For Your Consideration (2006)

From Christopher Guest, the man behind This is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, For Your Consideration is an improv comedy about the movie business and Oscar buzz. It stars Catherine O'Hara as a washed up older actress who's starring in a worthy drama called Home for Purum (a Jewish holiday) as a terminally ill woman. Someone hears a rumour that her performance could be Oscar material and speculation and Chinese-whispers go into overdrive and suddenly there's a massive buzz around the movie that continues through filming, and on to the release date. 

This is a movie that is only intermittently funny. It's got a brilliant cast of comedians, including Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch, the usual Guest gang, plus Ricky Gervais. And it's got some great ideas, but I think it would be funnier if you actually worked in the industry yourself. O'Hara is brilliant as the faded actress, who, on hearing Oscar buzz, gives herself a drag-queenesque make over and plastic surgery. I liked the movie, I just wish it could have lived up to expectations, what with it's movie pedigree.