Man on the Moon
by Milos Forman
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DVD details
Actor: Brittany Colonna, Danny DeVito, Gerry Becker, Greyson Erik Pendry, Jim CarreyDirector: Milos Forman
Brand: Universal
Producer: Danny DeVito
Producer: George Shapiro
Producer: Bob Zmuda
Producer: Howard West
Producer: Michael Hausman
Writer: Larry Karaszewski
Writer: Scott Alexander
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
Published: 2000-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2000-05-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Man on the Moon
DVD Review: There is no real you. Oh yeah, I forgot.
Summary: 4 Stars
Man on the Moon is Jim Carrey's homage to comedian/non-comedian Andy Kaufman. A complex man, Kaufman didn't think of himself as a comedian, but he pioneered a bizarre act--as much conceptual art as comedy--oftentimes trying to provoke as much as get laughs. As his manager asked him:
George Shapiro: Andy, you have to look inside and ask this question: who are you trying to entertain--the audience or yourself?
In the movie George Shapiro is played by Danny Devito, but the real George Shapiro plays Mr. Besserman, who is forced to fire Andy from his comedy club because he isn't funny. He suggests a joke, like: "Why did the Siamese twins move to England? So the other one could drive," but Andy doesn't get it, isn't interested.
But Andy creates a character--foreign man--who does get a good reaction from the audience. He begins as a nervous, inept comedian, does a lousy impression of President Carter, and then says he will now do "the Elvis Presley." He rips off velcro strips on his pants, revealing the studs and sequins of "The King's" Las Vegas bell-bottomed jump suit. To a boom box rendition of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" he dons the costume and transforms. His lip curls. He does a great "Don't Step on My Blue Suede Shoes," then returns to character and nervously thanks the audience. Shapiro ends up managing him, though he is uncertain just where to book him. His break comes when he is cast as Latka Gravas for the sit com Taxi.
Andy is loath to do a sit com, but dictates his terms, one of which is that Tony Clifton must appear in 4 episodes. Clifton turns out to be either the worst Vegas lounge act of all time, or an alter ego of Andy Kaufman, in either case, he is thrown off the set of Taxi, along with his entourage of hookers, after inciting a riot, complete with fisticuffs.
The movie hits all the high and low points of Kaufman's career: Taxi, Tony Clifton, The Mighty Mouse theme lip synch on SNL, the "fight" on Friday's, The Great Gatsby bit, The intergender wrestling, the "fight" on Letterman, touch my cyst, his interest in Transcendental Meditation, his Carnegie Hall performance, complete with The Rockettes, Santa Claus, and an invitation for the entire audience to have milk and cookies, and finally his death from cancer. Or was that just another prank?
Jim Carrey gave a pretty good performance, but overdoes it with the crazy eyes. Kaufman's crazy eyes were just a bit more unsettling. Carrey doesn't have as good a rhythm on the bongos as Kaufman--though his comic timing is impeccable. Jim Carrey has made an entertaining movie, and also let the audience in on the joke, if it was one of Andy's pranks--but that is also the problem. How do you make a movie about a comedian/non-comedian who stretched the whole concept of comedy to include jokes at the expense of his audience? He wasn't always even trying to make the audience laugh. Maybe the joke was just something he and perhaps one or two others could appreciate.
Unlike this movie, whose aim is clearly to entertain. Was it then a failure because it strayed from the path pioneered by Kaufman? And what of Andy Kaufman. Was he serious, or was he putting you on? Even as he was dying of cancer, members of his own family think it may be just another prank. To this day there are people who think he faked his own death and will come back to laugh at our gullibility.
The People vs. Larry Flynt: Also directed by Milos Forman, and also featuring Courtney Love.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Also directed by Milos, and featuring Danny Devito.
Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Deluxe Edition): Great Jim Carrey performance in title role.
The Cable Guy (Full Screen): Great and creepy Jim Carrey performance in title role.
L.A. Confidential: Devito in a serious drama.
American Splendor: A great Paul Giamatti performance.
Sideways (Widescreen Edition): Maybe Paul's best work to date.
Taxi - Seasons 1-3: For a sit com, this was pretty good. And check out some great Kaufman as Latka, and other characters.
A&E Biography: Andy Kaufman: More of the enigma that was Andy Kaufman.
Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All: This guy helped Andy come up with his stuff, and sometimes he even portrayed Tony Clifton. He had a cameo in Man on the Moon, and how then to explain Tony Clifton disrupting the wrap party?
Description of Man on the Moon
Jim carrey hilariously portrays the late andy kaufman in this entertaining comedy. Kaufman is considered one of the most innovative eccentric and enigmatic comics of all time. Along for the ride to the top is kaufmans manager george shapiro his best friend and writer bob zmuda and his girlfriend. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 04/12/2005 Starring: Jim Carrey Courtney Love Run time: 119 minutes Rating: R Director: Milos Forman"There is no real you," jokes Lynn Margulies (Courtney Love) to her boyfriend, Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey), as he grows more contemplative during a battle with cancer. "I forgot," he says, playing along, though the question of Kaufman's reality is always at issue in Milos Forman's underappreciated Man on the Moon.
The story of Kaufman's quick rise to fame through early appearances on Saturday Night Live and the conceptual stunts that made his club and concert appearances an instant legend in the irony-fueled 1970s and early '80s, Man on the Moon never makes the mistake of artificially delineating Comic Andy from Private Andy. True, we get to see something of his private interest in meditation and some of the flakier extremes of alternative medicine, but even these interludes suggest the presence of an ultimate con behind apparent miracles of transformation.
Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. Larry Flynt) allege that transformation was Kaufman's purpose--more than a shtick but less than a destiny. As we see him constantly up the ante on the credibility of his performance personae (the obnoxious nightclub comic Tony Clifton; the insulting, misogynistic professional wrestler), Forman makes it harder and harder to detect Kaufman's sleight of hand. But it's there, always there, always the transcendent Andy watching the havoc he creates and the emotions he stirs.
Carrey is magnificent as Kaufman, re-creating uncannily detailed comedy pieces etched in the memory of anyone who remembers the real Andy. But while Carrey's mimicry of Kaufman is flawless and funny, the actor probes much deeper into an enigmatic character who, in life, was often a moving target even for those closest to him. --Tom Keogh
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