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Forman once talked about how he wanted to make this movie more critical and realistic, diving more into the mind of Kaufman, however DeVitto, who produced, wanted just a tribute.
Ooh, it sounds to me like Danny was afraid a too realistic biopic would paint a bad image of a dear friend of his. But this request caused the movie that obviously wanted to go in one direction to feel forceably cut short and forced into a different direction
Rachel J When the pro wrestler Jerry The King Lawler wanted to beat Jim Carrey's ass for disrespecting Andy's memory wih this movie. Lawler was a friend( and at one point enemy)of Kaufman, and he was pissed off at Carrey...and this movie.
@@dynamicjaethought7788 Yeah, Jerry and Andy were ACTING like they hated each other during their wrestling fued because Andy was a fan of wrestling and they both knew it was fake (as this movie DOES bring up). The problem is... it appears Jim Carrey didn't know that, somehow. Nothing more disrespectful than pretending to be a guys friend and then not getting those facts straight.
Joseph, the reason for that may have been "cute" nod to the old days, when Kaufman (and I) were young, when credits appeared only on the beginning. and it just ended with THE END.
I loved this movie before I did research on Andy. I had the same opinion on Patch Adams. Loved the film before I did research on the guy and watched it again. Both don’t hold up for me anymore.
I was more entertained by your explanation of the actual events and the footage you showed of those events than I was by the actual movie. This movie actually made me dislike Andy Kaufman, and you redeemed him in my eyes quite a bit. I really did misunderstand the guy.
Your Staten island ending would have been a beautiful ending. I hope if anyone makes a more faithful film about him, they not only show the great, intelligent, snarky, and sly troll that he way... They should go with the ending you have imagined.. It would be powerful
Well they make a great Steve jobs film with Michael Fassbender after the disaster that was the jobs film with Ashton Kutcher, changes are posaible. And they both show the way in how to make a biopic right and a biopic wrong
@@motor4X4kombat oh wow! I did NOT know that they made another about him. Fassbender is a great actor, so i imagine he did a fantastic job.. on Jobs. (Had to. Resisted urge to do a dad joke level pun). Anyway, I'm going to look it up and watch it when i get home from my.. job. Hardy har har! Lol I hope SOMEONE makes a new Kaufman film, as in my opinion (I'm 28 and never knew Andy or anyone close to him. I just have seen candid interviews), he got the character of him all wrong from what I've seen. Sure, he was a bit uncomfortable and played a pretentious jerk everywhere... but he wasn't the super shifty eyed weirdo Carrey made him out to be. He dialed the amp up to 11, when at most it goes to 10 but Andy was more often than not at 6. The whole "possession" thing made me lose respect for my childhood idol altogether. He was pretentious enough to speak to Andy's daughter he had never known. You can tell in the making of video that everyone just wanted to beat him down. Rant over. I do got an amp that goes up to 11 (I modified it thanks to spinal tap). And I hope that SOMEONE can do Andy justice, and show him as more than an awkward troll, but as someone loved by many, known by few, unsure if he faked his death, and with a depth to him that you can see in interviews. Jim TOTALLY botched it and shit on his legacy during his ego trip. I wonder who could play him well? My uncle thinks Jonah Hill could do it well. I think he's actually a good actor. Idc if i would pick him though. (If you made it this far, I apologize. I'm on the spectrum slightly and tend to get VERY wordy if writing. Go figure, I write for a living. Lol Ideas, anyone??
@@akufromthefuture7159 its a really good, and its called Steve Jobs insted of jobs, and it was directed by Danny Boyle the same guy who Made trainsppoting, and slumdog millonaire, and written by the same guy who did the social network... So yeah prepare for a Lot of fast talking dialogue.
Aku From the future I would pick Jason Segel. He has a similar look and vibe. He can also balance manic comedy with poignant dramatic performance which is what the role requires. I can totally see the Staten Island scene come alive with him in it. The director I would go with would be Jason Ponsoldt who made The Spectacular Now and The End of The Tour.
I agree but there was a documentary on comedy central about Kaufmann that ran alot a few years before that. That's how I saw alot of those routines and I'm guessing that was the case with Doug as well.
Today there is RU-vid but in 99, outsider of America, it was impossible to see any of Kaufmans work except maybe reruns of Taxi. I’m surprised this movie did as well as it did outside of America as few ppl knew about him.
It's almost as if it's being told from the POV of Devito's character. From his prospective, fully-formed Andy just suddenly came out of nowhere, and that's where the story starts in earnest. He's in on some of the gags while not being in on others, just like the audience is. Of course there are scenes where he doesn't appear, so it's not _strictly_ from his POV. But generally speaking, the movie shows him from the same medium-level vantage point that his manager seems to have of him.
