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Satire: Shows That Bite

Here are three awesome shows that have only one thing in common: They satirize things that I don’t like.

“Best In Show”

I don’t like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and neither do animal rights groups. The dogs are too pretty (only AKC registered Champions, please) and the handlers mostly women dressed in ill-fitting skirts. My best pal is the F-150 of American dogs, a black Lab (a breed that has never won best in show), and we enter the Great Country Mutt show, but I avoid Westminster.

Whether you agree with me or not, you’re sure to love “Best In Show” (2000) in which Christopher Guest and his brilliant repertory gang expose this odd and insular community and their overblown competition.

Parker Posey plays the deeply anxious Meg Swan, hysterical because she can’t find her dog’s favorite toy, and Fred Willard is hilarious as the announcer. Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara — Emmy winners for their roles in “Schitt’s Creek” — play Gerry and Cookie Fleck, who compete with their terrier Winky and keep running into Cookie’s former lovers. Priceless.

Stream on Hulu, HBO Max, rent on Amazon and others.

“The Boys”

Although I admit to a soft spot for Gal Gadot in “Wonder Woman,” I’m happy never to set foot in the Marvel or DC superhero universes. And so I mostly admire this series, which turns the genre upside down while also taking on greedy corporations and white supremacists.

Here, the “supes” are the bad guys, under contract to a corrupt conglomerate, and led by the evil and powerful Homelander.

His vile crew includes A-Train, a drug-addicted speedster faster than a subway and just as dangerous; he runs over a gal and kills her.

The only decent member of “The Seven” is Starlight (Erin Moriarty), who turns against the others.  She joins The Boys, a ragged undercover group, in their fight against those with superpowers. They are led by Billy Butcher (a profane and terrific Karl Urban).

Be warned that this messy show has plenty of graphic sex and over-the-top violence, but it is taken to such absurd lengths and plays with enough sardonic humor that it may not seem unduly shocking.

Two seasons on Amazon; season 3 arrives in June.

“Inglourious Basterds”

I think we’re all on board with this one: Don’t like Nazis. Quentin Tarantino spent more than a decade creating this 2009 film and called it “the best writing I’ve ever done.”

Brad Pitt stars as Lt. Aldo Raine, who recruits a commando unit of Jewish-American soldiers operating in France.

“We ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we’re in the killin’ Nazi business.” His sidekick is Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz (Eli Roth), who executes German soldiers with a baseball bat. Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for his role as Hans Landa, the odious SS officer trying to hunt them down.

The story then shifts to a plot to kill Nazi leaders by luring them to a screening of a Nazi propaganda film at a cinema owned by a gal whose family was killed by the Germans. The Nazis are dealt with in typical Tarantino fashion.

This sort of grotesque, intense epic may not be for everyone, but many consider it Tarantino’s best film. It led to a couple of equally spectacular revenge fantasies: “Django Unchained” (2012) and “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” (2019), which is more restrained until its memorable ending.

Stream on Hulu, rent on Amazon, others.

 

And if you’re interested in the Great Country Mutt Show to benefit the Little Guild animal shelter in Cornwall, Conn., it will be this weekend on Sunday, June 5, at Lime Rock Park; find out more at www.littleguild.org.

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