For Your Consideration

[MacGuffin]

Guest's gang mocks Oscar mania
"For Your Consideration" shows the consequences for performers who are consumed by Oscar buzz.
From Associated Press



TORONTO -- Actors typically brush aside questions about Academy Award-worthy performances, insisting the work itself is reward enough. Christopher Guest's comedy "For Your Consideration" shows the consequences for performers who let themselves be consumed by Oscar buzz.

"I've known people who have gone through this exact thing where someone has come up to them in a seemingly innocent way and said, `I saw your work and you should get XYZ,"' Guest told The Associated Press at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "For Your Consideration" played. "It's devastating, because in every case I know of, and these are personal recollections, they haven't even been nominated, much less won. So they're blindsided."

Director Guest and writing partner Eugene Levy, whose previous collaborations include "A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show," wrote the scenario and co-star with their usual ensemble of gifted improvisers, including Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard and Jane Lynch. The film debuts in theaters in November.

Unlike their previous movies, fictional stories presented as documentaries, "For Your Consideration" is a straight narrative centered on a small, uninspired film called "Home for Purim," about a fractured Southern Jewish family's holiday reunion that features a journeyman cast of actors who never quite made it.

An Internet blogger who visited the set says one of the actresses (O'Hara) gives an Oscar-worthy performance, taking her aback and planting outrageous dreams of Hollywood glory. Soon her co-stars (Posey and Shearer) are grabbing awards attention and fantasizing about Oscar glory.

"It's not about winning the Oscar. It's about how it affects the actor in terms of how you see yourself," Levy said. "Your perspective on yourself, your perspective on your worth. People think your work is better than you thought it was yourself. Maybe you're better than you thought you were."

"It's kind of like `Invasion of the Body Snatchers' or something," Posey said. "It just kind of permeates everything, and people start acting differently around you. They get all caught up, and then you get all caught up. It becomes like a drug in and of itself."

The film takes its title from a ubiquitous phrase during awards season, the words "For Your Consideration" plastered over ads in Hollywood trade papers used to remind Oscar voters of movies and performances.

The phrase carries a "weird touch of courtliness in a savage business. `Would you be so kind just to perhaps merely consider our humble work as worthy of your attention,"' said Shearer, slipping into a haughty British accent. "And what they mean is, `I'll kill you if you don't vote for this!"'

Ironically, "For Your Consideration" could end up playing a part in the upcoming awards season. The Golden Globes, which include a comedy category, might recognize the film and its performances.

Guest and company have been through the awards rigamarole for the Grammys, Globes and other prizes. McKean and wife Annette O'Toole had a 2003 Oscar nomination for best songwriting with "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" from "A Mighty Wind," a tune performed at the ceremony by Levy and O'Hara.

"It was the best way to go to the Oscars," O'Hara said. "There's no winning, no losing. We weren't even nominated." And if any of the "For Your Consideration" cast ever were in the running for nominations?

"I wouldn't be cool at all. I think I would pretend to be cool, but I think I would revel in it," Coolidge said. "I'd be thinking about it all the time. I'd try to contain it, but I think I'd be a jerk."

Shearer said his "For Your Consideration" character "speaks for me when he says, `It's an honor to be almost nominated."'

[modage]

http://movies.aol.com/movie/for-your-consideration/23568/trailer

for some reason being free from the constraints of the mockumentary seems like its going to be really good for the film.

[modage]

if you are in NYC, and rich, and love these films, this news is for you...

An Evening with Christopher Guest and the cast of For Your Consideration.

Join us for a pre-release screening of For Your Consideration followed by a conversation with actor/director Christopher Guest and actors Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Bob Balaban and Parker Posey.

Tuesday, November 7th at 7pm
Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St., Plaza Level
Ticket prices $75 members; $90 general public
Limit of 2 tickets

Please note that there is a $1.25 service charge per ticket—Visa or MasterCard only

To purchase tickets, click on link below or copy it onto your browser.
http://www.filmlinc.com/tix.php?month=11&day=&year=2006

Christopher Guest and his inestimable team of fellow comic actors represent the gold standard of modern film comedy, and For Your Consideration is a bitingly hilarious and perceptive wonder. An independently made period piece called Home for Purim is suddenly afflicted with "Oscar buzz," and the shift in priorities and enthusiasms among all interested parties – the stars, the publicists, the financiers, the agents, the talk-show hosts – is inventive, surprising, and in one case jaw-dropping. And, needless to say, funny.

i would love to go to this but 75$, DAMN.   no way.

