By Ian Caruth Arizona Daily Wildcat Dogs, nerds prove to be comic gold Animals in film are usually the comedic kiss of death. Christopher Guest, a man with an absolutely wicked grasp of comic subtlety, understands the pitfalls of animal comedy. In the hands of amateur actors, improv comedy can be disastrous. Thankfully, the cast is phenomenally gifted, particularly shrill yuppie Parker Posey and comical Canadian Catherine O'Hara as a woman with an endless roster of past lovers. Most mockumentaries are admittedly constructed on a pretty thin premise - the humor hinges on the actors never breaking character, never winking at the audience.
Cameras intrude in unlikely places, and scenes occasionally feel overly staged.
This compromises the voyeuristic undertones inherent in a documentary, reminding viewers that all the action and emotion is faked. This leads to another problem. Every dog owner is given a distinct personality, with Posey's frantic blueblood perhaps the most memorable. It is this kind of twisted genius that marks Guest's projects as superior to that of others working in a similar genre. While the mockumentary format seems to be wearing thin in the hands of lesser auteurs, Guest proves there is still plenty of humor to be found in the story of a dog and his idiot.