At first I was going to dislike this video because Man on the Moon was once my favorite movie (I didn’t actually know who Andy Kaufman was at the time), but now after watching this, I do wish they did some of what you were talking about. I’m just glad that you were able to point out flaws in a movie I love and still keep it good in my eyes. All the while having me agree with everything you were talking about. Great video.
@@NinjaTylerBlack The movie came out in 1999, so, you saw it before you were born? 😉 BTW, I am 54, so I lived though it all. I think you have to be my age and older to get it. My dad loathed Andy Kauffman over the wrestling bit. He thought it was real.
It’s not empty, it’s truth. Andy died tragically which is reality. The ending in the club shows he’s never been forgotten by either his friends or fans and I believe couldn’t of been better!
@@jadenbryant9283 that was a few years ago and to my knowledge (I may not have looked hard enough) there was nothing particularly incriminating aside from some people just not getting along with him. I'd be happy to be corrected.
@@radiocoffee7700 well they hid a man who did sexual assualt on not a minor but had the mind of a 16 year old and still did sexual assualt abused alot of their empolyes might be spelling empolys wrong had very bad communication skills and were just plain out jerks
@@jadenbryant9283 yeah I know that a bunch of salty nobodies who got thrown out of channel awesome teamed up with a bunch of salty nobodies that tried to rip off NC but never hit >100 views to make up a controversy out of spite and jealousy. Their peabrains probably think that they would suddenly become hot shit if the original they are trying to leech off of disappeared.
"If you know Andy Kaffman's work, you probably saw this movie as 'okay.' If you know Andy Kaufman's life, you saw this as a huge botched opportunity." I feel the same way about Tim Burton's Ed Wood. I really liked the movie, so much that I sought out the biography it's loosely based on, Nightmare of Ecstasy. After reading it, I couldn't finish the movie again, it was so disrespectful. Like all biopics, some things you assume they made up, really did happen, and a lot of small details had to be tweaked a bit to fit the structure of the story they were trying to tell. I'm fine with that. But where Burton and Depp really screw up (and I'm placing the bulk of the blame with them, even though a lot of this comes from the script) is in how they characterize Wood. This is not a loving tribute to complicated man who lived a hard life of seemingly endless failure. It's a joke, and often very mean-spirited. I won't go into all the ways they point and laugh at his person, but check out Maggie Mae Fish's video on Tim Burton if you want a brief overview. And I highly recommend Nightmare of Ecstasy. Great biography. Very well-argued video, Doug. Keep up the good work.
lurch321 Read the book. It’s annoying how much the writers took out, or changed. There is A SHIT TON of wasted potential with the film. Not to say it’s bad, but like Man on the Moon, the potential for a better story was massive
S.E.J, The Disaster Artist book was a great account of the events that occurred from Greg Sestero’s perspective. It translated better to audiobook form since Sestero handled the narration and did a dead-on impression of Tommy Wiseau. I was excited over the prospects of it being translated to film and I was gravely disappointed when James Franco got a hold of it, sorely because he treated The Room as a party favor and used this opportunity to make it more grand scale. Their biggest mistake was getting Wiseau involved in the making of it who provided nothing to it with his stupid ass comments like “I didn’t like how once scene was too dark looking, but it only looked that way because I was wearing sunglasses.” He sounds like the pain in the ass Sestero made him out in the book. I’m looking forward to seeing The Room Full of Spoons documentary that Wiseau tried to stop from being from being released as I’m sure it’ll confirm more of the shit Wiseau was pulling rather than the picture they tried to paint him as in the movie.
@@cam62cam811 all of these was out of place! What gets me is they didn't need to change or live out nothing cause their lives was already interesting enough.. Nostalgic Critic does have a point on that one as well..
It's not that they didn't get along, he and everyone else was subject to Jim Carrey's antics as Kaufman. Jerry Lawler was the one who didn't get along with Carrey
I used to work at a video store. When Man on the Moon premiered we had one copy, but Space Truckers we had 80 copies. I don't know why , but I always found that hilarious.
RULE NO 1 of Hollywood 'based on a true story' they're NEVER based on the true story merely based on a Hollywood condensed version full of half truths or blatant lies for dramatic purposes. Which is what the intro to "Man on the Moon" mocks at the very start of the film. End of the day no movie can ever sum up the full life or depth of any human being. Best to refer to these films as distillations and tributes to the people they are about.
For once it shows that Doug really admires both Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman, that's why this turned out as an actual critique or review of the film rather than a scream fest and nipicky crap
It sounds like Andy Kaufman the real person was kind of a nutcase and a jerk. I think the movie was intended as more of a love letter to Andy than something introspective.
