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Christopher Guest is no Adam Sandler. He's no Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Steve Martin, or Billy Crystal either. For that matter, he's no Magellan, Mata Hari, or former Pittsburgh Steeler Jack Ham, though that's not material right now.
Though he writes, directs and stars in his own movies, Guest's name never appears in huge letters over his film's titles on the films's posters. His movies are unlikely to top the box office on their first weekend, or any other time. So in the context of Hollywood comedians, he's hardly famous at all. Sure, you might know who he is, but how many people on the street would instantly recognize his name? And they definitely wouldn't recognize his face, because if they've seen it before, it's probably while it was hidden beneath a crazy wig, possibly in a pageboy cut.
Yet in many important ways, Guest is the most successful comedian in Hollywood. He's making exactly the movies he wants to make -- films that utilize his skills and the skills of those around him perfectly. More importantly, his movies are very, very funny. And, with the recent release of A Mighty Wind, Guest has now made three movies in a row that people are actually excited to see. And he's accomplished all of this by following a path very different from that of your average film comedian.
If you look at Guest's résumé, he hasn't actually done all that much. That's okay, though, since almost all of what he has done has been great, except maybe Beyond Therapy.
Guest is best known, of course, as the dunderheaded axe man Nigel Tufnel in 1984's This is Spinal Tap. He later spent an underappreciated year on Saturday Night Live (how come people like Chris Guest always bolt after a season, while Chris Kattan has been on for what feels like a decade), during which time he showcased an array of hilariously nuanced characters including, notoriously, a synchronized-swimming coach for men. He also contributed a memorable turn to The Princess Bride, as the nefarious Count Rugen, the six-fingered man.
And yet, circa 1994, Leonard Maltin could write of Guest's career that "Guest has had too few opportunities to showcase his considerable talents" and be absolutely right. But this, of course, was before 1996, the year in which Guest unleashed Waiting for Guffman on an unsuspecting world.
Since the success of Guffman -- a success measured less in "dollars" and more in "the appreciative squeals of comedy fans everywhere, their senses deadened by inadvertent viewings of Say It Isn't So!" -- Guest didn't strive to solidify himself as a one-man comedy franchise, in the manner of, say, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, or even the irascible Robert Schneider. Instead, he continued to craft his tiny, near-perfect ensemble films, each attended to with such love and care that they stand like the comedy movie equivalent of a Bonsai tree.
Which is, of course, why we love Christopher Guest.
Additional reasons to love Christopher Guest:
>1) He was, apparently, the only person to look around Hollywood and say, "Gee, no one seems to be doing much with Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, save for casting them in Home Alone 2 and/or Speed Zone. Curious."
2) He was, apparently, the only person to look around Hollywood and say, "You know, that Fred Willard can really deliver a punchline."
3) He is responsible for the introduction of the phrase "I hate you and I hate your ass face" into the common parlance.
It is no secret that Hollywood routinely chews up promising comics and turns them into Billy Crystal. Researchers need look no further than Bringin' Down the House, the recent comedy in which Steve Martin -- having inadvertently digested laxatives -- becomes suddenly and noisily incontinent, for evidence of what once-brilliant comics are asked to do just to make a living.
Guest, however, has avoided the pitfalls of comic celebrity by simply refusing to become a star. Instead, he's pulled together a crackerjack team of underutilized talent and set them to improvising spot-on satires arranged around loosely structured scripts.
It was fitting that his latest film, A Mighty Wind, pulled into port in the shadow of Anger Management, Adam Sandler's luxury-liner of a comedy. And Sandler's film grossed more money in its first ten minutes of release than Guest's will during its entire run.
Yet Sandler, for all his success, has become the McDonald's of comedy -- over 30 billion served. He's perfected the pre-fab formula, tightened up the efficiency on the grill line, and dug himself in for the task of grimly tickling our McRibs for years to come.
Guest, by contrast, is the charming neighbourhood restaurant with an attention to detail and no plans to expand. In many ways, like that charming restaurant, you don't want to many people to discover him, lest he dump the delicious but time-consuming bisque from the menu and replace it with some crowd-pleasing...er, tuna salad or something.
But if this is about deserving fame, well, Christopher Guest deserves fame. We will gladly trade him fame for more of that piping-hot comedy bisque. We don't mean he has to keep it all, and he probably wouldn't. Maybe he can give some of the fame runoff to Michael McKean.
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