Movies

There was a time, long, long ago, when comedy was easily defined. A joke had two basic parts: a setup and a punch line. In the golden age of comedy, most performers even followed the delivery of the punch line with a goofy look aimed toward the camera, letting the audience know what was supposed to be funny.

Comedy used to be telegraphed, and when you went to see a movie that starred Abbot and Costello, The Marx Brothers or The Three Stooges, you knew when you were supposed to laugh. But it all changed in the fifties and the sixties. Performers like Ernie Kovacs and Monty Python turned comedy on its ear, redefining the meaning of funny with far more surreal takes on comedy.

The seeds planted by these comedic pioneers laid the groundwork for modern comedic theory. While modern comedy continues to evolve and splinter off from its Vaudevillian roots, into a broad spectrum of theory, the fundamental question of any comedy remains: Is it funny?
Of course, it is a completely subjective question.

In the broad spectrum of modern comedy, not everyone is going to be amused by the same comedic premise. Some people love films like Jackass and Borat, where most of the laughs are derived from physical abuse or awkward social scenarios. A little further toward the middle would be inoffensive comedic stylings of someone like Jim Carrey or Steve Carrel.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is the more surreal comedy and understated stylings of filmmaker Christopher Guest.
Guest is known best for his recent string of mockumentaries, featuring ensembles of quirky characters portrayed from his group of friends (Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Catherine O Hara, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge and crew). From cringe-worthy community theater (Waiting for Guffman) to the insanity of dog shows (Best in Show) to most recently delving into the world of folk music (A Mighty Wind), Christopher Guest has carved out an eccentric little niche in the film world.

For Your Consideration is Guest s latest effort though using the word effort when talking about the film may be giving him a little too much credit.
For Your Consideration centers on a horribly-staged film and the narcissistic actors starring in it. Like his previous films, Guest throws a number of strange personalities at the audience, each defined by an array of odd hang-ups and personal ticks.

Every creative stereotype is there: the aged working-class actors who are far past their prime, yet desperately clinging to their barely-there careers; the anal-retentive writers; the director who walks his actors through useless exercises, et al. It s just another day on set, until someone reads an article on the internet claiming that one of the actors is giving an Oscar-worthy performance. This throwaway comment launches the film Home for Porum into the news and the actors egos into the stratosphere.

The joke, of course, is that the simple buzz of an Oscar nomination, from the most obscure of places, turns the production and the actors into a state of constant frenzy.
The main problem with For Your Consideration is that none of it is even remotely funny. Guest does the same basic film every few years, assembling the same actors and giving them different names.

But in reality, the film is made from the exact blueprint of his previous three efforts. Other than wardrobe and hairstyles, it s the same actors doing the same bits over and over and over again.
Ultimately, it all shows that Guest has devolved as a filmmaker.

Where once his films had the hint of comedy, the premise has been wrung dry so dry that only the occasional hint of broad comedy seems to illicit any kind of reaction. His movies are beginning to feel less like staged films, and more like bad community theater. You know the kind I m talking about: the annual show put on by the same mediocre actors who are barely a step above dinner theater.

At least dinner theater provides a meal. I can t begrudge Guest and his comedian friends for getting together to make a film every year or two, but I m officially jumping off the critical bandwagon which continues to applaud Guest, giving him a pass because his works fall into some strange quirky niche. I can no longer applaud Guest and his overacting cronies like the audience of bad community theater, smiling and clapping politely for the poor bastards who just murdered Tennessee Williams.

Guest movies just aren t funny. Other than Fred Willard, who you just can t help but smile at, these films are carbon copies of one another. Where once they seemed novel, they have become an exercise in unfunny futility.

Exercise feels like an apt description, since it takes so much work just to watch them.
I m sure there are a few people who will find For Your Consideration cute. But as a comedy, it s sorely lacking.

I don t expect much from comedies these days. I m still under the delusion that cinematic comedies peaked with Caddyshack and Animal House, and that it s been downhill ever since. For Your Consideration is an anemic attempt at comedy, a failed experiment that is so off kilter, it doesn t even classify as effective satire.

It s the cinematic equivalent of an old busted up horse that needs to be put out of its misery, which is fitting since watching the movie felt like witnessing an execution.