Let’s turn it up to at least 11 and sing the praises of the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, otherwise known as Christopher Guest. This actor and filmmaker is known for being married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Then there was his one-season stint (1984-85) on “Saturday Night Live,” where he helped introduce the phrase, “It’s a Minkman.” But his career took off after starring in the 1984 mock rock documentary “This Is Spinal Tap” directed by Rob Reiner. Guest would then turn the satirical genre into his own calling card as a filmmaker while recruiting an ace ensemble of masterful ad-libbers. In honor of his 72nd birthday on February 5, 2020, here are 11 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
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11. MASCOTS (2016)
Image Credit: Netflix Director: Christopher Guest. Writers: Guest, Jim Piddock. Starring: Parker Posey, Chris O’Dowd, Zach Woods, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard.
This Netflix release that peers into the insular world of sports mascots was the first Guest mock doc in 10 years – and his satirical go-to format is showing its age. The good news is that Guest revives his own swishy Corky St. Clair, the small-town theater troupe doyenne from “Waiting for Guffman” who is like a cross between Bob Fosse and Dame Edna. But the setup of costumed actors in various guises competing for the Golden Fluffy isn’t the same kind of emotional minefield that we’ve come to expect. The caught-on-camera confessionals come off more like psycho-drama than comedy as Posey is a fading Blanche DuBois type in armadillo garb while O’Dowd is a hockey hooligan in the guise of a giant fist. It does not help that the actors hide their faces while going through their routines clearly performed by doubles.
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10. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (2006)
Image Credit: Suzanne Tenner/Warner Independent/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Christopher Guest. Writers: Guest, Eugene Levy. Starring: Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer, Bob Balaban, Ricky Gervais, Levy.
There is definitely both pathos and humor to be milked from the endless ups and downs of Oscar season chatter, a premise that was partly inspired by the nomination whispers for Levy’s performance in “A Mighty Wind.” Guest gathers much of his usual comedic repertory company, once again pitting high hopes against major disappointment, with inflated vanity taking a fall. The subject: The misbegotten movie “Home for Purim,” about a Jewish clan in the South during WWII, features Harry Shearer’s B-movie actor best known for being a hotdog in a TV ad, Catherine O’Hara as Marilyn Hack, once a regular on a forgotten ‘80s TV series, as the clan’s dying matriarch, and Guest as the film’s director. There is more melancholy than usual, partly because O’Hara so expertly teeters between the hysterical and hilarious as she embraces her possible Academy Award contender status, especially when she manipulates her own facial muscles to emulate a rather extreme face lift.
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9. THE LONG RIDERS (1980)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Walter Hill. Writers: Bill Bryden, Steven Phillip Smitch, Stacy Keach, James Keach. Starring: the Keaches, David Carradine, Robert Carradine, Keith Carradine, Dennis Quaid, Randy Quaid, Nicholas Guest.
If you are going to embrace stunt casting, it’s best to be full-on gung-ho. Hill, who had always wanted to do a Western, gathers four sets of sibling actors for his myth-making tale of the bank-robbing James Gang. The violent action, cinematography and Ry Cooder’s folksy score makes up for any over-romanticizing of these real-life outlaws. Still, you react more to the familiar brothers onscreen than their legendary characters, with the Keaches taking the reins as Jesse and Frank James. Guest and brother Nicholas are the deceitful Charley and Robert Ford, who ultimately kill Jesse for a reward.
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8. MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS (2005)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock Director: Stephen Frears. Writer: Martin Sherman. Starring: Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Kelly Reilly, Thelma Barlow.
Laura Henderson, a real-life eccentric wealthy widow (Dench) with time on her hands, decides to buy an old West End theater in London that she dubs the Windmill, and hires an irascible vaudeville veteran (Hoskins) to help her realize her dream of non-stop performances during the Blitz. When the competition for such entertainment heats up, she decides to introduce nude females into their shows. That is where Guest’s Lord Chamberlain comes in, who insists the naked ladies cannot move. Luckily, he is a close friend of the Windmill’s owner. They have a riotous exchange, however, over what the lord calls “the foliage” — pubic hair. When Mrs. Henderson doesn’t know what he is referring to, he speaks more bluntly: “The female part.” Her reply? “Oh, the pussy.” He is shocked, shocked by her language and suggests the term “the midlands” instead. This charmer was the source of Dench’s fifth of seven Oscar acting nominations, and was also up for its costume design.
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7. A MIGHTY WIND (2003)
Image Credit: Suzanne Tenner/Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Christopher Guest. Writers: Guest, Eugene Levy. Starring: Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Fred Williard.
Guest and his usual crew attempt to put the hoot in hootenanny as three groups of pre-Beatles ‘60s troubadours reunite for a memorial concert: Guest, Shearer and McKean as the over-earnest Folksmen (think the Kingston Trio); Lynch and Higgins as the overseers of the chirpy New Main Street Singers (think the New Christy Minstrels); and, as the heart of the mock-doc, Levy and O’Hara as Mitch & Mickey, a long-estranged duo whose much-touted reunion is giving them the jitters (think Ian & Sylvia). Guest softens his usual harsh satirical blows and instead infuses the couple’s fraught duet with sweet nostalgia, sentiment and tension as fans hope to see their signature kiss during their most famous song, “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow, ” which won a Grammy and was Oscar-nominated.
