For Your Consideration

Another quick review.

For Your Consideration is the latest by Christopher Guest, the great mockumentary director that did This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind among others. I have loved the three Christopher Guest mockumentaries that I have seen, they are just so goofy and well written. It is a certain type of comedy, unlike any other. FYC differs in that it is not a mockumentary, but rather a classic plotline, sprawling look at the creation and marketing of an Oscar baity movie named Home for Purim/Thanksgiving. All the regular players from Guest movies are there like Harry Shearer and Fred Willard etc etc.

The movie does not have near as many laughs as the previous Guest films that I have seen. It is still funny at times, and smart, but it starts very slow. It's not trashy so that's good, but funny moments are few and far between for most of the movie. Or maybe I just didn't understand it.

At about the three-quarters mark of the movie, it springs forward in time to after the completion of the film, when it is being marketed. At this time, the feeling of the movie gets almost angry. Guest tears into Hollywood marketing, such as where the studio execs want the name changed from Home For Purim to Home For Thanksgiving to make it "less Jewish" and more accessible to the American people. Harry Shearer and Catherine O'Hara, who both were in the movie, absolutely sell their bodies out to make themselves look younger and make the movie more appealing I guess? Either way, it is off-putting how sudden this change in the mood of the film comes. It is rather depressing and shocking.

I enjoyed parts of FYC, I found those parts to be very funny and mocking of movies in general. Still, it was only a subpar comedy, and the ending was too blatant a rip on Hollywood, there was nothing subtle about it. I didn't so much like that.

Fred Willard is superb though, I love that guy.

If you didn't see The Lost Room on Scifi last night, I recommend that. It is a lot of fun, it has some Stephen King-ishness going on, and it's very interesting and fun and creative. It is a little scifi, a little fantasy, and just very good for being on Scifi channel. Although Battlestar Galactica is also amazing and on Scifi.