Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

What Tristan said:

This is a great movie to go into without any expectations at all. If you roughly know Weird Al’s history, you sort of roughly know how this movie is going to go. And yet, it will not be anything like what you expect. It’s a fun movie, it’s pretty good acting, and it fits with how Weird Al wields his craft: a parody artist through and through.

Mike’s verdict:

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a musical comedy biopic that chronicles the rise of the legendary parody musician, “Weird Al” Yankovic. Directed by Jay Levey, the film stars Aaron Paul as Al Yankovic and features a talented ensemble cast including Mary Steenburgen, Gary Cole, and Patton Oswalt.

Right from the start, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story establishes its playful tone with a hilarious opening sequence that sets the stage for the irreverent humor that follows. The film charts Al’s journey from his humble beginnings in California to his eventual rise to fame, and along the way, it’s filled with countless comedic moments that are sure to delight fans of Yankovic’s music.

Aaron Paul gives an energetic and charismatic performance as Al, perfectly capturing the singer’s quirky personality and infectious sense of humor. The film also does an excellent job of capturing the look and feel of the different eras that Yankovic’s music has parodied over the years, from Michael Jackson‘s Thriller to Nirvana‘s Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Despite the film’s light-hearted tone, it does touch on some of the more serious aspects of Yankovic’s career, including his battles with record labels over the years. However, these moments never overshadow the film’s sense of fun, and the result is an enjoyable and entertaining biopic that will have viewers tapping their feet and humming along to the music.

Overall, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a joyous celebration of one of the most unique and beloved figures in pop music. It’s a film that’s sure to please fans of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s music, but it’s also an enjoyable and accessible comedy that will have broad appeal. Highly recommended!

Just kidding!

The review above is actually what you get when you ask ChatGPT:

Can you write a movie review for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story in the style of the blog at reviewmike.wordpress.com?

I thought it would be interesting to see how close the robots are to putting me out of work, but clearly, I have nothing to worry about. Leaving aside the fact that it sounds like a grade 9 book report, there are quite a lot of factual errors in the generated review. In fact, the whole second sentence is a bit of a mystery; the film was directed by Eric Appel (not Jay Levey), it stars Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al (not Aaron Paul) , and the cast does not include Mary Steenburgen or Gary Cole. To be fair, Patton Oswalt does make an appearance but he’s not exactly the most notable actor. At least the robots got the general vibe right – it is light-hearted and sure to please fans of Yankovic’s music.

Mike’s actual verdict:

I went into this without knowing anything at all about Weird Al’s history. I know some of the songs he appropriated, and even made a bootleg cassette of one of his albums many decades ago (by placing two tape recorders next to each other, no less). But otherwise I had no expectations.

Of course it is a parody. It took far too long for me to realize that Toby Huss (as young Al’s father) was being intentionally campy rather than just a terrible actor. Eventually I figured it out, but the pure fantasy of the film’s plot was still somewhat hard to get used to. The whole story feels like it’s being recounted from the point of view of a child who can’t separate memory from daydream, and I was anticipating that by the end we’d be disappointed with a “then 10 year-old Al woke up” ending. Thankfully that didn’t happen and Daniel Radcliffe did an excellent job of not reminding me of Harry Potter.

Over all, Weird is undeniably a lot of fun. The form-factor of the film is right on point for the other musician biographies that have been released over the last few years, but of course all of the specifics are absurd. It’s quite a clever effort to do with film what Yankovic has made a career of doing with music. Silly and unpredictable, the film is a refreshing departure from the seriousness that usually plagues biopics. The fake cameos that re-imagine Yankovic’s life were particularly well done, though I did have to keep reminding myself that Evan Rachel Wood was supposed to be Madonna.

There’s not much substance to analyze, but sometimes a movie is just meant to be an enjoyable few hours. I did learn something though – I’d always just assumed that “Al” was short for “Alan”.

8/10

Office Space

What Tristan said:

I recommend that you watch Office Space! This is one of those rare examples of a 20 year old movie that has aged well (especially for a comedy…). While the setting is the late ’90s’ dot-com tech office era, the common office stereotypes that existed at that time still exist today. Sure, they all use CRT monitors and actual floppy disks, but the interpersonal relationships and annoyances are timeless. The supporting story is implausible, but in the spirit of the whole movie as a parody, I don’t think it will take away from the experience.