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6. A FEW GOOD MEN (1992)
Image Credit: Sidney Baldwin/Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Rob Reiner. Writer: Aaron Sorkin. Starring: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland.
Guest had a small but pivotal part as the somewhat shady Commander Dr. Stone, who is interrogated by Cruise’s callow and cocky military lawyer as he defends two young Marines who were ordered to perform a severe form of hazing on their platoon mate. They end up charged with murder after he dies, while insisting they were just following orders. Guest’s testimony starts off with a question about a lethal substance known as lactic acidosis. Cruise’s hotshot asks if certain health conditions might hasten death from the substance and the doc gets a bit nervous, especially when it is noted he filled out a medical report that suggests the deceased private had a medical condition. One suspects Reiner recruited his “Spinal Tap” star just to juice up the scene. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson for his “You can’t handle the truth” Marine colonel, film editing and sound mixing.
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5. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Frank Oz. Writer: Howard Ashman. Starring: Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia.
Guest makes a cameo appearance early on in this musical based on Roger Corman’s 1960 cult classic about a man-eating plant from what might have been affected by a solar eclipse. The actor is credited as the First Customer, since his strangely upbeat business man is the first visitor to Mushnik’s Flower Shop who notices the exotic Audrey II (voiced by Levi Stubbs of Motown’s the Four Tops). That’s even before the foliage sprouts exponentially from infusions of human blood. Oscar-nominated for visual effects and original song for “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.”
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4. THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Rob Reiner. Writer: William Goldman. Starring: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn.
This much-loved and highly quotable comedic fairy tale tells the story of Westley (Elwes), a lowly farmhand who is in love with a princess named Buttercup (Wright). He goes off to seek his fortune so they can wed, but his ship is attacked by pirates. Various villains pop up years later once Buttercup agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon). One is Guest as Count Tyrone Rugen, a world-class sadist who has six fingers on his right hand. At one point, he uses a pain-inflicting machine on Westley. But Rugen gets his just deserts when Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya (Patinkin) avenges the murder of his father, repeating his infamous phrase, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” The original song, “Storybook Love” by Mink DeVille, was Oscar-nominated.
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3. BEST IN SHOW (2000)
Image Credit: Doane Gregory/Castle Rock/Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Christopher Guest. Writers: Guest, Eugene Levy. Starring: Jennifer Coolidge, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Jane Lynch, Catherin O’Hara, Levy, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Fred Willard.
Guest co-opted the insular world of dog show competitions, with cute pooches as bait, to turn the spotlight on their foible-filled human owners as they arrive in Philadelphia and prepare their pup and themselves for the big event. They include Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Levy and O’Hara), a Florida couple who own Winky, a Norwich Terrier. They keep encountering men along the way from Cookie’s very busy past. The personalities of neurotic upper-class yuppies Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker and Hitchcock) have an adverse effect on Beatrice, their Weimaraner. As for Sherri Ann (Coolidge), a trophy wife to an elderly sugar daddy, she likes to hang out with her poodle Rhapsody in White’s trainer, Christy Cummings (Lynch), and even gives her a makeover. Guest goes solo as laid-back outdoorsman Harlan Pepper, owner of bloodhound Hubert, who is an amateur ventriloquist who prides himself on knowing every variety of nut. Speaking of nuts, Willard steals the show as a clueless announcer Buck Laughlin, with such asides as, “And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.”
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2. WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1997)
Image Credit: Suzanne Tenner/Columbia Tristar/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Christopher Guest. Written by: Guest, Eugene Levy. Starring: Levy, Bob Balaban, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey and Lewis Arquette.
The world of amateur community theater is satirized without mercy as dictatorial director Corky St. Clair puts his hand-picked troupe of players through their musical paces as they perform a salute to the 150th anniversary of Blaine, Missouri – the stool capital of the United States. Heading the cast are married leads Ron and Sheila Albertson (Willard and O’Hara), travel agents who never have stepped foot outside of Blaine. They are joined by a Dairy Queen worker (Posey), a dentist (Levy) and a retired taxidermist who narrates the show (Arquette). There is more drama backstage when Corky invites noted New York theatrical impresario Mort Guffman to the opening with the hopes that the “Red, White and Blaine” would be produced on Broadway. But just like Godot, he never shows. Guest is more than over-the-top in his portrayal of a gay man who claims to have a wife named Bonnie no one has ever seen, and dominates the proceedings. But I always liked his insult: “Well, then I just HATE you … and I hate your ass FACE!”
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1. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984)
Image Credit: Spinal Tap Production/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Rob Reiner. Writers: Christopher Guest, Michal McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner.
The Mount Everest of mockumentaries. Yes, Eric Idle and Neil Innes’ “All You Need Is Cash” – a faux music doc about a band called the Rutles that spoofed Beatlemania – came first in 1978. But Reiner definitely turned it up beyond 11 in this satire of British heavy-metal dingbats. The laughs are in the close-to-reality details, such as the series of drummers who die from spontaneous human combustion and choking on someone else’s vomit. But Guest meets his alter-ego match as sexy yet dense singer and guitarist Nigel Tufnel, whose trouble with measurements causes a Stonehenge stage prop to be only 18 inches high. No rock cliché is left unturned. The best exchange is between McKean’s David St. Hubbins and Nigel. David: “It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…” Nigel: “Clever.” David, “Yeah, and, clever.”
