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hyped garbage

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Waiting for Guffman is hilarious and it still holds up after several repeat viewings. The characters are all incredibly funny, the actors playing them are perfectly cast and incredible in their (hilarious) roles, and the script is simple but so very entertaining. It also has heart and you feel for the characters, but mostly it's just plain funny. I'd say it's not quite as funny as Spinal Tap but it's a better movie, if that makes sense. More heart and drama. I highly recommend this movie (and Spinal Tap too).

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.

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.

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.