For Your Consideration

The thing most Christopher Guest movies have going for them is their humanity. I always could believe the universe the characters were operating in, and their realism (see the dog owners in Best in Show or the small town citizens of Waiting for Guffman). That humanity transcended the satire and made the movies both hysterical and moving. FYC completely lost the humanity that drives these films. Almost all of the characters were not believable. In this instance Guest's improvisational technique failed him as the actors were all over the top, playing too much to the satire. Only two actors seemed in touch with their characters - Parker Posey (who we really saw too little of to understand her) and the great Catherine O'Hara, who sold both the aging actor she was portraying and the Jewish mother in the film within the film.

There is something both enchanting and disorienting about watching a Christopher Guest film that features conventional camera angles and a narrative structure. It is a brave, and ultimately, a rewarding choice for a director who has built his impeccable reputation on the strength of his mockumentaries.

Like its predecessors Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration is largely improvised, and reunites the same winning cast. Gone, however, are several of the conventions of Guest's previous films. For Your Consideration avoids the need to give every last character an extended 'interview' segment and instead weaves minor characters naturally into the fabric of the story. The narrative structure also prevents Guest from relying too heavily on cuts to b-roll sight gags that, while funny, are never more than gags. By challenging himself to tell this story in the absence of these and other mockumentary techniques, Guest is allowed to focus instead on scenes that show how his characters really respond to one another in the moment.

Half the fun of course is waiting for all the familiar faces to show up, and discovering what crazy character they have inhabited this time around. All the usual suspects are back in For Your Consideration, playing a colourful array of Hollywood types. Insecurities, foibles - and just a few quirks - are in full display.

Jennifer Coolidge is a brilliantly clueless producer, and Eugene Levy has a nice turn as a somewhat smarmy agent who has no faith whatsoever in his client (Harry Shearer's Victor Ann Miller). Guest himself is hilarious playing director Jay Berman, and one only wishes that we got to see more of his rehearsals with the actors, as these are some of the funniest scenes in the film. Mike McKean and Bob Balaban are a fun team as the cowriters of Home for Purim, the movie-within-the-movie. Making his first appearance in a Guest film, Ricky Gervais grabs perhaps the biggest laugh of all with a line that I won't spoil here. And while Fred Willard and Jane Lynch are dealt very broad characters, their send-up of Access Hollywood is laugh-out-loud funny, and provides the perfect vehicle for Willard's boorish shtick.

John Michael Higgins is in amazing form as Corey Taft, sporting surreal philosophies on actors and life that outdo even his colour-worshipping character from A Mighty Wind. And the doe-eyed and endlessly endearing Christopher Moynihan tosses off several absolute gems in response to the inanity going on around him. Much like his character in the film, he's likely to go unnoticed in favour of some flashier performances, but deserves accolades of his own. He and Parker Posey have a sweet, unrehearsed chemistry playing actors in puppy love.

While it is impossible to give due screen time to all of the troupe's mainstays, some deserved better. Jim Piddock is dealt a potentially juicier part than he's had in the past, as the irritable AD who is all too aware that he's surrounded by idiots. But his screen time is far too short to let it amount to much, and fans wanting to see him play against type are better advised to check out his brilliant performance in See This Movie. Meanwhile, Ed Begley Jr. is hideously miscast as the film's token flamboyant gay man. Furthermore, having such recognizable actors as Claire Forlani and particularly Sandra Oh show up for bit parts in For Your Consideration is more distracting than anything, and breaks the illusion of the self-contained world that worked so nicely in Guest's previous efforts.

Despite all of the comedic talent on display however, this is Catherine O'Hara's show, and she more than delivers in her role as fading screen star Marilyn Hack. Her insecurities, dreams, and vulnerabilities are handled with such poignancy and humour that O'Hara fully deserves whatever accolades may come her way in the months to come. She is luminous.

If For Your Consideration comes up a little short, it is in the story department. The outline devised by Guest and Levy suffers somewhat from a lack of focus. If, as Guest insists, this film is not intended as a satire of Hollywood but is rather the tragicomic tale of what happens to someone when they are told that they deserve an award, we should be spending less time on all the Hollywood in-jokes and parodies, and more time with the characters themselves.

