For your consideration

Last night we caught the fourth Chris Guest ensemble-improv-mockumentary (or the fifth, if you count Rob Reiner's seminal This Is Spinal Tap, which started the ball). And sadly, the buzz is true: For Your Consideration doesn't measure up to Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, or A Mighty Wind. I did enjoy it, though. Truly. But it does come up short in comparison with its predecessors.

For one thing, it literally comes up short — with such a grand cast, you really want everyone to get more screen time than a mere 86 minutes can accommodate. (Less than one minute of Michael Hitchcock and Don Lake? Only 15 seconds of Sandra Oh? You just know there has to be more good material left on the cutting-room floor.)

What really weighs this film down, though (spoilers here) is the third act, which is pretty much humorless and painful. And not painful in the wistful, compassionate way that A Mighty Wind was painful, nor in the heartbreaking manner of Guffman. It's hard-to-look-at, cringe-inducing painful — which can be OK if you follow with something lighter to bring the audience back up. Unfortunately, this one ends at its low point, so you walk out of the theater feeling... low.

Which is too bad, because the first 70 or so minutes are actually quite good — classic Guest fare. And the thing is, I've developed such a connection to this ensemble that I'd enjoy watching them in anything. I could watch them stuff envelopes for an hour and still be entertained.

At this point, most of these people only have to show up to induce a laugh. Fred Willard, Michael Hitchcock, Don Lake, Bob Balaban, et. al. are now officially funny on sight — but none more so than Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge.

It was also nice to see some of my favorite supporting actors from the previous films getting more screen time (such as it was) this time around — actors like Chris Moynihan, Jim Piddock (who played the greatest straight-man of all time alongside Fred Willard in Best in Show), and the fantastic Deborah Theaker, who stands alongside Catherine O'Hara (and all five Kids in the Hall) as one of Canada's funniest women.