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Life & Arts

A film worthy of your consideration

Ensemble offers sheen comedy 

by CHRISTIAN OCHOA
The Daily Cougar 

The problem with creating something genuinely perfect is that it's nearly impossible to surpass its own greatness or even reach the same level of comedic gold. Compared to Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration is an anti-climatic experience ? like when your first time proves to be a messy experience. 

Christopher Guest's new film is stiff and disjointed at points perhaps because it lacks the expected flexibility of the mockumentary genre that made Guest a household name. It's a feeble premise to base a film on ? the ins and outs of making a movie in Hollywood. And, of course, it's disappointing to see Eugene Levy in another role of an oblivious, inept man. 

The good news, though, is that For Your Consideration does an excellent job in building on hilarity. So-called comedies of this time fail to do so. They belt out memorable one-liners such as "It reminds me of my family, and I hate my family," ridiculous, neurotic characters and an absurd plot that makes the audience wonder why they're watching this film, even as they giggle and laugh in their comfortable seats. 

The film is anchored in reality, or rather, the reality that's offered in Hollywood. Anxiety and hopes are raised for the cast and crew of Home for Purim when a Web logger predicts Oscar buzz for Purim's leading lady Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara). While the prospects of winning that coveted golden statue mount for Hack, the buzz begins to swirl around her co-stars: Purim's leading man and hot dog commercial guru Victor Allan Miller (Harry Shearer) as well as the film's supporting beauty Callie Webb (Parker Posey). 

The Oscar buzz would be fine if Home for Purim wasn't so absurd. Home for Purim, which is directed by boob of a director Jay Berman (Christopher Guest), revives the forgotten melodramas of the old days where women would twitch their eyes toward Heaven, release a swoon from deep below their womanhood and faint into the arms of their strong, leading husband. With Home for Purim, the audience gets the swooning lady, but Georgian Jews ? Southern, not ex-Soviet block ? and a lesbian daughter bringing her lover to the Purim holiday are sprinkled in. 

Meanwhile, publicist Corey Taft (John Michael Higgins) struggles with the "Interweb"; producer Whitney Taylor Brown (Jennifer Coolidge), heiress of the Brown diaper fortune, discusses her hatred of her family; agent Morley Orfkin (Eugene Levy) wolfs down food rather than taking care of his client; and Chuck Porter (Fred Willard) is the professional brown-nose reporter who can't pronounce "Purim." 

For Your Consideration captures elemental and absurd realities on how films are made in Hollywood: the marketing process that occurs before, during and post-production of the film in question until the release date; the success of the film sometimes hinges on the result of rumors and hearsay that often begin before the movie even finishes wrapping up. The Oscar race is just like any other election, which is heavily influenced by buzz, timed appearances, lobbying, public relation stunts, momentum and interviews with entertainment journalists who wear faux-hawks. All of which have nothing to do with the worth of the film in question. 

For Your Consideration singes the audience with stomach turning laughs, slight giggles and delivers the blunt reality of adjusting when dreams are downsized and trampled, especially when the dreams involve "the awards (that) are the backbone of this industry, an industry well-known for its lack of backbone."

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