BEST IN SHOW

1/2

Christopher Guest’s brilliant mockumentary about a dog show; the year’s funniest movie.Running time: 89 minutes. Rated PG-13. At the Lincoln Square, Angelika.

CHRISTOPHER Guest’s long-anticipated follow-up to “Waiting for Guffman” turns out to be well worth the four-year wait: I was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my cheeks.

“Best in Show” does for dog shows what “Guffman” did for amateur theatrics, and that’s enough to re-invigorate the overworked mockumentary genre that Guest pioneered as one of the stars and co-writer of the seminal rock spoof “This Is Spinal Tap.”

As affectionate about its subject as it is devastating, “Best in Show” focuses on the fictional Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia, where a muttley, er, motley group of humans – largely played by veterans of the “Guffman” cast – have entered canines competing to be top dog.

There’s a Norwich terrier named Winky whose owners are long-suffering menswear salesman Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy) of Fern City, Fla., and his wife, Cookie (Catherine O’Hara, Levy’s old “SCTV” cast-mate), a former waitress whose former romantic conquests they constantly encounter.

A Shih Tzu is being fielded by New York hair salon owner Stefan Vanderhoff (Michael McKean) and his longtime partner, flamboyant professional handler Scott Donlan (John Michael Higgins).

Meanwhile, there are sapphic sparks between handler Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch, who manages a dead-on parody of both Ellen and Anne) and the voluptuous Sherri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge spoofing Anna Nicole Smith), who, along with her doddering, oblivious husband, is entering a standard poodle. There is nothing but tension between yuppie lawyers Meg Swan (Parker Posey) and her husband Hamilton (Michael Hitchcock), who bicker constantly over care of their neurotic Weimaraner, who they’ve sent to a psychiatrist after he saw them having sex.

Guest himself plays Harlan Pepper, a seriously weird fly-fishing shop owner and aspiring ventriloquist from Pine Nut, N.C. with high hopes for his bloodhound.

While each of the cast has priceless moments, the blue-ribbon goes to Fred Willard as a dog-show commentator whose inane remarks (“In some countries these dogs are eaten”) drive his colleague, brilliantly played by British actor Jim Piddock, to quiet desperation.

Most of “Best in Show” was improvised around a story line devised by Guest and Levy, and the ad-libs are as impressive as the mock dog show that Guest has staged, complete with two major backstage crises.

The Swans go to pieces when their dog loses his favorite toy; and Gerry, who literally has two left feet, is forced to show his animal in his ailing wife’s place.

You don’t have to know anything about purebreds or dog shows to appreciate that this is far and away the year’s funniest movie. Guest and company should take a bow-wow.