The mock documentary has been around so long that it should have evolved by now into its own parody, the mock mock documentary. Christopher Guest would seem well-suited for such a film, as would the premise of his For Your Consideration, a satiric look at the making of a low-budget movie. But the movie within the movie isn’t itself a mock documentary, and Guest eschews the usual pseudo-documentary devices and plays it straight. Rather than take aim at the egomaniacs who dominate the indie scene, he chooses a safer target, the poor schmucks with a dream. They’re working on Home for Purim, a fusion of Southern Gothic and Yiddish melodrama. An Internet rumor starts an Oscar frenzy, and members of the cast (played by stalwarts Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer, and Parker Posey) indulge in delusions of grandeur and bogus publicity, forgetting, to our amusement, their insignificance. As this and Borat’s lampoon of Kazakhstan show, satirists today are taking on the tough topics.

On the Web
For Your Consideration's Web site: //wip.warnerbros.com/foryourconsideration/

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