Best in Show

• The tension is palpable, the excitement is mounting and the heady scent of competition is in the air as hundreds of eager contestants from across America prepare to take part in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest events of their lives -- the Mayflower Dog Show.Running Time: 89 min. System Requirements: Starring: Jennifer Coolidge, Christopher Guest, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock

A blue ribbon look at dog show participants and the pooches who love them.Christopher Guest, the man behind Waiting for Guffman, turns his comic eye on another little world that takes itself a bit too seriously: the world of competitive dog shows. Best in Show follows a clutch of dog owners as they prepare and preen their dogs to win a national competition. They include the yuppie pair (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock) who fear they've traumatized their Weimaraner by having sex in ! front of him; a suburban husband and wife (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara) with a terrier and a long history of previous lovers on the wife's part; the Southern owner of a bloodhound (Guest himself) with aspirations as a ventriloquist; and many more. Following the same "mockumentary" format of Spinal Tap and Guffman, Best in Show takes in some of the dog show officials, the manager of a nearby hotel that allows dogs to stay there, and the commentators of the competition (a particularly knockout comic turn by Fred Willard as an oafish announcer). The movie manages to paint an affectionate portrait of its quirky characters without ever losing sight of the ridiculousness of their obsessive world. Almost all of the scenes were created through improvisation. While lacking the overall focus of a written script, Best in Show captures hilarious and absurd aspects of human behavior that could never be written down. The movie's success is a t! estament to both the talent of the actors and Guest's discern! ing eye. --Bret Fetzer

Read more »

Daybreak: The Complete Series

• Did you ever have a day so bad you couldn't wait to get past it? The kind of day where nothing goes your way and everything turns out wrong. What would happen if you couldn't put this day behind you.literally?Today, Detective Brett Hopper will be accused of shooting state attorney Alberto Garza. He will offer his rock solid alibi but will realized that he has been framed and will run. Then he wil

AN ART-HOUSE TAKE ON THE CLASSIC ZOMBIE GENRE

You wake up in the rubble and see a ragged, desperate one-armed man greeting you. He takes you underground to a safe space, feeds you, offers you a place to sleep. And then announces that he’ll take the first watch. It’s not long before the peril of the jagged landscape has located you and your newfound protector and is scratching at the door. What transpires is a moment-to-moment struggle for survivalâ€"The Road meets Dawn of! the Dead. Daybreak is seen through the eyes of a silent observer as he follows his protector and runs from the shadows of the imminent zombie threat. Brian Ralph slowly builds the tension of the zombies on the periphery, letting the threatâ€"rather than the actual carnageâ€"be the driving force. The postapocalyptic backdrop features tangles of rocks, lumber, I beams, and overturned cars that are characters in and of themselves.

Ralph’s stunning debut was the wordless graphic novel Cave-In, created while he was one of the founding members of the influential Fort Thunder art collective. Drawing inspiration from zombies, horror movies, television, and first-person shooter video games, Daybreak departs from zombie genre in both content and format, achieving a living-dead masterwork of literary proportions.

Third in a stunning post-apocalyptic paranormal romance trilogy.

It's been twelve years since the Change, and ! Penelope Sheehan is one of the few still practicing magic for ! the good of humanity in this dark, dangerous world. But she needs the help of a shapeshifter named Tru, whom she knew when he was a troubled boy. But Tru is a creature of instinct and impulse, living only to satisfy his senses- ignoring the scarred heart nobody has ever reached. Fighting alongside the last holdouts of humanity, they will unleash a passion that tempts them to risk everything for love. But if they succeed, Tru and Pen hold the power to brighten the Dark Age for all time.

Taye Diggs (Private Practice, How Stella Got Her Groove Back) stars in an action-packed thriller from director Rob Bowman (The X-Files, Reign of Fire) and writer Paul Zbyszewski (After the Sunset).Hopper must find the delicate balance between doing what s important and what s right to get through this killer day and move on to tomorrow.Originally aired on ABC with10 million viewers for the Premier!

Read more »