For Your Consideration

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

For Your Consideration is, except for "Borat," the funniest film of the year. Or, it's the funniest film that you don't have to watch through parted fingers.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Each and every character in Christopher Guest's latest hilarious cultural corrective is something inspiring to behold.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers." When Woody Allen published his second collection, he called it Without Feathers. Guest is as sharp and original as Allen, but he hasn't lost hope. For Your Consideration -- disillusioned but also fresh and ticklish -- is a thing with feathers, too.

Village Voice Nathan Lee

It's as weird and whimsical an invention as Guest's "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show," or "A Mighty Wind."

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The outrageously hilarious For Your Consideration was well worth the wait. Again delivered with comic precision by Guest's crack repertory company, his patented brand of parody takes affectionate but deadly aim at its awards buzz mania target and the results aren't just funny, they're face-hurting funny.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Catherine O'Hara is comic perfection as Marilyn Hack.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

This is Guest's fourth ensemble parody of showbiz subjects, and though his sketch-comedy style and acting troupe are now familiar, this is his most accomplished movie.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Gooses you even in its barren patches and gets fresher and funnier as it goes along. It builds to a shriekingly funny (and scary) revelation and a dénouement so brilliant it's almost demonic.

Variety Eddie Cockrell

It will garner critical huzzahs from those it lampoons, which will broaden the duo's (Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy) fan base.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For Your Consideration will not go down as one of Guest's crown jewels, but it's nevertheless engaging.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

True to form, Guest's newest doesn't pull out the long knives. On the gentleness scale, this one's way over here, as opposed to the film of the moment, "Borat," which is way, way over there.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

For Your Consideration isn't quite in a class with Guest's earlier films like "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," which is not to say it isn't uproariously funny.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Some people may be put off that For Your Consideration lands in a serious place. But I see it as evidence of an expanding vision, of continued artistic growth.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Levy and Guest train a glaring spotlight on the self-absorption, vanity, delusions and histrionics of the movie community, but clearly love them even at their silliest.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As amusing as it is, the comedy here consists mostly of predictable potshots.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

So few filmmakers even know how to make an entertaining trifle these days, and For Your Consideration is that, at least.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The movie does have its flashes of genius. "Home for Purim," the movie, is set in the Deep South, where Yiddish is spoken with a drawl.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Funny? Yes. Revealing? No. By and large, the movie is content to offer amusing caricatures and leave it at that.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A rare flub for the usually spot-on director and cast.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Hollywood features can be hellish, but in Guest's view, they're no different from "Waiting For Guffman's" community-theater productions, and that's just an impossible message to swallow.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Some of us look forward to Guest films the way others pine for installments of Bond or "Star Trek." This skewering of Hollywood will entertain we "Guesties," but it's not at the top of his roster of parodies.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Everyone's entitled to a slump, and this is only the first blah film in five for Guest.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

There are no belly laughs here, only rueful chortles about the confederacy of chuckleheads that calls itself the entertainment industry.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

But as rich a comic turf as the huge egos and even bigger neuroses of Hollywood types would seem, For Your Consideration always seems a bit too tame for its own good: It never busts out the way you hope it would.

Empire Angie Errigo

We expect oddball wit of a higher calibre from Guest and co., although their inherent, zany likeability means plenty of laughs.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

For Your Consideration feels weirdly meek and mild, an unmighty wind that quickly blows itself out.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This has its moments, but don't expect many fresh insights.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Doesn't risk ruffling any feathers, and that's exactly what's wrong with it: It's less a satirical bite at the hand that feeds Guest than it is a toothless nibble, and it isn't particularly funny.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Things take a nasty turn in the film's bilious third act, suggesting that Guest's deepest gift -- his expansive humanism -- stops at the studio gates.

Premiere Ethan Alter

From the beginning, something doesn't feel quite right about their latest romp. The characters are sketchier, the situations more contrived and the laughs are fewer and far between.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The target is way too easy and the tone far too smug. This time, they're shooting fish in a barrel with a bazooka and congratulating themselves on their marksmanship.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Ms. O'Hara, like almost everyone else, falls victim to a prevailing tone that's short on wit and long on self-congratulation.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

The real problem with For Your Consideration is that it's just not funny.