THE JOKE'S ON `JACKIE WOODMAN'.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

As much as Hollywood enjoys parodying itself, viewers tend not to enjoy the joke so much. Since the days of ``The Player'' and ``The Larry Sanders Show,'' such self-skewering has grown awfully familiar:

Industry ineptitude, epic self-regard, dumbing-down material, reprehensible behavior 7/8 all pretty much old news.

That's not to stop the Independent Film Channel from furthering the genre of backhanded self-regard with two new series, ``The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman'' and ``The Business.''

Of the two, ``Minor Accomplishments'' is the far funnier show, thanks to the caustic sensibility of creator/star Laura Kightlinger.

Hollywood doesn't know what to do with a woman like Kightlinger, who's attractive but cursed with a corrosively intelligent wit (Sarah Silverman is another comic whose talent has gone largely underappreciated).

Someone who has deserved greater success for as long as Kightlinger has certainly deserves to be bitter, and she gives full flight to her disdain for the life she's chosen. Her Jackie is a hard-drinking wannabe screenwriter stranded at a magazine whose only goal is to focus on whoever and whatever is briefly cool, then leave them in a forgotten heap while pursuing the next trend or trendsetter.

Jackie's acerbic cynicism wears on those around her, whose blinders are fixed solely on celebrating the movie-making machinery's magic. Her editor demands of her, ``Is jaded bitch your only flavor?''

Her pal Tara (Nicholle Tom) is another Hollywood archetype, the industry nobody toiling in obscurity at a production company yet delusively expecting so much more. In tonight's episode, Jackie must rescue Tara from the clutches of ``The Platform,'' a self-empowerment program for industry aspirants (Sally Kellerman finds herself reduced to playing herself, an outspoken member of this cultlike group).

In future episodes, Jackie lands an interview with a hot filmmaker who proves to be a nebbishy neurotic and discovers a potential boyfriend has stolen her idea for a movie, only to find that the producers are hellbent to dumb the idea down as much as humanly possible.

Most of this is familiar territory, but Kightlinger's view of decadent Hollywood mores is infinitely more cynical than most recent industry satires, such as ``Entourage,'' and she uncorks plenty of withering one-liners, most of which absolutely cannot be reproduced here. Here's one, though, some helpful advice to Tara: ``You're only as shallow as you let other people think you are.''

Meanwhile, ``The Business'' adheres to a three-strikes policy when it comes to its humor. It concerns a producer (Rob Deleeuw) of ``Girls Gone Wild''-type junk who tries to become respectable (strike one), an idealistic documentarian (Kathleen Robertson) who signs on with his company (strike two) and a temperamental artiste (Nicolas Wright) who may or may not actually be talented (strike three).

A few lines are amusing, but the disaster-waiting-to-happen formula feels meta-conceptually self-reflexive here.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

THE MINOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF JACKIE WOODMAN - Two stars

What: Bad behavior in Hollywood? Who'da thunk?

Where: IFC.

When: 11:30 tonight; also 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

In a nutshell: Nothing here supplants or surpasses William Goldman's classic Hollywood observation, ``Nobody knows anything.''

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Photo:

Laura Kightlinger is the creator-star of ``The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman.''