gavin6942 An aspiring director (Christopher Guest) and the marginally talented amateur cast of a hokey small-town Missouri musical production go overboard when they learn that someone from Broadway will be in attendance.Despite the incredibly cast (especially Parker Posey), this is not a film people usually talk about. In the same vein and from some of the same people, you hear a lot about "Spinal tap" and to a lesser extent "Best in Show". How did this one quietly fade away? I guess Meryl Streep loves it, so that's good.This film seems like the precursor to "Parks and Rec". Not the first fake documentary, but the focus on a small town and its inhabitants seems familiar. Even more than "The Office", this seems to have the elements that made "Parks and Rec" great.

drawah64 This is a fairly enjoyable film, but honestly I don't think it's deserving of all the praise it gets. If I could sum it up in one word, it would be 'mild.' The story is mildly interesting, and it follows a group of small-town folks who are mildly quirky, putting on a play that is pretty bad, but only mildly funny.Part of the problem, I think, is that it's somewhat one-joke-- the characters are stupid, and they're putting on a bad play. Beyond that, there's not much to laugh at. There are a few moments of comedy, but most of it is just repeating the same ideas which aren't original or funny in the first place-- Fred Willard's character is self-obsessed and obnoxious, Catherine O'Hara is blindly supportive of him, Corky St. Clair is flamboyantly gay, etc. It seems cliché'd to compare this (or any improvisational comedy) to Spinal Tap, but the key difference between them is that in Spinal Tap, the characters say funny things. In this, the fact that the characters are stupid/vain/whatever is supposed to be the joke. And it gets old very quickly.Watching the film, it seems like the play is going to be a hilarious climax, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be. The songs themselves are pretty funny, because they're so cheesy and typical of amateur musical theater, but being subjected to 15+ minutes of the same joke -- these characters are bad actors and the lyrics are cheesy -- is tiresome.Also, I'm guessing the ending is supposed to be surprising, but it's telegraphed pretty clearly, and you can see it coming a mile away.

MartinHafer This is the first of several films that Christopher Guest and his friends have made using a very unusual style. Instead of a clearly defined script, some very talented actors (such as Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard and others) took a script idea and improvised throughout. The film was then created using the best bits and I can honestly say that there is nothing like this film. While some of the jokes are very, very dry and occasionally fall flat, there is a subtle charm and wit to the film as you follow a group of 3rd rate local actors who have insane visions of Broadway.The film is ostensibly about a very local stage production about the founding of some small town. While these sort of pageants have been ubiquitous in small town America, this one is unique because supposedly a guy by the name of Guffman is coming to town and plans two see it. Guffman, it seems, is from Broadway and the cast has the temerity to believe that maybe they'll impress him so much that they'll become major stars. Considering the quality of the acting is well below that of an average high school production, this is very absurd. Yet, although ridiculous, there is a certain something in many of these people that is very likable so there is some depth to the film--you aren't just laughing at yokels who have ridiculous aspirations.I thoroughly enjoyed the film and think that people who like their humor subtle and perhaps a bit painful will enjoy this film. People who prefer broad comedy probably won't enjoy this very much.

classicalsteve Movies seem to fall into three categories. Those not worth seeing, those worth seeing again and again, and those worth a single viewing. In other words, some movies are a single bag of popcorn experience. "Waiting for Guffman" comes under the latter category. Seeing it more than once may diminish it as it doesn't really have much more to say than what the typical movie-goer will pretty much absorb in less than 90 minutes. There are some underlying themes but they are applied with a sledge-hammer. Simultaneously, this is a movie more for people in the entertainment industry, particularly in the Broadway scene, as there are a few in-jokes. Some friends of mine who have worked in live theater swear by it as one of the funniest movies they have ever seen. Not quite as wacky as "Airplane" or "This is Spinal Tap" (which was made by the same people minus Rob Reiner), but "Guffman" has its moments.Briefly, the film is a "mockumentary" (a satirical comedy done in documentary form, like Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run") about the ridiculousness of small-town theater, and maybe the ridiculousness of small-town Midwest American culture. In short, how Midwest small-town America has about as much culture as the outhouses that line the city blocks during a parade down Main Street. Or at least that's how the filmmakers view the community of Blaine, as a nondescript backward American mistake in Missouri that probably doesn't even show up on the map. Of course the rhetorical viewpoint is a gross stereotype in and of itself. Even the raunchiest of wild west towns occasionally performed Shakespeare. But to get the laughs, the filmmakers portray Blaine as the kind of town that probably thinks "Gomer Pyle USMC" is high art.The thrust of the story, if you can call it a story, is Blaine's attempt to produce a musical based on the history of their town. The details of which could probably be jotted down on a piece of notebook paper and you'd still have more than a page and a half left to fill in a grocery shopping list. The mayor and council members have hired a gay wanna-be Broadway actor/writer/director, Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest, who also directs the film), to write and oversee the musical. Everything is over of the top, which is of course the point. Simultaneously, Guest as the gay musical director was a little much, even for a film that is supposed to be purely for laughs. His gay personality is incredibly stereotypical, and in many scenes he acts exactly as you would expect him, getting unmanageably hysterical over minute details, or emotional when things don't work his way. Maybe I wanted something a little more to him than just the typical gay director who always has his hands on his hips. The other characters, chiefly the actors and actresses who get the parts for the musical, of course believe they are all unknown stars waiting to happen, destined for stardom, but just never had the chance before. And at one point, the cast is promised that Mr Guffman, a talent scout and agent from New York, will travel to Blaine to see their musical and help launch everybody's careers. Hence the title.Then there is the play itself, the musical about Blaine. Unfortunately, it is not just Bad (capital B) but it is not so bad it's good, of the Plan 9 From Outer Space variety. It is just plain bad. Or idiotic is the better word. It's a romp through Blaine's "history", which actually makes Romper Room look like "Gone With the Wind." The story is narrated directly to the audience by an old coot at a campfire. Just before curtain, we learn that one of the young male actors won't be appearing and Corky will take his place. This was for me the lowest moment of the film. Corky as the replacement makes no attempt to become the character he is playing, but instead just lets his gay personality shine through, particularly during a duet with a young woman where he is supposed to be a young heterosexual soldier about to go to World War I. I felt the scene bordered offensiveness, as a true Broadway actor worth his salt would, whether gay or not, attempt to act in character that was relatively consistent with the script. I think it would have been far funnier if he tried desperately to be more masculine a la "Cage aux Folles" with tragic results.Given these shortcomings, Guffman has its moments. Maybe too many of them. The auditions sequence is almost unbearable, obviously poking fun at the idea that terrible talent always thinks they are much better than they are. A sort of American Idol meets The Gong Show. Some of the best moments are interviews with the locals who trace their history back to the original foundation of Blaine, in which 19th-century pioneers supposedly thought they had reached the west coast and didn't realize they were 2000 miles off before deciding to create their town. Which is of course the idea behind the creation of the Blaine musical and being more than somewhat ill-conceived. Larry Miller as the town mayor is priceless, almost perfect casting. I would have liked a little more screen time for Bob Balaban as the music teacher who conducts the lifeless orchestra. Check out the trumpet player if you get a chance! You have to credit writer/actor/director Guest for at least the most improbable and highly original idea for comedic satire. Maybe it would have actually been funnier and more insightful if Guest had found a town in heartland America and uncovered what made them tick instead of lapsing into such exaggerated stereotypes.