[Ghostboy]

I just saw it this morning, and it's pretty funny - and much better than the trailer (which I sorta hated) suggests. Even though this isn't a mockumentary, tt really doesn't feel all that different from the other Guest films - the only thing that's changed is maybe less improvisation and no talking to the camera , but since a lot of the movie consists of reporters interviewing the main characters, there's still a lot of that sort of material in it.

Catherine O'Hara really gets to shine in this one; it's almost entirely her show. And Ricky Gervais shows up for maybe a minute and does nothing.

[MacGuffin]

Guest & Levy Ask For Your Consideration
Source: ComingSoon

It's been ten years since Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy first collaborated on Waiting for Guffman, bringing together an amazing ensemble of comic actors to tell a story of small town show biz i.e. community theatre. That improvisational crew has expanded greatly since then with the follow-ups Best in Show and A Mighty Wind and just about every single one of them is back for their fourth collaboration, For Your Consideration, which once again looks at show biz, but this time from more of a Hollywood point of view.

The movie revolves around the making of a small drama called Home For Purim, which suddenly finds itself assailed with Oscar buzz when a journalist visiting the set suggests it on the internet. It affects the entire production, including its veteran leading actors (Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer) and the young stand-up comic (Parker Posey), all of whom hope to further their careers with this awards recognition. Meanwhile, the writers (Michael McKean, Bob Balaban) are concerned about the changes being made on-set by the film's director, played by Guest himself. Returning regulars Fred Willard and Jane Lynch play Chuck and Cindy, the hosts of an entertainment show who seem to think Home For Purim will be huge, and Jennifer Coolidge is the film's distracted producer. For Your Consideration also includes small parts for Ricky Gervais ("The Office"), Sandra Oh ("Grey's Anatomy"), Richard Kind and others.

ComingSoon.net spoke to the film's writers Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, in what Guest thought was one of the nearly 600 interviews he expected to do for the movie. (No, the movie business hasn't made him too cynical.) You can decide for yourself whether they've become a bit like an old married couple after spending so much time together.

ComingSoon.net: You've written four movies together over the course of ten years, so how did the two of you first meet?

Christopher Guest: We were doing a TV show together. Billy Crystal did an HBO special in the '80s and we were both on it, not in the same scenes, then when I was writing "Guffmann" and I had been a fan of Gene's SCTV work...

Eugene Levy: It was the Billy Crystal special in the mid-'80s, but I have to preface that by saying that I was very familiar and a big fan of the work that Chris did in the National Lampoon radio show and records in the early '70s. I knew Gilda Radner and Bill Murray and Paul Schaeffer and people that worked on these albums. Christopher Guest had characters that would just pop with comic brilliance. They were just the most bizarre voice work. I was like who is this guy? That was the name that I always remembered, and when I got to work on the same show and I heard Chris was going to be in this Billy Crystal special, I was tickled to finally meet and watch him. We never had scenes together, but I loved watching him work on the special.

Guest: I called him and asked him if he wanted to work on "Waiting for Guffmann"...

Levy: It was ten years later that I got a call from Chris at home...

Guest: I lost his number.

Levy: And he said he was working on a thing and he asked if I wanted to write a movie. I said, "Sure," but honestly, we had just met, and that was that. And we got together and started working and it was a great relationship for day one. It's a very awkward thing, partnering in writing, which I'd done only once with a friend in Toronto, but other than that, all the work on SCTV and everything else, I wrote on my own. I was nervous about it, because it's not just a question of I knew the guy was talented. I knew that he was brilliantly funny, but I knew that sometimes when you put two people in a room, if your personalities aren't gelling, if someone talks too much and there's too much going on, it's a delicate thing partnering. It's not just how well you write together. It's how well you exist in a room together. It worked right from Day 1. It was kind of miraculous that the process seemed to work so well. We made each other laugh easily without effort.

Guest: Eugene has really good hand-writing. We work on legal pads, we don't use computers. As we begun, I began taking notes, and about a half hour later, he looked at the pad and said, "That's the end of that." I have stacks of these legal pads with the notes for these movies.

