I am not here to ruin anyones day. One man's "well, that was just plain stupid" can always be another man's "dare to be stupid" There wasn't much Weird could have done to make this audience cringe. We were at the first screening of the wildly popular Midnight Madness program. The people were laughing in the chamber. They were amused by the warning before the film. They were very down to earth. The unofficial, goofily fabricated version of the famous song parodist's life story was a comedy that never stopped feeling like a three-minute sketch uncomfortably and unnecessarily expanded to nearly two hours.
Weird is like that. It was inspired by a fake trailer from 12 years ago, which said, "What if you plugged the clean-mouthed, clean- living polka maestro with the library of food-based Top 40 spoofs into a grungy, debaucherous, rock- 'n' roll-esque There have been a lot of ups and downs in the life of the realYankovic, marked by sudden tragedy, a few legal dustups, and nearly fifty years of work in the music and comedy worlds. Weird uses the original viral video as an excuse to poke fun at some of the convention of the music biopic. There is, more or less, just one joke in this expanded take on the idea, and that is creating a fictional reality where the biggest star in the world is played by Daniel Radcliffe.
A young Al is struck with inspiration while staring at a package ofbologna, commenting that no one actually gets famous overnight, and meeting a parade of fellow countercultural, comedy-nerds. Walk Hard got to a lot of this in the past 15 years. Weird is narrated by a man in a trailer. It would be more difficult to avoid comparisons if they didn't tread some of the same ground.
Weird could have used more of Weird's unique wit and less of the random sub-zaZ material.
The material is filled with gags such as a very Al version of the stereotypical wild teenage party and a debate about the merits of polka deep cuts. It would take a lot more jokes to confuse Weird for self-flattery. The movie doesn't build much on the original strategy of just throwing glasses, a curly hair, and a bright shirt. It could have used more of the unique wit of the man, and less of the random sub-zaZ material that pads out its slim story, which is relevant only for clowning on the type of testosterone fests that were huge in the 80s and 90s. Evan Rachel Wood is the new queen of Pop. Michael Jackson is only mentioned because it's obvious.
It's a shame that the parody is so lazy. Even though Weird leans on just a few of his most popular spoofs, he has proven himself to be a skillful parodist in his main medium. A friend, fellow critic, and Weird Al superfan turned me on to a Nine Inch Nails tribute called "Germs" that was priceless and compositionally sophisticated. For safety reasons, a thick plate of glass between Nick and Al was used for the backstage artist meet experience. There was a signed picture of the two posing for a picture. That is funnier and weirder than anything in Weird.
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