We don't learn quite enough about our main characters – those portrayed by Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, and Parker Posey – to really understand how monumental it is for them to be caught up in the Oscar hype. We see that, professionally, they desperately need the break. But we get no perspective on how this effects their personal lives, or changes the way that they relate to the people closest to them. Where are their families? Their friends? They don't seem to have any. And if that was the point in and of itself, it wasn't brought across clearly enough.

Whatever the film's shortcomings, it is the smaller details that are purely Guest which make this film a triumph and future classic: Guest's perfect intonation as he instructs one actor to deliver his line as though "Mommy is going… now?", Jennifer Coolidge jumping in at the absolute perfect moment with "But what about me!?" in the midst of a heated argument that has nothing to do with her, or the sight of Harry Shearer suddenly wearing Rachael Harris' hat to help him get into character. These are the small moments that give Guest's works the rare distinction of being films that get progressively funnier with each viewing.

My hope for the next Guest film is that it continues to stretch the troupe in the way that these last two films have done. Ideally, we'll see an improvised, narrative comedy with some heart, all the expected hilarity… and a little more plot structure. Until then, here it is, for your consideration

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. In an impressive string of wonderful mockumentary farces over the past few years, guiding lights Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, and their brilliant comedic acting ensemble, have joyfully savaged the self-important cultural "worlds" of small town amateur theater ("Waiting for Guffman"), dog shows ("Best in Show") and folk music ("A Mighty Wind").

But a winning formula can't go on forever unchanged, nor should we expect it to. Inevitably, the group have hit a bump in the road with their latest film, "For Your Consideration," a send-up of Hollywood movie making and the assorted vanities of movie makers. Not that it's bad. But compared to those earlier works, it isn't inspired; it doesn't grab you with its efforts to lampoon; and the performances of the actors - always uniformly of a high caliber in most of their movies – is highly variable in this new movie. Perhaps the theme hits too close to home: it's hard to gain the distance necessary to properly ridicule your own ethos, your own cultural world. Or maybe it's just that the recipe Guest and Levy have used to such delightful advantage has just gotten old, for viewers and for Guest's company.

The plot, for what it's worth, concerns a film within a film: the making of a new movie, the ethnically freighted "Home for Purim," which is later rewritten and retitled "Home for Thanksgiving" to broaden its commercial box office appeal. All the stereotypes one expects are on hand: the avaricious executive producers; the harried director; the screenwriters, pained by the incremental decimation of their work; the aging stars in decline; the young up and comings; the vain chase after that holiest of grails: an Oscar, the hangers on – the parasitic, disingenuous talent agent, talk show hosts, film critics and entertainment reporters. They're all here.

Parker Posey (young actress possibly on the way up), Catherine O'Hara ((veteran actress on the way out), Jennifer Coolidge (ditzy producer), and Eugene Levy (actors' agent) provide decent turns but none of these superb talents gives a truly inspired performance here. Harry Shearer is better as a long-suffering actor who is glad enough just to star in a feature film after years of making commercials, Oscar or no Oscar. But the comedic scene stealers in this movie are three pairs of actors who play off each other to wonderful effect: Fred Willard and Jane Lynch as a TV entertainment reporting duo, Bob Balaban and Michael McKean as the beleaguered screenwriters, and Don Lake and Michael Hitchcock as Siskel-Ebert style TV critics. There are several competent cameo contributors as well, the best of whom is Carrie Aizley, a movie journalist.

This is decent fare, but I think Guest and Levy need to re-imagine their formula for successful farce. I never thought the day would come when I would regard a comedy written by David Mamet as superior to work by Guest & Levy, but here's a tip: if you want to see a good send-up of movie making, try Mamet's 2000 film, "State and Main." My grades: 6.5/10 (low B) (Seen on 11/15/06)

I look forward to Christopher Guest movies in the same way Ralphie did for his much beloved Red Ryder BB Gun in "A Christmas Story". Drenched with his deadpan wit, Guest's mockumentaries have been such well-targeted show business satires that it's hard to know when the script stops and the improvised reality begins. But that's a lot of the fun with his films, even though his newest is easily the most structured of the bunch. Along with constant co-writer and co-star Eugene Levy, Guest picks a target ripe with possibilities in this 2006 comedy, the Oscar-baiting season prior to the nominations, and surprisingly foregoes the direct interview format in favor of a more traditional narrative. I have to admit I miss some of this dynamic because the on-camera realism resulted in some of the funniest moments in the previous films.

