I sat through about four shots of FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION before I realized what was wrong with it.
It's not a mockumentary.
There's something about the form that makes even the most caricatured performance seem "real" when you believe it's a documentary. In watching these same actors who were in BEST IN SHOW, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and A MIGHTY WIND move out of mockumentary and into traditional storytelling, suddenly they seem like they are doing bad sketch comedy from MAD TV.
That's not to say the movie is terrible. Katherine O'Hara gives the only layered performance as an aging actress who allows herself to get excited over a rumor of a nomination. She's fantastic. Fred Willard and Parker Posey are also very funny. But there are a lot of setups that never payoff, and quite a few misfires. Surprising considering the material that could have been mined.
The movie is also SO short that when the director's credit came up I said aloud, "THAT'S IT???" One missed opportunity was showing the actual Oscar ceremony to see its outcome. Since the whole show is a buildup to it, it leaves the viewer unfulfilled at the end, which is no way to leave the theater.
1 comment:
I also had the reaction that the movie ended too soon. I think the issue is that there were so many delicious characters that we didn't get to see more of (Guest's director immediately comes to mind) that we felt cheated. I also wish they let Willard run with his lines even more. I also felt the Jewish schtick in the movie was cringe-inducing. It's unfortunately but, for me, the Guest/Levy team has been on a monolithic decline since WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (for my money the best of the movies, and one of the most funny of all times), pretty good in BEST IN SHOW, and beginning to seriously decline in A MIGHTY WIND. (which was not as sharp as the others).
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