3 StarsDirected by Christopher Guest
Starring Catherine O'Hara, Ed Begley Jr., Eugene Levy, Fred Willard and Jane Lynch

The pivotal scene in For Your Consideration, a slight little comedy about what happens when a dreadful movie gets some undeserved Oscar buzz, features two studio executives taking over a production while promising to not change "the theme of the movie." The perplexed producer, played by Jennifer Coolidge, asks in bemusement, "What is the theme?" I couldn't have put it better myself.
For Your Consideration wants to spoof Hollywood, especially the circus surrounding awards season. Unfortunately, it lacks one important aspect of satire that director Christopher Guest's other films included: distance. For Your Consideration abandons the mockumentary style that made movies like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show so successful: Guest allowed the audience a safe distance from which to mock the characters. When the poor hapless fools that populate For Your Consideration finally fall fast and hard, you feel more pity than laughter.
That said, For Your Consideration is still quite funny. Internet rumors of possible Oscar nominations wreak havoc on the cast and crew of the movie-within-a-movie, Home for Purim: For any comedy, this is extremely rich fodder. And the cast, most of which are regulars in Guest's films, is stellar. Jane Lynch and Fred Willard are particularly fun as the co-hosts of an Entertainment Tonight-type show whose seething desperation and sunny idiocy, respectively, make their scenes delightfully weird.
For Your Consideration comes closest to hitting the mark in its portrayal of the entertainment press and the PR machine that feeds it. The vapidity of the television "personalities," the fickleness of the media's attention and the ridiculous hype of the awards season are all neatly skewered. Watching a middle-aged white man try to "break it down" between two gorgeous teenagers while promoting his movie on an R&B program called Chillaxin' will never get old.
It's always a risk when directors move outside their comfort zone, as Guest does in For Your Consideration, leaving the mockumentary genre that made him famous. It's too soon to say whether that's a decision that will pay off, but For Your Consideration is a promising start that, while not living up to past hits, is still worthy of your consideration.