The first, and very awaited, trailer for Christopher Guest’s upcoming Netflix film, Mascots, has arrived, and it looks like the movie more than lives up to the potential of its absurdity-saturated premise. (The lead-up to and coverage of a mascot competition for the “Golden Fluffy” award — displayed in mockumentary form, of course.)
Guest has always been interested in the comic potential of hobby-oriented subcultures and unconventional occupations — having made A Mighty Wind about a group of washed up folk musicians, Best in Show about dog show enthusiasts/participants, and Waiting for Guffman about community theater. (His weakest film, For Your Consideration, was about a far more represented realm of culture — the film industry — and so his hilarious, outlandish imagination didn’t entirely vibe with attempted industry satire). But his comedy, again, perhaps with the exception of Consideration, is also tinged with an appreciation for people who don’t do what they do for the money — but rather because they have a deep passion for these somewhat odd activities.
In the world of mascots, it looks like Guest has found his match: there’s endless sight-gag and wordplay potential here, and Guest looks to relish these elements shamelessly, while intercutting them with the “realness” and emotional honesty of his interview-oriented mockumentary style. In the trailer, you’ll see a bounty of hallucinatory images, like a giant fist mascot (played by Chris O’Dowd) surrounded by flames, a donkey mascot whose picture has a censor bar over its crotch (“Danny the Donkey, my mascot, was the first one to have an anatomically correct costume. I was overcompensating — classic overcompensation,” says Ed Begley Jr.’s character), and a pencil and sharpener mascot engaging in some surreally sexual behavior. And then there are impeccable one-liners like, “Benny the Banana Slug failed his drug test.”
Of course, the other great thing about any Christopher Guest movie is getting to see a lot of the same actors dressed as new, absurd characters. Two of the actors I, personally, was most excited about were Parker Posey and Jennifer Coolidge — both of whom have been in most of Guest’s projects, and both of whom could be funny while saying nothing whatsoever. However, what they do say here is, itself, pretty hilarious. Posey plays a dancing armadillo mascot who, in one scene in the trailer, attends the funeral of another mascot, and offers up a brief but powerful mascot-specific comment about life and death. Meanwhile, I have no idea whatsoever who Coolidge is playing, but I do know that she has the best line in the whole trailer.
Watch:
The film will premiere on Netflix on October 13.
[h/t /Film]