David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. For Your Inconsiderate Consideration
"For Your Consideration," the upcoming Christopher Guest movie, offers a comic evisceration of the film industry, much as Guest's "Waiting for Guffman" dismantled local theater in inspired fashion, "Best in Show" parodied the dog-show industry and "A Mighty Wind" mocked folk musicians.
This one has its moments, but isn't up to Guest's and his repertory troupe's usual standards. It's about a small, deadly earnest and apparently awful independent film that somehow manages to get Oscar buzz while it's still in production and then gets compromised in all sorts of ways.
Oddly enough, the movie stuff doesn't have the sort of amusing verisimilitude that the parodies of bad TV behavior do.
Fred Willard and Jane Lynch are hilarious as the brazenly unctuous hosts of an "Entertainment Tonight"-style show, and there's one great scene at a "Charlie Rose"-type show where the interviewer just keeps talking and talking without ever letting his guests get a word in. Yet another funny scene is set at a brain-dead morning news show (the weather woman is a ventriloquist with a monkey puppet, which is only just slightly exaggerated by L.A. TV standards). In the film, the show is called "Wake Up L.A.;" any resemblance to "Good Day L.A." is purely obvious.
"For Your Consideration" cannily essays how phantom, B.S.-infused Oscar campaigns for undeserving movies get started (studios will hype quotes from any idiot with a mouthpiece), but neglects some potential comic gold in exploring what happens once reality sets in and a movie's shortcomings become readily apparent to anyone who's remotely sane. It also misses a good bet in showing how correspondents on "ET"-type shows like to pretend, rather pathetically, that they're great good friends with big-time celebrities. Still, its depiction of TV shills remains persuasive and coherent. How can anyone associated with one of these types of happy-talk TV shows watch this film and remain proud of their (insert insulting adjective here) calling?
Comments
Very disappointed by this one -- you would think that Guest and co. know enough about the inner workings of Oscar mania (A Mighty Wind got a Best Song nod, fer Chrissakes) to make a smarter and funnier movie. It plays like it was made by a klatch of Entertainment Weekly readers in Iowa and not by people who actually work in the show business.
Posted by: MoroccoMole | November 13, 2006 2:33 PM