DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH TIME CONSIDERING `CONSIDERATION'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Christopher Guest's comic mockumentaries (``Waiting for Guffman,'' ``A Mighty Wind,'' etc.) certainly have their fervent fans. I've never been one of them. Guest too often seems to apply real mockery to his film's characters, who are uniformly presented with unalloyed contempt. Even the cleverer Borat has trouble keeping that kind of humor from turning sour.

I'll acknowledge, though, that most of Guest's films have been unique, not to mention smarter and funnier than the Hollywood norm. So it's ironic that Guest's new, straight-out satire of the movie business, ``For Your Consideration,'' really doesn't exhibit any of those fine qualities.

As anyone who's exposed to L.A. media from October through February can tell you, the movie's title is industryese for ``Please give me an Oscar.'' Guest and members of his regular crew of improvisors -- Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy (who co-wrote this story outline with Guest), Parker Posey, Fred Willard and more -- play talent-challenged people making or orbiting around a woebegone indie film. When word hits the set that some joker on the Internet imagines O'Hara's third-rate actress may be creating an award-worthy performance, delusions of tacky grandeur become pandemic.

Good subject for spoofing, huh? I mean, all the pandering and deception and opinion-mangling manipulation that goes into award campaigns screams for wicked lampooning -- and even for Guest's curdled, derisive attitude.

But in what can only be considered a huge plot miscalculation, Guest and company don't go after any of that. They simply dither around the benighted production of a 1940s family melodrama called ``Home for Purim,'' because Guest apparently thinks there's nothing more hilarious than Jews with Southern accents (again, where's Borat when you need him?). Then ``Consideration'' fast-forwards to Oscar eve, skipping all that's truly low and lunatic about awards pimping season.

So, what do we get instead? Trenchant observations that are too dryly presented to register. And good performers playing luckless actors making a lousy movie, with all the attendant stereotypes. There's the unhelpful agent, the airhead producer, the indignant screenwriters, the greedy executive who wants to change the one element that makes the movie distinctive, the clueless publicist who doesn't know how to surf the Web and more.

I'm no screenwriter, but wouldn't it have been better if the gang was making a movie with some real artistic potential that got perverted by statue lust?

As the main victims, O'Hara and Shearer do all that they can to flesh out their roles, but the few mild laughs they're able to achieve only come from their characters' humiliation. Ricky Gervais drops in for a few deft scenes as the philistine exec, and Willard and Jane Lynch give the only other reliably funny performances. However, they're playing entertainment news-show hosts, and how hard can it be to make fun of Billy Bush?

By the end, ``For Your Consideration'' feels like a missed opportunity through and through.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION - One and one half stars

(PG-13: language)

Starring: Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard.

Director: Christopher Guest.

Running time: 1 hr. 26 min.

Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; Century 15, Century City; Broadway 4, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Guest's latest improv ensemble comedy takes on a rich subject for satire: Oscar fever among actors who have no business thinking about it. But the film goes for tired show-biz cliches and easy derision when it should be nailing the real absurdities of awards season.