#1 For Your Consideration
(Warner Independent Pictures. Supposedly arriving in September)
Confession: When I walked into the theater in 1996 to see Waiting For Guffman I had no idea who Christopher Guest was. The selling points were Catherine O'Hara who I loved at the time primarily due to underappreciated hilarity in Beetlejuice(1988) and Parker Posey, who was the hots***t hipster-beloved Party Girl (1995).
Guffman told us the side-splitting story of a troupe of (justifiably) undiscovered talent in small town America who dream that they're show is going to make it all the way to Broadway turned out to be the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I await every Christopher Guest project now with great joy and high hopes. His follow ups, A Mighty Wind and Best in Show, weren't quite as funny. But who cares, right? That's rather like saying that Hitchcock's Psycho isn't as fascinating as Hitchcock's Vertigo. Or vice versa.
For Your Consideration's plot sounds awfully similar to Guffman. But if you're going to lift from a a classic, lift from your own. In the new Guest film three actors on the set of a 40s drama learn that their performances in the film are generating Oscar buzz. [what happens next we do not know but we assume egos run amok and chaos ensues] This movie sounds like it was made just for me. I already love Christopher Guest for making it. Even if it's not as funny as his last three pictures, I'll still be laughing heartily.
FYC's cast deliciously makes room for nearly all of the regulars. Guest's insanely talented comic improv troupe includes the aforementioned Posey and O'Hara plus Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Michael Hitchcock, Michael McKean, Deborah Theaker, Eugene Levy, Don Lake, and Harry Shearer. New additions this time out are Ricky Gervais (of The Office fame), Kevin Sussman, and Claire Forlani. The Academy Awards don't understand comedy but I'm willing to bet that Guest understands the comedy of the Academy Awards.
And speaking of the Oscars...Posting will be lighter than usual over the next few days but it's for two good causes. First, that project I asked for your well-wishes on. Second, I gotta type up and deliver that annual year-in-advance Oscar guesswork @ the big site . And then I gotta take a day off. whew
tags: Parker Posey, Christopher Guest, comedy, movies, entertainment, Academy Awards, Oscars,
The Entire Roster
The fourteen "coming soons" that I'm most excited / curious about...
#2 Marie-Antoinette, #3 The Prestige, #4 A Prairie Home Companion, #5 Dreamgirls, #6 The Fountain, #7 Running With Scissors, #8 Volver, #9 Inland Empire, #10 Little Children, #11 Margaret, #12 Bug
and two runners up ...The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford & Zodiac
