Having already taken on the worlds of musical theater, dog shows and folk music with devastatingly funny results, it was only a matter of time before Christopher Guest and his writing partner Eugene Levy would get around to sending up the Hollywood hype machine.

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 -- call it gentle skewering -- takes affectionate but deadly aim at its awards buzz mania target and the results aren't just funny, they're face-hurting funny.

Look for boxoffice results that could well top the $16 million-$17 million taken by "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind," especially if -- dare we say it? -- the picture should itself generate some of that nasty awards season buzz.

Certainly a major candidate would have to be the ever-brilliant Catherine O'Hara as Marilyn Hack, a perennially struggling actress who takes a role playing a dying Southern Jewish matriarch in the period indie melodrama, "Home for Purim."
Cast as the Pischer family patriarch is Victor Allan Miller (Harry Shearer), best known for his commercial appearances as a giant wiener, but now looking to hit the big time with lines like, "It's a dang mitzvah!"

Rounding out the family in this first feature by sitcom veteran Jay Berman (Guest with an Albert Einstein 'do), is the contrary daughter, played by Callie Webb (Parker Posey), a former stand-up comic whose widely panned one-woman show, "No Penis Intended," was dubbed "an unfunny romp" by one unamused critic; while the part of her enlisted brother is filled by Brian Chubb (Christopher Moynihan), who happens to be her real-life boyfriend.

But it looks like it is Marilyn's ship that is finally about to come in when an Internet rumor touts her performance as bona fide Academy Awards material and, in no time flat, that contagious Oscar fever becomes the talk of the town.

"Home for Purim" is suddenly on everybody's lips, including those of Chuck Porter (Fred Willard in an orange faux-hawk) and Cindy Martin (Jane Lynch), the unctuous hosts of "Entertainment Now."

All that attention is causing Sunfish Classics president Martin Gibb (Guest newbie Ricky Gervais) to consider making a few not-so-subtle changes that would make the picture more commercial, much to the chagrin of screenwriters Lane Iverson (Michael McKean) and Philip Koontz (Bob Balaban).

By now, with most of the cast having worked together on Guest's three previous films, one only needs to see them pop onscreen to start laughing, and that's especially true of Willard as well as Jennifer Coolidge as Whitney Taylor Brown, the film's producer and family diaper service heiress whose over-the-top wardrobe looks like it was raided from MGM's old costume department.

Forgoing their usual behind-the-scenes, mockumentary format Guest and Levy (who plays Shearer's shallow agent) have opted for a straight-ahead narrative this time around, which manages to make room for an expanded cast of real characters.

They're all terrific, but at the end of the day this is O'Hara's show all the way. Watching her navigate her freshly plumped-up lips around her extreme makeover just before the arrival of nominations day, is alone worth the price of admission.

Not to get her hopes up, or anything ...