Bob Roberts

1992 political satire

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Ultra-conservative folk singer Bob Roberts wants to be a senator. A film crew follows him on his campaign while reporter Bugs Raplin tries to uncover a story of corruption.

As I've here stated ad nauseum, I love the mockumentary format. Generally, you don't 100% buy what's going on in your typical mockumentary, but you forgive them because they're hilarious. Bob Roberts isn't your typical mockumentary. It's not laugh-out-loudly hilarious, but it's got the realism. The cast, including all the extras, is gigantic, but they step on each other's lines like they would in real life and none of their actions seem extraneous or unnatural, helping me buy every inch of what was happening on the screen. That's actually pretty scary when you think about it. Bob Roberts is like a mockumentary that Robert Altman would have made. And although I didn't exactly laugh, the biting satire made me nod in appreciation more than any movie I can remember. It's an impressive achievement for first-time director Tim Robbins who also wrote the thing, starred as the titular right-winger/singer, and co-wrote the songs. It must have been exhausting. After all, tongue-lashing a nation for its hypocrisy, shortsidedness, and naivete is tiring work. This wouldn't click with everybody, and like a lot of great movies, it'll offend some people. Giancarlo Esposito as the reporter, Alan Rickman as an advisor, and Gore Vidal as the incumbent are all very good. I also dug all the Bob Dylan references, some album covers and the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" thing.

Best in Show

2000 mockumentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Eccentric show dog owners travel to compete at the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show.

This is a really funny movie until Fred Willard pops in. Then, it gets side-splintingly hilarious! It seems like a lot of these mockumentary subjects are about things I'd never watch a real documentary about. I have no interest at all in dog shows. But I still really liked how Best in Show played the dog show part so straightly. The actors play their roles as comic caricatures, not believable in the least, but the dog show itself, other than Willard's hilarious non sequiturs and dada commentary as an unqualified announcer, isn't played for laughs much at all unless their actions/words just add a bit to the previously established quirky character traits. I think that makes the "umentary" part of this a lot more realistic. The "mock" part, as you'd expect from a Christopher Guest joint with this ensemble cast, is great. There's not a lot instantly quotable here, nothing truly classic, but all the subtle pokes and tickles add up to a great time. A lot of the funny is nonsense, verbal slapstick and easygoing visual silliness, but there's some nice subtle satire in there, too. Guest is the type of comedic writer (though a lot of this has an improvisational feel) who understands how flawed, miserable, and disturbing human beings are but who also knows that's what makes them kinda funny. I'm not sure how much the presence of these beautiful and classy doggies helps these sore thumbs of humanity stick out, but that might have something to do with it. This may have gotten a bonus point for poor ventriloquism. And in case I didn't make myself clear, everything Fred Willard says in this is hilarious.

Fred Tuttle: Man with a Plan

1996 mockumentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Vermont farmer Fred Tuttle, a widower who lives with his sick father, needs money. He comes up with a plan (not the titular plan) to run for congress because congressmen make 80,000 dollars a year doing almost nothing. He starts his campaign against the incumbent, the normally-unopposed Bill Blachly. Despite tremendous odds against him, Fred Tuttle manages to raise thirty dollars and twenty-seven cents and starts to become a serious contender for the seat.

This is down-home goodness, very cheaply produced but full of local flavor and colorful caricatures. I was surprised how much I laughed out loud, but Tuttle himself was funny nearly every time he opened his mouth, and although a lot of the humor didn't work at all (see: the shady newspaper reporter holding up a barn wall), there were more than enough times when this just hits the spot. I love the "plan," an anagram he repeats throughout the campaign--Friendly, Renewable, Extra Terrestrial, and Dinky. He'd have my vote based on Dinky alone! I loved his interactions with a speech coach, his promise to debate Blachly "any time, any place, and in any language," and his promise to put a "chicken in every egg." Writer/Director John O'Brien has a style that grows on you as the movie goes, and I like how he finds humor in the little things. I've never been to the state, but O'Brien uses sneaky sight gags (again, not all of them funny) and several shots of its landscape to make it seem like a bizarrely beautiful and wonderful place. I'm fairly positive there's not a real actor in this thing as O'Brien uses locals at the annual "World's Fair" and demolition derbies. And I'm pretty sure that this was shot sans script, and the freedom given to these normal people to just improvise as themselves went a long way in painting a realistic picture of the place and its political landscape. At times, I wondered if the performers were even aware they were performing as a couple of these scenes make Fred Tuttle look like a 73-year-old Borat. This movie might be tough to find, but it's worth the trouble. Why should you watch Fred Tuttle: Man with a Plan? Same answer the character gave when asked why people should vote for him--Why Not?

Cannes Man

1996 comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Big-shot producer Sy Lerner makes a bet with a buddy that he can take any individual his buddy picks and turn him into the talk of the Cannes Film Festival. Enter Frank, a cabbie with no film experience except for some work in a video store. Sy dubs him Sy Lerner and takes him to meet some other big shots, introducing him as screenwriter Frank Rhino, writing of Con Man.

Here's a cheap one. I'm surprised so many big names (Depp, Hopper, Del Toro, even Chris Penn!) agreed to be seen in something so crappy. As a parody, it falls flat. There's nothing especially biting here and not a single laugh. A lot of the crappiness, however, is because of sub-genre inconsistency. It's uneven as a mockumentary, seeming more like a traditional and cheaply-made narrative with a bunch of interviews and poor narration thrown in. Francesco Quinn (Frank Rhino in this and Anthony Quinn's son in the real world) provides that narration. His performance was awkwardly bad, terrible even. I looked him up because he seemed familiar, and I imagine that's because he was, in a completely different sort of performance, terrorist Syed Ali in season two of 24. He was also in Platoon. Seemingly, Cannes Man (or Con Man or apparently and goofily Canne$ Man) was filmed with a scant script. A lot of the interviews seem to be select samples from much longer improvisational ramblings, and a lot of the dialogue feels more spontaneous. But for the most part, it seems as if the director gave the talent an instruction to improvise but with a "Don't Even Think About Saying Anything The Least Bit Funny" rule. An extended cameo involving Sy and Frank visiting Jim Jarmusch and Johnny Depp is probably the funniest part of the movie, but that might be the reason why it seems to clash with the rest of the story. This movie thinks it's just so clever. It isn't.