I thought it was the other way around. As in - the movie made this guy sound like a weird jerk. I wasn't familiar with Andy Kaufman when I watched this.
I understand what you're saying, Critic, but at the same time I still really like this movie (though "People vs. Larry Flint"' is my favorite Milos Forman biopic). Though I suspect that this film was also made in a way for people who don't know Kaufman to have an intro to the entertainer. I'm not sure that is 100% true, though for what the filmmakers achieved, I think they did very well. Also, thank you for briefly mentioning my favorite movie of all time, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".
TIL that there was a guy called Andy Kaufman. Neat. I'm sure a few boomer Americans are ready to berate me but I have literally never heard of him and you not mentioning him is the reason.
I mean, it's normal for some people to have never heard of someone that may have been before their time. So it's perfectly reasonable if you've never heard of him till now. But you calling people "Boomers" before they even say anything, isn't exactly necessary and just shows you're young and clinging to the hip new meme the internet has been focusing on currently.
Me: is from Russia, doesn't know American culture, never heard of Andy Kaufmann, never watched this movie Also me watching this review: Damn right! They did my boy Andy so dirty!
For some reason this I think is one of my favorite Nostalgia Critic episodes ever. I say "I think" because it's not like I handpicked it as a favorite, it just keeps coming to my mind and I feel like watching it again.
Think you’re describing the fault of the writer or director, but you have to appreciate the performance. ‘Possessed’ is only Jim paraphrasing how dedicated and caught up in the role he was.
You helped me understand why I feel the way I do about the movie. I remember thinking it was ok but was annoyed at, for example, the very lengthy wrestling stuff. I found the "behind the scenes" stuff about his life way more interesting but the movie wanted to make it more of a "career highlight reel" than anything else.
Fun fact on how difficult Jim Carrey was to deal with during filming: The scene where they recreate the Letterman show where Jerry Lawler slaps Kaufman, not only did Jerry slap Jim Carrey for real like he did Andy, he slapped Carrey as hard as he could and much harder than when he slapped Andy.
I was a fan of Andy kaufman and grew up watching him on tv (born 1971). His SNL appearances (seen reruns) and TAXI stand out. This film is fine. It does decent job covering the basics of Andy's life and his unique sense of humor. It's nowhere near a bad film. It's not top tier, but I feel it's an effective and entertaining bio pic that serves as an introduction to him. This film is not for everyone. Enjoy your reviews Doug and keep up the great work.
there’s a special andy kaufman recorded where he literally does something similar to opening bit where he says the shows over, waits a few seconds, and then is like word the show is about to really begin i just want to get rid of the people who aren’t cool
Kaufman and Jerry Lawler kept working together on Memphis, until Andy could not do it anymore because of his declining health. Also, Kaufman never cashed the checks he got from Memphis wrestling because he was doing it because he loved it
I'm gonna just agree with both Doug and myself here. What do I think? Jim did a darn good job, but KAUFMAN was ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY... So yeah... Doug has a LOT of spot on points here. A LOT. This is kind of my main complaint with Hollywood anyway-these really subtle, nuanced, deeply psychologically oriented movies just miss the mark so often... And Jim is... More about the slapstick than the mind blowing (or cryptic, or especially eccentric in some respects, etc.)... But, yanno, Jim likes to believe he's mind blowing, etc... 🤷♂️ Sorry, that was a pretty merciless Jim Carrey burn. I like Jim, so, sorry Jim, nothing personal. 😁
You just felt like being passive-aggressive. You’re not fooling anyone. Critic wasn’t trying to get people to hate the movie, just showing all the ways the movie could have been better and more faithful to its true-life main character. He wasn’t trying to change anyone’s mind on liking it, so your pathetic attempt to imply that to fans has failed.
I remember when I rented this movie on VHS back in the day. Usually you have to remind the tape before watching but this movie I barely rewinded it. I guess the previous person who watched it stopped at the opening when the credits rolled.
You're way off on the lawler reveal! There were ALOT of people who thought he really hurt andy! Andy spent 3 days in the memphis hospital,just to add to it. Even people within the wrestling business believed it! Letterman also believed it! They made a lot of fans believe it. Which is like getting a kid to beileve in Santa,years after they realized!
Rewatching clips from this movie makes it clear that Carrey was playing a severely exaggerated caricature of Kaufman. There are interviews where Kaufman talked in a normal and straightforward way. Meanwhile, Carrey always spoke in a deliberately goofy voice that sounded movie-ish. The film needed a better actor than Carrey. It needed someone who could do restrained one moment and outrageous in another moment. Carrey could only do the latter.
