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Mascots
Netflix was able to lure the Christopher Guest rep company back on the big screen for the first time in a decade with a 2016 oddity called Mascots that provides sporadic laughs but is vastly inferior to other work from this company.
Guest and Jim Piddock have concocted this bizarre look at the world of mascots...you know, those guys in the big headed costumes who make fools out of themselves during athletic events trying to keep the crowd invested in the game. Well, according to this film, the people who play mascots have lives that extend beyond the 4th quarter whistle and this film focuses on the World Mascot Championship and its varied sponsors and participants.
Mike and Mindy Murray (Zach Woods, Sarah Baker) are married schoolteachers who are also mascots for their school athletic teams who are just getting over Mike's affair with Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), another mascot who won Honorable Mention at the last competition and is attending this year with her sister, Laci (Susan Yeagley). Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) is a legacy mascot who has been passed the torch from his father (Piddock) and Phil Mayhew (Christopher Moynihan), a real estate praiser who lives for being a mascot even if his team doesn't know who he is.
And I think that might be one of the places where this story erred and could have generated more laughs. Even though it is briefly addressed, it would have been very amusing to see more focus on the fact that when these people step out of their costumes, no one has any clue who they are. It is addressed with the Phil Mayhew character, but it could have been a running bit with each character that could have been very amusing instead of the sometimes lackluster backstories concocted for some of the characters.
I think Guest is a little off in his casting in this film too. This was his first film since For Your Consideration and he may have been a little rusty, but for some reason, he has a lot of newcomers and unknown faces in major roles and the actors we know and love relegated to the background or gone completely...it's so weird seeing a Chris Guest film without Michael McKean or Harry Shearer or Catherine O'Hara, not to mention seeing people like Bob Balaban and Fred Willard reduced to glorified cameos. I have to admit that Willard's scene with a little person/mascot was roll on the floor funny, but that's one of the few scenes here that was.
Woods and Baker are funny people, but I never really bought them as a couple and Posey is totally wasted in a thankless role. Jane Lynch and Ed Begley were funny as competition judges. For some reason, Guest decided to make a token appearance as Corky St. Clair, his character from Waiting for Guffman, that was a total waste of screentime. A disappointment from a group of artists who have provided a lot of laughs for me over the years, but I think it's the Netflix curse, once again rearing its ugly head.
Netflix was able to lure the Christopher Guest rep company back on the big screen for the first time in a decade with a 2016 oddity called Mascots that provides sporadic laughs but is vastly inferior to other work from this company.
Guest and Jim Piddock have concocted this bizarre look at the world of mascots...you know, those guys in the big headed costumes who make fools out of themselves during athletic events trying to keep the crowd invested in the game. Well, according to this film, the people who play mascots have lives that extend beyond the 4th quarter whistle and this film focuses on the World Mascot Championship and its varied sponsors and participants.
Mike and Mindy Murray (Zach Woods, Sarah Baker) are married schoolteachers who are also mascots for their school athletic teams who are just getting over Mike's affair with Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), another mascot who won Honorable Mention at the last competition and is attending this year with her sister, Laci (Susan Yeagley). Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) is a legacy mascot who has been passed the torch from his father (Piddock) and Phil Mayhew (Christopher Moynihan), a real estate praiser who lives for being a mascot even if his team doesn't know who he is.
And I think that might be one of the places where this story erred and could have generated more laughs. Even though it is briefly addressed, it would have been very amusing to see more focus on the fact that when these people step out of their costumes, no one has any clue who they are. It is addressed with the Phil Mayhew character, but it could have been a running bit with each character that could have been very amusing instead of the sometimes lackluster backstories concocted for some of the characters.
I think Guest is a little off in his casting in this film too. This was his first film since For Your Consideration and he may have been a little rusty, but for some reason, he has a lot of newcomers and unknown faces in major roles and the actors we know and love relegated to the background or gone completely...it's so weird seeing a Chris Guest film without Michael McKean or Harry Shearer or Catherine O'Hara, not to mention seeing people like Bob Balaban and Fred Willard reduced to glorified cameos. I have to admit that Willard's scene with a little person/mascot was roll on the floor funny, but that's one of the few scenes here that was.
Woods and Baker are funny people, but I never really bought them as a couple and Posey is totally wasted in a thankless role. Jane Lynch and Ed Begley were funny as competition judges. For some reason, Guest decided to make a token appearance as Corky St. Clair, his character from Waiting for Guffman, that was a total waste of screentime. A disappointment from a group of artists who have provided a lot of laughs for me over the years, but I think it's the Netflix curse, once again rearing its ugly head.