Mike’s verdict:

This is a movie that by all accounts I should already have seen.  For reasons long forgotten it managed to stay outside my periphery, and eventually reached the point where not seeing it was almost a part of my self-identity: I hadn’t seen it when it was a ‘thing’, so the chance was missed.  In any case, it turns out that all I needed to overturn 20 years of disinterest was an earnest recommendation, so here were are.

The first thing I noticed in this film is how flimsy and drab everything looks.  Compared to modern movies, Office Space makes no effort to create a set with dimension. Both the apartment and the titular office feel thin, unsaturated and empty. Everything looks utilitarian cheap.  But of course it does… it’s the ’90s and the focus is on the employees of a generic company office.  The dullness is very much the point; and while more recently the Googles and Shopifys of the tech world have made some strides, the office building of this film is still extremely familiar.

In fact, everything about Office Space is familiar.  The managers, the cubicle neighbours, the aggravations, the disillusions of the employees, the printers that are always broken; all of it is superbly related-able. The movie is certainly a parody in spirit, but like all good parodies it is firmly grounded in a reality that existed and still exists even two decades later.  Tristan is spot-on – some of the technology looks out-dated, but the characters, and the way they interact, are so distinctly humans-in-an-office that the set doesn’t matter.  Not only does this film not suffer from the anachronistic backdrops at all, if anything they serve as a reminder of the mind-numbing lack of creativity that offices so regularly spiral into.

At the same time, the dialog is hilarious and the supporting cast caricaturizes the personalities of everyday offices perfectly. Everybody is a little over-the-top; but really only a little over-the-top.  Where the film exaggerates, it does so only because it would take too long to depict the “death by a thousand cuts” that drives the motivations of all the main characters.

A supremely enjoyable watch. 10/10

Vertigo

What Tristan said:

Ok, we watched Vertigo last night. It’s from 1958 and first thing I noticed was the amount of dialogue! It really doesn’t rely on special effects like modern movies do. That said, I kinda feel that the movie really handholds the audience through key story elements with the camera work. It has a great twist at the end, and it’s really cringe-y in places in modern #metoo context. Unsatisfying ending.

Mike’s verdict:

I went into Vertigo telling myself that I needed to watch the film bearing in mind the perspective of someone living in 1958.  There have been drastic changes in movie technology, script writing and even visual story-telling since Alfred Hitchcock imagined the film and I didn’t think it would be fair to judge it from the perspective of 61 years (!) in the future.  But by the time I reached the end I had realized that I can’t compensate for time passing – 2019 is the perspective that I have so that is how it will be judged.

Thankfully, I think that the basis of the film has stood up to the march of time fairly well. Or, perhaps more fairly, I don’t think modern society has actually moved on as much as we’d like to believe.  There are indeed some awkward aspects of the film that don’t necessarily fit well with contemporary ideas, but I’m not convinced they would actually be absent if the film had been made more recently. I also noticed some of the hand-holding camera work, but I was able to forgive it. I think if the whole thing was re-shot today many of the clues would be just as direct, albeit perhaps a little more subtle.

I found the story itself compelling. I was afraid it was going to move slowly compared to modern movies but the pace was actually fine.  The introduction of key characters was succinct and the introduction of the mystery happened quickly. I really dislike mysteries that don’t give you all of the relevant details (it’s too easy to trick the audience when they don’t have all the information) but in this case when it was all over I felt as if my failure to guess what was happening was in fact my own failure – there is just enough detail to predict what’s going on if you pay attention and make some thoughtful speculations.

That said, I almost called out the twist very early on – a few key bits of dialogue seemed suspiciously specific and it got me thinking on the right track.  But ultimately I didn’t get it quite right so the film does get points for fooling me. Even so, it turned out that I imagined a far more interesting resolution than what actually developed, so I agree with Tristan’s assessment that the final outcome is unsatisfying. Maybe it is my 2019 perspective, but I expect movie character motivations to be more complex.

I also found the characters compelling.  They all fit well with the atmosphere of the film and at one point I found myself envious of the dapper late-50s social scene.

