For Your Consideration (2006)
Directed by: Christopher Guest
Premise: Satire of the Hollywood awards culture. A passing comment by on an online Hollywood gossip website begins an Oscar buzz on the set of the film Home for Purim and drives the cast into distraction.
What Works: For Your Consideration is another effective satire by director Guest, the filmmaker behind Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. The film makes fun of how award buzz is generated and how fickle the industry can be. It is also able to add some side criticism of how business interests may intrude on artistic interests, and further how award buzz may actually hurt the production as it causes infighting among the talent and prompts producers and studio executives to interfere and distort a low budget art film, robbing it of the creativity that made it a great picture in the first place. Guest’s directing style allows for the actors to showcase their improvisational talents, including Parker Posey, Harry Shearer, Catherine O’Hara and Ricky Gervias.
What Doesn’t: The only disappointment in For Your Consideration is in the ending, which could have gone further and sliced through the pomp and pretension of the actual awards ceremonies.
DVD extras: Deleted scenes, outtakes, and Home for Purim poster gallery.
Bottom Line: For Your Consideration is a smart film that pokes fun at the awards culture of the film industry. Underneath the humor is actually a serious point about how chasing awards can actually be detrimental to the filmmaking process.
Episode: #136 (April 8, 2007)