#Andy kalfman man on the moon movie movie#
#Andy kalfman man on the moon movie full#

The film itself is an uneven study of the man. It was like he was always pointing his thumbs back at himself saying, `Look how funny I am.' Such unctiousness inspires us not to laugh.

#Andy kalfman man on the moon movie full#

In short, Kaufman always seemed too full of himself and so dazzled by his own cleverness and cuteness to ever be truly funny. The problem, however, is that iconoclasm has never been a source of humor in itself, and much of Kaufman's act and persona came across as heavy-handed, smug and self-conscious, particularly in his grating Lithuanian `Taxi' character. Thus, we see him in the film reading the entire novel `The Great Gatsby' verbatim to a stunned and ultimately hostile college audience we see him wrestling women while spouting inflammatory chauvinistic rhetoric and deliberately muffing his lines on live national television in a brilliant blurring of the line between reality and theatricality. Kaufman's act became, then, a kind of exclusive comic club, a collective act of defiance against the social norms of theatrical convention and good taste.

That audience, ultimately discovering that it was the butt of the joke, then was able to go a step further and become a willing part of the act, allowing them all to feel superior to the uninitiated masses still deluded enough to be on the outside looking in. Ostensibly, it lay, I imagine, in his metaphorically giving the finger to his audience while entertaining them at the same time. Kaufman's purported genius has always eluded me.

#Andy kalfman man on the moon movie movie#

This may be both the strength and the weakness of the movie itself. pretty much reflected the man who existed in real life. Indeed, the point of the film seems to be that, with Kaufman, the many characters he showed to us on stage and T.V. And, as this film suggests, there was not, ultimately, a very wide gap between the two. Your fondness for `Man on the Moon' may well be predicated on your feelings for Andy Kaufman, both as comic performer and offstage human being. In summary, this is a fascinating biography, to say the least. I cannot believe he had the nerve to do the things he did. I don't know of any comedian - to this day - who deliberately tried to annoy his audience or truly liked it when his audience hated him. On multiple viewings (I've seen it four times) I liked this film even more than the first time, even though I knew the surprises. You have to really appreciate Kauffman's absurd humor and to appreciate Carrey's great portrait of this man.

That means - be forewarned - that there are a number of unpleasant scenes in this film. Unfortunately, his 'jokes' don't always go over so well, aren't appreciated by most audiences and he is not always the most likable entertainer you will ever see. His routines, antics and put-ons are so realistically done that no thinks they are just that. Right from the beginning of this movie one sees how original it is, and how original Kaufman was as a comedian. The rest of the cast is good, too, from Danny DeVito to Paul Giamatti to Courtney Love. Carrey is outstanding in this role, and perfect for it. Jim Carrey shows us once again how comedians can be such good dramatic actors.

He was REALLY different, many times very offensive, sometimes very unfunny.but always extremely interesting and certainly unique. And 'strange' doesn't really seem to adequately describe real-life comedian Andy Kauffman. Biographies of strange people have always fascinated me, and this is no exception.