My only substantive complaint of this film is that there is an abrupt shift about midway through that feels like a whole section has gone missing. The reasoning for the shift itself is clear and ultimately justified, as it lines up with story elements surrounding psychological changes in James Stewart‘s character. But the speed and intensity of the shift doesn’t work. There needs to be more connective tissue to show the development of the character from one phase to the next.  Having gotten to know ‘Scottie’, I found myself in disbelief that he could change so drastically.  Moreover, at the same time that this shift happens Barbara Bel Geddes‘ character outright disappears. In the first half of the film she is built up as a significant and core character, only to be thrown away without even mention later on. Again, her absence can be explained reasonably within the story arch, but there’s no effort at all to do so. Perhaps there are bridging scenes that didn’t make the final edit.

Over all, I was entertained. The mystery left me a surprise and I enjoyed Hitchcock’s honest attempt to use special effects at a time when film technology was fairly primitive. I just wish that more effort had been made to link the two parts of the story.

7.5/10

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

What Tristan said:

You should watch Buster Skruggs because it’s a movie that’s done in a format that isn’t very common: several short stories that are completely unrelated to each other except that they are all quirky and they are all western style. It’s odd in the sense that it takes itself seriously as a movie, but it’s also clearly an homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 50’s and 60’s… almost to the point of parody.

Mike’s verdict:

I let an unusual amount of time pass between watching The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and actually starting to writing my review.  Initially I thought I was holding off because I needed to let it all sink in – after all, it’s really six movies and surely that means more to consider.  But eventually I realized that I was actually just putting off the review because in spite of, or more likely because of, the range of stories caused my thoughts to be muddled. I couldn’t decide if I liked the film, disliked the film, or if I was actually completely indifferent.

So I switched tactics.  Instead of thinking about this film as a film, I started thinking about it as a short anthology – a bunch of works collected under a single name, but tied together only by the fact that someone happened to think they should be together.  And that did it. I realize now that I was having trouble precisely because I was trying to fit all of the stories into a single entity the way that Joel and Ethan Coen have, while at the some time not actually believing they should be in such a group. I liked some of the stories and I didn’t like others, but above all, I don’t believe they make a cohesive film. So to make things fair, I’m going to give each of them a vignetted review with a rating and take the average for an overall score.

Vignette 1: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – the eponymous episode is one of the better ones. Between the singing and the satisfyingly obvious climax, it’s enjoyable.  Just the right amount of fun, and not too serious.  My only complaint is that the singing cowboy carries a guitar instead of a banjo; a sadly missed opportunity. 8/10

Vignette 2: Near Algodones – the first let-down story, this episode felt like it was supposed to be something more.  I can appreciate the ‘unlucky man’, but I need more time to develop sympathy for him.  An unsavory character that comes to an unsavory end just isn’t interesting on his own.  I will give extra credit for the banker though, he’s pretty funny. “Pan shot!” 5/10

Vignette 3: Meal Ticket – I did not like this episode, partly because of the way it ends but mostly because I think that Harry Melling‘s talent is wasted in it. His theatrical recitals are fantastic, but they’re overshadowed by gimmick and shock. 3/10

Vignette 4: All Gold Canyon – finally another good episode, probably my favourite of the series. It actually felt the least like a parody, had a character I could cheer for, and exactly the right ending.  I’d watch a sequel to this one. 10/10

Vignette 5: The Gal Who Got Rattled – my second favourite episode, this is the only one that felt like it could support a feature-length movie on its own. It has mystery, drama, a little action, and a sad ending. 9/10

Vignette 6: The Mortal Remains – I openly admit to not understanding this episode. I kept waiting to for the story to start, and then it was over. Bonus points for an interesting ensemble of characters, but I wish they’d been used in a proper narrative. 4/10

Overall, I think that Tristan’s description of the film is spot-on; it is definitely a bunch of unrelated stories that are quirky parodies of spaghetti westerns. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s enough to justify more than two hours of my night. I really could have lived without ever seeing half of these vignettes.  Most movies have highs and lows, but very few swing so widely as to feel disjointed.  In this case the sections are obviously meant to be entries on their own, in the same way that Black Mirror episode stand alone.  But clumping the vignettes together into a single film didn’t work.

Final score: 6.5/10