For Your Consideration

Christopher Guest jettisons his mockumentary format and goes for straight satire with this nasty rip at Hollywood and its Oscar campaigning. Catherine O’Hara delivers career-best movie work as an aging actress who becomes the subject of Oscar buzz for her work in Home for Purim, this film’s hilarious movie within a movie. All of the actors hit high marks here, and I can honestly say I laughed out loud more than once. It’s a vicious nuclear missile directed at the movie Web sites, material-hungry talk shows and agents who make the end of the year so ridiculous in Southern California. In Guest’s universe, the actors are the victims of all the hype, albeit willing, almost deserving victims. O’Hara deserves an Oscar nomination for what she does with her face in the film’s final act. She’s just miraculous in this one.