CS: This being your fourth film together, how was it different from the previous three?

Guest: Well, it's different because the other movies were done in a documentary form and this one isn't. This is a narrative, and that's quite a bit different. The cast is obviously the same as the last four movies, but otherwise, that's the main difference.

Levy: It's pretty much the same, but it is a major difference, documentary versus narrative, in terms of just the pressure of making sure the story actually works. In that sense, a documentary is easier, because you have more choices to get from one funny moment to another. In a straight narrative pretty much the scenes have to play out.

CS: Does that format make a difference in how much improvisation you could do?

Guest: No, no. Other than the "Home for Purim" scenes, the movie within the movie, it's all improvised, but it's harder because a scene has to lead into another scene and you can't just put in an interview or cut to a photograph of a raccoon, which we should have done by the way, because that always works. And we don't have people leaking stuff about our leading man, because it's not that kind of movie. [This was in reference to a pre-interview conversation about "Casino Royale" incidentally.]

CS: When you're writing the scripts or plotting them out, do you always know which of the cast is going to play each character?

Guest: We do. We write specifically for this company of actors that is in these movies. Absolutely, it's important to do that.

CS: Do any of the actors in your ensemble come to you and say that they want to play certain characters ever?

Guest: No, we write them, so when we're writing the characters, we say, "We're writing Fred's part basically" and when we do the outline and hand that out, we say "Here's your part." It's not a lottery. It's ultimately my decision to say what happens here. As the two of us are constructing this story, we say it's not a free-for-all.

CS: What stops the two of you from always taking the best roles for yourselves?

Guest: Well, I think this one may have always started with Catherine, because we always knew she was going to be the central character. It started with that, and then we kind of fish around the office.

Levy: Well, there was a time where I actually thought when I might have gone into, really early on, the role Harry had as the other actor, but it just seemed...

Guest: But that was just for a couple days.

Levy: Oh, less than that! Maybe it was because it was Catherine and I had worked [together] in "A Mighty Wind," maybe it seemed like that pairing seemed natural, but this actor with the Shakespearean/soap opera background, with Harry and that golden voice, it's just a natural.

Guest: It's a luxury to write for people you know and who you can count on.

Levy: And it's fun actually thinking of the casting.

Guest: Yeah, because typically, in a conventional movie, someone will write a script and say, "Well, we're hoping to get Tom Hanks, we're hoping to get Julia Roberts" and then reality hits and people will say, "They're not available." And then it's Version #2, Version #6, which is every movie basically, 'cause there's this list of people and three stars, but in our movies, these are the people. This is the #1 choice.

CS: And you've never had problems with...

Guest: (sensing the question coming) Availability? Well, I've been lucky. The other good thing, or the reality at least, is that we shoot these movies in 25 days, which is a fraction of what a normal movie will cost, so typically, Eugene or any actor might work five days, maybe at the most 8 or 9 days. And no one gets paid. I'm not being facetious either. Everyone gets the same scale. So it at least makes me feel a little less guilty to say they're only working for ten days and getting nothing then saying, "Can you give me three months of your time for nothing?" Because then people will say "No, I couldn't." For instance, if Catherine had said on this film that she wasn't available, we wouldn't have done the film, then the film doesn't get made and you wait.

CS: Do you end up doing a lot of research for these movies, like with the dog shows in "Best in Show"?

Guest: The dog shows needed research because other than having a mutt myself and Gene has a mutt, we didn't know that world, but for the most part, I've been a musician so the last one I did wasn't really research, it was just doing that. This one, we live in this world, we know every day what that is, so the dog movie, we definitely needed to go to dog shows and learn about that.

CS: Was it easier or harder to satirize your own industry?

Guest: Well, I think it's easier because you live in it, you see it every day, we do interviews with people, we go through these things. To be honest, it's so toned down from what's happened in the world, so that if you showed what really happened, people would say, "That's impossible, that can't really have happened." I did a junket once where a woman showed up and she was wearing a dog suit. Now if you show that in a movie, you just think, "That's really stupid, it's not funny and it's stupid." But there I was just sitting and I had to talk to this person. And there you go, that's the other end of this spectrum.

CS: Could you have a movie on the topic of Hollywood and the awards season 10 or 20 years ago or is it a recent explosion of the culture?