Gratefully, what has been kept from his other films is Guest's stellar ensemble company of comic actors, and this time an even larger cast has been gathered, none of whom disappoint in this outing. The plot focuses on the production of a low-budget studio-bound film, "Home for Purim", a WWII-era family melodrama about a Jewish family in Georgia coping with the mother's terminal illness and the daughter's emergence as a lesbian. Directed by an authoritarian nebbish with an Art Garfunkel hairdo named Jay Berman, the film looks to be an overly sincere piece of tripe, but a blogger on one of the movie sites has predicted leading lady Marilyn Hack, a resigned, over-the-hill B-actress, will be nominated for an Oscar. This starts an Oscar buzz that engulfs the two other nominal principals of the movie, hot-dog pitchman Victor Allen Miller and "serious" actress Callie Webb, and the tidal wave of publicity drastically changes the direction and marketing campaign of the movie even before it's completed.

Guest and Levy fully capture the superficial pandering that occurs when the buzz is in full swing, and they particularly ridicule the ignorance and outdated thinking of those who find themselves in this lightning-in-a-bottle situation. There are acidic jabs at all the infotainment programs - "Entertainment Tonight", "MTV TRL", "The Charlie Rose Show" and "Ebert & Roeper" – but this is character-driven farce, and several stand out. In a brave turn as Marilyn, the wonderful and ever-dependable Catherine O'Hara superbly captures the almost overnight evolution from forgotten, timeworn actress into botox-infused, cleavage-squeezing A-lister wannabe. Harry Shearer gets his best showcase yet as the put-upon Victor whose mouthy agent Morley Orfkin refuses to take his calls until the buzz hits them. As Callie, Parker Posey is more in reactive mode here, though she has a funny Sandra Bernhard-like bit with her character's one-woman show, "No Penis Intended".

Everyone else gets less screen time, but they all provide memorably riotous contributions – Guest as Berman, Levy as Morley, Jennifer Coolidge as clueless producer Whitney Taylor Brown, John Michael Higgins as bromide-spouting publicist Corey Taft, Don Lake and Michael Hitchcock as the Love It/Hate It movie critics, Michael McKean and Bob Balaban as the academic screenwriters, Ed Begley Jr. as Marilyn's fey hairdresser (and biggest fan), Ricky Gervais as the oily studio honcho, and best of all, as the entertainment TV co-hosts, Fred Willard as mohawk-moussed Chuck Porter and Jane Lynch as gam-showcasing Mary Hart-knockoff Cindy Martin. I imagine Guest's reputation is the reason you see such high-profile actors like Sandra Oh and Craig Bierko in nothing more than bit parts here. The film takes a sharp turn toward the end that adds surprising vitriol to the laughs, and the vituperative tone makes the proceedings all the more devastating and resonant. More like "A Mighty Wind" with its dramatic undercurrents, this one is not as laugh-out-loud as "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show", but it shows a continuing maturation in Guest's film-making technique that is most welcome.

I'm surprised by the number of negative reviews here for what I thought was in many ways Christopher Guest's most developed movie yet. Granted, you either like his movies or not, but as someone who loved Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and Mighty Wind equally, I was in no way disappointed by For Your Consideration.

Maybe some of the humor here is easier to appreciate if you're Jewish, but that can't account for more than 5% of the jokes, and all of the actors were great. Particular kudos to O'Hara (as usual), Shearer, Lynch and Posey. The ET/Charlie Rose/Ebert & Roeper spoofs were hilarious and dead-on. The ending of the movie was truer than that of his previous films, and the ever expanding cast of Guest players made the viewing experience more fun than in the past (Sandra Oh, Ricky Gervais etc.).

My theory is that it's hard to approach a new Christopher Guest movie without justifiably expecting a lot, and great expectations often lead to disappointment. I was anxious to see For Your Consideration, but found it to be rewarding, very funny, and a little more poignant than usual (a good thing). Give it a chance and it'll grow on you.