to it as I did after having seen it after Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. It's like Guest and his always inspired troupe were with a full burst of energy with their characters, even if they're all in a movie that's a little too short (it says 84 minutes but it feels even brisker if that's possible) and provides some characters who are funny all the time (like Guest's flamboyantly flamboyant Corky or Levy's nerdy and ostensibly Jewish Allan Pearl or Fred Willard as Rob Albertson), and some who are funny only in spurts like Catherine O'Hara or Bob Balaban. It's got quirky written all over the place, but it's always endearing in it's very strange way to show these people as they are, and the characters are likable even at their most deranged and just, well, 'small-town'.Guest plays the director of a small-town's 150th anniversary memorial play, about how a town in Missouri came to be. It's a chance really to get glimpses into the people who get the chance of a lifetime (err, for seemingly their mundane lifetimes), and especially for Corky who gives prima-donna an odd name; he almost storms off when he doesn't get the money he asks the committee for (calling them 'bastards' in an angry burst that's one of the funniest things I've ever seen from Guest in anything he's done). Then comes crunch-time for the show, as Corky has to take a part himself and Alan Pearl has to convincingly play a part he has absolutely no confidence at (those glasses!). And all the while, the 'Guffman' of the title- ala Godot- is a near God-like figure who could make or break the perception of the production for Corky and his cast. The final revelation from this is a comic classic touch.This all being said, I didn't really get the great big belly laughs and get as sucked into the world of these oddballs (and all done in improvisational form no less) as I did with the other films that have the mark of Guest and/or Levy. There are some parts where I'll smile at the near whimsy of what's going on, but a line might go flat or a bit a little weak. But if it's ever on TV, I'm sure I would tune in again just for a little while, if only to see a few of the songs from the 150th anniversary show (the 'Mars' song a favorite), and for that great epilogue.