Manic Monday Movie: Waiting for Guffman

Christopher Guest is the king of the movie mockumentaries. He is known for many of them: This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and my personal favorite, Waiting for Guffman, which is our Manic Monday Movie.

This mock documentary takes place in the small town of Blaine, MO. As Blaine prepares to celebrate it's 150th anniversary, a quirky director, Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest) and his equally quirky troupe of actors (Parker Posey, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, Eugene Levy) rehearse to perform a musical about Blaine written by St. Clair himself. Much hilarity ensues as the barely talented cast and crew get ready for their big show.

The title of the film, referencing Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, comes into play when the Blaine actors hear that Corky has pulled some strings to get a big-time Broadway producer, Mort Guffman, to come critique the show. Each character has grand dreams of moving to New York to take their show to Broadway. And insert more hilarity.

While all of Guest's movies are comical, I find this to be his best. This was the first of his films made with the troupe of actors he goes on to use in the rest of his mockumentaries, and they are all at their best. Parker Posey is perfect with her flakey, gum-chewing, Dairy Queen employee. And Eugene Levy as an almost blind Jewish dentist - absolutely hilarious. Throw in Guest doing ballet moves, songs like "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" and O'Hara wanting to try an acting technique where you "close your eyes when you say your lines and then open them when you look away" and you've got one hell of a mockumentary.