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I can’t be too
hard on “For Your Consideration,” since Guest is a pro at gathering a
large variety of comedy heavyweights. Ricky Gervais, Catherine O’Hara,
Michael McKeon, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Balaban, Harry Shearer, Eugene
Levy, and a respective slew of other truly talented individuals fill the
screen, and it’s an impressive roster with occasionally humorous
results. I wish they’d been used better, is all.
Now I know this
was supposed to be a comedy going into it. I mean, I was told it was a
comedy for crying out loud. I constantly referred to the rave reviews
describing this as a laugh out loud farce, and then I realized I was in
trouble when I found this to be more strained than funny. One of the
running gags of “For Your Consideration” involves the older people
making this new movie discussing the internet, and how you can now print
articles out of this thing called a printer, from this interwebs.
Catherine O’Hara’s character Marilyn Hack even describes in awe how
she’s reading an article from the internet on actual paper, and the rest
of the folks her age wow at this astonishing moment. Get it? Because
they’re old! They don’t know about this internet stuff! Isn’t that
funny? They describe it as “interwebs,” and she even doesn’t know what a
printer is. Because they’re old. Get it? They’re not as tech savvy as
someone ten years their junior. Wow, if this is comedy, then Christopher
Guest has really tapped the well of comedy material.
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“For Your
Consideration” is one of the most strained and unfunny
installments from Christopher Guest, and I know I’m supposed
to appreciate the subtle nuances to these tragic characters
and find amusement in their inept monologues and
interactions with others on the set of this new movie
rumored to be an Oscar contender, but all I really saw while
watching was a poorly improvised little rehash of “Waiting
for Guffman” with each and every one of our cast members
firing flat one-liners that only left me furrowing my brows
and cringing. |
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“For Your
Consideration” has every such chance to be a cheeky Hollywood satire,
but just signals the end of the road for a tired formula in the Guest
gamut, as the entire cast seem to be running on fumes, and lack the
originality they once possessed with the director. The scenes on-set are
painful, the gags involving acting exercises and the bigger road ahead
beyond small roles lack any poetic resonance, and Guest just seems to be
going over material we’ve seen accomplished with better results, time
and time again. He grabs nothing of true resonance from this formula,
and frankly I just wasn’t having a good time. Granted his usual cast of
players are all a thrill to watch especially with new comic notables
like John Krasinski and Ricky Gervais but without a real story direction
or thought provoking dramedy, it all just looked like Guest running on
empty for ninety minutes and taking everyone down with him.
In spite of the fantastic cast, Christopher Guest can't seem to grab any
new material from his usual winning film formula, nor can he derive any
laughs from typically easy themes about on-set antics and Hollywood
politics. If it takes a true cineaste to love something like this, then
tell me where to turn in my membership card.
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