Guest: Ten years ago probably, but I would say that this world has been around now for a good 20 years, because those ET shows, there are a lot of those shows, and everybody knows all about this stuff now.

CS: Did this hit too close to home considering there was some talk of an Oscar for your writing work on "A Might Wind"?

Levy: I don't know if it was talk of an Oscar. There was only one award, the New York Film Critics award, and then it was on a lot of Top 10 lists. I don't think it got as close as talk of an Oscar. I don't think it got that far. But there was a little buzz going on in its own way, more for my amusement than anyone else's. I got a taste of what that thing is like when people are mentioning things like "Have you seen your name in that thing?" And "If you take this, you can easily get [an award]" and you want to say, "Enough. Honestly, I think I've got a fix on it, and it's really not going farther than this," which is what I said at the New York Film Critics awards. Unlike some of you, I know this is it for me. But that wasn't the genesis of the idea, but at least we knew when we landed on what this thing was about, which is what happens when somebody mentions that to you and you can't shake it. I think we've all had that experience at some point in our careers of being up for, nominated, winning or not winning awards, and knowing what it's like when that just rings through your head, and thoughts of grandeur whiz by, fleetingly. It's that scene where Catherine is talking to herself in the car is really the nut of what this thing is about.

CS: Jane Lynch seemed to really jump into her role as an entertainment show host.

Guest: Well, that relationship is kind of interesting. Anyone working with Fred [Willard], has a task. Fred, it's hard to describe what that force is. Jane is one of the few people who can stand up to Fred Willard's world, which is another world from the one you and I know. She is incredibly smart and funny and can deal with that. I said to her that I really want him to be this abrasive guy and this buffoon obviously, but you really need to hold your own. If you ever see the movie again, there's this great moment where she comes out at this weird angle, and Fred is standing there and he looks at her and he does the same angle. It's just this little tiny moment, but he's always trying to outdo her.

CS: Gene, you do a lot of other movies, and then you return to these movies every three or four years. Is it disappointing when you put a lot of work into a movie like "The Man" and it fails to find an audience and how satisfying is it doing these when you probably can make more money doing another "American Pie"?

Levy: Those are the movies that enable me to do these movies. It's like Michael's line in the movie: "We make just enough writing to keep us in teaching." Fortunately, I do have those movies that pay the bills. And honestly, however they turn out, I don't think—well, there's one I didn't have a good time on—but mostly, there's actually just a fun experience, which to me, is as important as anything else. Because you know what? You really only pass this way once...

Guest: Really?

Levy: And nothing is that important to me. The experience is as important as the final product, having a good time working, and I had a good time working on just about all the films I worked on. Those are fortunately films that pay.

Guest: Which was the one that was the least good time?

Levy: Well, I can't necessarily talk about that right now.

Guest: Oh, I see.

Levy: But these movies are so unique, because you don't experience this kind of work in this business, and most people don't ever experience this kind of work where you have so much creative flexibility and freedom. As a director and as writers, we don't have any interference from the studio, they don't dictate anything creatively on the movie. They certainly leave all decisions, final or otherwise, up to Chris, and that's unusual, because the studio does have final say on any movie. They can override the director in terms of wanting a scene in or wanting a scene out. It doesn't happen as long as the film stays on budget, and these are quite low budgets. The studio feels very safe in saying, "Okay, you can do what you want." And by the same token, the actors that are in these movies, they get to create their characters based on an outline that we provide for them on the character's backgrounds. I think the actor can actually take what we give them and if they have a better idea, we'll do that. Jennifer [Coolidge] had this accent in "A Mighty Wind"...

Guest: Well, she said to me before we shot, Jennifer Coolidge, who's also on another planet by the way (laughter)... it's a good planet, a fine planet, just other than earth. Just before we shot in that film, she said, "Which voice should I use? This one? Or this one?" And I said, "The first one" and she literally walked on and did that. And there's no rehearsal in these movies, so she just started talking. Only she could have done that in this bizarre voice she used.

Levy: So as actors, it's incredibly liberating to have this much freedom. Everybody cherishes working on these things every few years, because you'll never find anything like this ever in a working experience.

For Your Consideration opens in select cities on Friday, November 17.