I think this is a fair perspective for someone who knows his work, and from the idea that it could have done more with the source material. On the other side of the coin, this came out way before RU-vid, and way after Kaufman was in the media/pop culture mainstream. I guarantee you 95% of the teens, 20-somethings and early 30s audience members at the time only had a cursory idea of Andy. From that angle it was a fairly well acted and produced film to introduce him to a new generation, and all the more reason to do a 'greatest hits' kind of reenactments of his routines. Outside of being referenced in an REM song, he was pretty unknown in the late 90s.
17:25 Part of me wonders if the reason Ebersol looked so uncomfortable was BECAUSE he made the deal with Andy but between the deal and the announcement was told by the higher ups they weren't going to bring Andy back.
To be fair, when you say that people could have seen Andy's performances anywhere, this movie came out 6 years before RU-vid was even a thing. Sure, there was some pretty basic form of the internet, but nothing like what we have today, where you can find pretty much anything ever recorded with a 5 second search. Personally, I'd never heard of Andy Kaufman until literally this episode; if I'd seen Man on the Moon when it was in theaters, I'd have never seen those bits done before, and might not have been able to find them if the movie only teased them briefly. On the other hand, from what I understand, these were long segments, which took away from the time left to focus on what seems like a very interesting life. Time management is an important factor
I’ve heard of this movie when it first came out and I wanted to see it . And after seeing this review I will say ..... Man On The Moon tried a hell of a lot better than #WIRED
I'll admit some stuff can be passed for why they had to do the things in this movie. Like not going completely all the way through with that opening making everyone think the movie was over. They probably realized that they couldn't do a majority of these things because of runtime. But based on a lot of stuff that Doug has said in this video, he does bring up some good points that would've made more sense for the movie to show. Like Andy's drug part of life that led to him doing comedy and why he loved meditation. Or when he smashed the eggs on the woman's head in which the footage was burnt. The real reason why Andy got upset for being kicked off of SNL. But overall, I definitely would've liked to see the audience playing a joke on Andy for a change. Doug was right that it would've been so amazing to see on the big screen. That truly would've been a loving way to close things for Andy on screen before dissolving to his funeral. And yes, they could've changed it to have it as the entire audience instead of missing some people. It really would have been the tear jerking scene. Another thing I was okay with not showing in this movie was Andy finding out he had cancer. It obviously wanted us to be fooled too in order to go with that ending that Andy was probably the one playing Tony one year after his death, thus people still believing to this day that he may still be alive and waiting for the right moment to appear to make the joke absolutely hilarious, like Lloyd in Dumb & Dumber To pretending to catatonic for 20 years as a joke for Harry. Doug needs to find a way to time travel so he can make sure his vision of the film can be made, just so I can see that beautiful alternate ending.
This is what i like about his reviewes,you can always learn something about certain film,granted i didn't knew much about Kaufman and watching the movie was confused since wasn't familiar about his routines,but still liked the movie,this was good insight,and point that you make would make it even better.Thanks for learning something new,and even i like your skits and humor,this type of reviews is great and hoping to be more like always
Andy really did poses Jim, insane I know but think about it. What would be the ultimate troll, the movie about you isn’t about you. It fits Andy’s style and would give some credit to Carry. Idk maybe I’m just too high.
As I understood about Andy, he didn’t like when people expected the same jokes from him, that is, they demanded from him what he already did and show. And NC in principle correctly at the beginning of the review noticed that Andy might have gone much far if he himself was making the film, and would have pulled the joke about the end of the film much longer. But... wouldn't it be what fans already expect from Andy? That is exactly what the people who would come to the Andy Kaufman film would be waiting for, which means he could not surprise them already, which in my opinion was against the Andy's nature. So here I think that the Critic himself didn’t completely unfolded his own idea. Sorry for my google translation english, I'm Russian))
Idk man, he’s right about Man on the Moon, but cmon really? Jim & Andy is a lot deeper and meaningful and funny and not as real than what he’s saying. The doc was a prank itself, along with philosophy.
I'm thinking Jim Carrey got around to trying DMT and that's why he's "woke" as they say. Trust me, it can do that to a person. Or 6 grams of psilocybin.
Doug, I disagree with a few points. I didn't know who Andy Kaufman was. The movie introduced me to him. I was happy that some of his bits were recreated by Jim Carry, so later I could compare them to the real Andy Kaufman stuff. So I was happy they showed the whole thing. It got me hungry for more. Now that I know a lot more about Andy Kaufman, I think I am glad the movie was approached the way it was.
hah i clicked this so primed to be mad (being a big fan of Andy's having watched just abt all his content up here) and an appreciator of Carey and his performance in this movie and... omg. what a review, not only creative, well researched, fair and well executed as always but NC actually seems a bigger Andy fan than i've ever been. hats off to you!