[modage]

saw this last night.  it was funny but seemed like we've been getting somehow diminishing results from Waiting For Guffman and Best In Show.  i feel like the 90 minutes is too much of a constraint trying to shoehorn an arc onto a lot of improvisational comedy.  there are so many great funny actors in this film and they just don't have enough time to squeeze everybody in.   i would've loved to see this stretched out and allowed to breathe over 10 episodes of an HBO season.  they should really think about doing this as a tv show.  i think i liked Fred Willard and Jane Lynch's stuff the best.  i did like the twist into more painful and sad towards the end of the film, very The Office: Series 2.

[MacGuffin]

Catherine O'Hara really gets to shine in this one

Her "make over" was hilarious. In fact, the film was a whole lot funnier after production on their film wrapped. The beginning was scattered with hit-and-miss jokes about making a film and interactions with agents, writers, actors that felt done before (The Big Picture, for example), but once that passes, the movie hits the level of Best In Show and Guffman.

[cron]

Catherine O'Hara really gets to shine in this one

Her "make over" was hilarious. In fact, the film was a whole lot funnier after production on their film wrapped. The beginning was scattered with hit-and-miss jokes

agreed. and by the end you're half interested. i thought the last scene was the best , and the parts with jennifer coolidge made me laugh the most,   but it's a shame that i was bored by the ending, cos that scene is really, really good. also , it was sad. between this, and the few clips i've seen from On The Lot, working in the movies seems a lot worse than being a blind prostitute.

[Pubrick]

working in the movies seems a lot worse than being a blind prostitute.

World's Worst Things Things Worse Than Being A Blind Prostitute

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2. Starvation
3. Brett Ratner
4. Genocide

5. working in the movies.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Wow, this movie was lifeless. There were a few very funny moments (which either involved Catherine O'Hara or the mixture of southern accents and Yiddish expressions). But the film as a whole sure is lifeless. I'm still kind of horrified not only that Guest & co. made this thing, but that so many people enjoyed it.

This is one of those movies that has obviously bad editing. And when the editing is not only bad but so obviously bad, you know it really is bad editing. Most of the speech seems overdubbed or out of synch. Scenes end abruptly during or immediately following the punchlines. Yeah... not good. It took me about 20 minutes to remember that it's a comedy.

[Pwaybloe]

I haven't seen this movie in a while, but here it goes. 

Jeremy, I can see where you're coming from, but I wonder if you came in with different expectations.  I'm sure you've seen "A Mighty Wind," so I would think you would at least know which direction Guest is going.  Rather than going for the laugh-out-loud moments in an almost machine-gun fashion (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show), he prefers a more dry, loose interpretation of humor.  It has certainly evolved over his previous movies, and I feel it's a more mature form of comedy that you rarely see today.  Though, I use the word "comedy" in a very loose sense of the word.  For example, the latter part of the movie when the actors are whoring themselves out for a nomination and the sequential aftermath, I thought it to be a very tragic and sad process.  My wife thought it was hilarious.  I feel that's the genius of what Guest does: the mix of true comedy and tragedy.  Most of the time, the two don't interrelate very well.  When it's done right, like in this case, it's a breath of fresh air.  I'm not saying this movie is the perfect example, because it does have its few drawbacks.  But, it is going in the right direction.  We're kind of getting into the science of it now, huh?

I don't remember the editing problems you noticed.  I do remember the rambling around to find a story in the beginning (maybe this is what you are referring to). 

[The Red Vine]

Granted, I haven't been a huge fan of Guest but this was terribly slight. Slight meaning in story, performances and laughs. I think I laughed once...maybe twice. To me, Guest has joined the ranks (or depths, I should say) of Wes Anderson and the Coens for doing the most self-indulgnent quirky humor. I sit there with a straight face while the movie is trying to tell me that it's fucking hilarious, but it's simply not.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Alright, I can see where you're coming from, Pwaybloe, and I didn't really think of it that way, and I might have a different opinion after a second viewing. (I did see A Mighty Wind, so maybe I should have known better.) But I don't see the same maturity that you saw, and I don't think the film has much of anything to say beyond "these people are absurdly obsessed with awards." I liked a lot of the awkwardness, but I just didn't see it going anywhere. My criticism of the editing is about when scenes end... just one of those detail things that annoys me.