Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - Review!

Weird Al Yankovic's biopic hits streaming this weekend and I've got my review of this alapalooza right now [Music] hello everybody and welcome to my review of weird the owl Yankovic Story the sort of biopic of Weird Al Yankovic and let me just say right up front that from as far back as I can remember I loved Weird Al I listened to all of his albums growing up my mom knew the parody songs more than she knew the actual songs that have been playing on the radio tried to catch the video for Amish Paradise was literally the reason that I started watching MTV now if you don't know who Weird Al Yankovic is first of all I feel sorry for you but secondly he grew to fame and popularity in the 80s and 90s by making really high quality parody versions of hit songs and then once those became very popular he sort of built on his own popularity to build a Weird Al brand he's one of the most likable lovable people in show business and that's what makes this movie in particular very funny I'd heard about this movie being in the process for quite some time and they actually sent out a couple months ago an email from the publicity company that was handling the Press tour saying hey if you would like to submit for doing interviews with Weird Al and the cast in the movie let us know and I immediately replied and was like I would love to interview Weird Al in a virtual interview I would package it with a video talking about how much I love Weird Al growing up with this music and everything and they got back to me like right away like suspiciously fast and they were like no do not sit down but that's okay because the important thing here is the movie and what I actually thought of it and I will say that if you're in the market for a parody music biopic about a parody musician who got famous in the 80s then this is a very specific thing for you weird is appropriately not really a Weird Al biopic but a parody of one it's directed by Erica Pell who cut his teeth directing a lot of comedy videos for the internet a lot of stuff for Funny or Die it actually is based on a funnier Die parody trailer from 2010. the trailer version of weird starred Aaron Paul as weird I Yankovic he couldn't come back for the movie but Director Erica Pell did and the movie was actually co-written by a pal and Al Yankovic himself so it is a quasi-wiredale biopic co-written by Weird Al now weird is admittedly Niche not everybody is going to know what it is or really understand the humor behind it and I think that its existence is really owed to two things one of them being the streaming Wars which has all of these different companies looking to get a leg up on the competition and this is why I think the Roku Channel funded this project because it is a very Buzzy project and it's honestly the first piece of program I can ever think about talking about from the Roku channel the second reason I think that this movie actually exists is because of Daniel Radcliffe who signed on very early on to play Weird Al I think before the movie even had full funding or had Roku behind it and it's yet another example of what I love about Daniel Radcliffe's career post Harry Potter which is that he really does whatever he wants with the full knowledge that his participation in a project is going to lend that project legitimacy and star power and it really does seem like he is using that power hour to put his influence behind really interesting movies they're not always really great movies but they are interesting movies honestly I think this movie could have gone very poorly and we've seen it before where you have a clever idea especially in the era of digital video and you make a movie based off of that idea and it feels like it should have been left as like a three minute short because it looks cheap most of it is set in like three different rooms it's very improv and riff heavy that's not this movie at all and I was very relieved to find out that that wasn't the case happily weird is a lovingly stupid Riff on the countless Musical biopics that often prioritize sensationalism over reality there are germs of Al's real life here he was a young accordion Enthusiast he was discovered by Dr Demento he did record his first song in a bathroom but as Al's Fame grows the movie begins to play faster and looser with the facts and in this version of Weird Al's life he became the biggest musician in the world Michael Jackson parodied him and Madonna became the corruptive influence that set him down the road of the required self-destructive spiral LSD an illicit polka party Pee-wee Herman and Pablo Escobar also have their parts to play this is not a subtle parody this is much more in line with the outrageous and zany films of the 70s and 80s actually not unlike UHF which is another film that Weird Al made back in the 80s this isn't a nuanced comedy they're not going for the subtle punch line they're hitting you over the head with gag after gag after gag for about a hundred minutes and luckily for the movie most of those gags work I laughed throughout weird from his first conflicts with his father who calls the accordion a devil's Squeeze Box to the end credits which double down on just how far this movie is going to go to sell the fiction but as I said earlier I think it is kind of a narrow beam as to who is going to fully appreciate this movie because you have to come in to a certain extent with some knowledge of Weird Al and his career to understand the changes that the movie is making and also I think it helps to know Weird Al's personality over the years and the fact that he is one of the most squeaky clean people in the entertainment industry and that's what makes his descent into debauchery in this movie that much funnier to put things in the nicest term possible I think if this was an idea that had an appeal to a very wide audience it wouldn't be premiering on the Roku Channel free with ads but I don't mean that as a slam to the movie and I actually also think that silliness in general is universal and this is a very silly movie I don't think you have to know the story behind My Bologna in real life to laugh at the overwrought scene where Weird Al is first inspired to write the pop parody and a lot of that has to do with Daniel Radcliffe who gives this the same 100 effort that he gives every role he didn't just sign up to make a splash and put on a wig and get some cheap publicity Daniel Radcliffe is doing the best fake version of Weird Al that a fake biopic of Weird Al could ask for the rest of this cast is also there to do more than just have a good time Rayne Wilson bring brings a Mystic yet slightly desperate quality to Dr Demento Al's mentor and manager Evan Rachel Wood absolutely Nails the uberconfident and seductive Persona that Madonna cultivated for herself in the 80s and 90s and familiar faces pop up throughout a lot of them in my favorite sequence from the film which is a party at Dr demento's house that features so many underground and mainstream 80s comedy faces some of them played by people you know some of them just portraying people you know especially if you are a child of the 80s it also features one of the Hallmarks of any music biopic which is the impromptu fake songwriting challenge which Spurs an inspired performance of one of Al's biggest hits notably while obviously low budget weird doesn't look like it was shot in less than three weeks which it was the amount of material that they're able to cover in this movie is impressive and it speaks to appel's roots in the Uber resourceful world of digital filmmaking particularly for the internet and you can see how his skills have developed from those roots to making this move movie making a movie like this so quickly with so many moving pieces isn't easy and and it would have been easy just to say okay we're going to shoot most of it in a room here and just cycle people in and out there's an ambition to this movie and it really shows on screen but I think that not only Erica Pell deserves credit but also the cinematographer and the camera team the production designer the costume designer this movie looks like it had more resources than I'm sure it did have and that's what you're going for with low budget filmmaking weird isn't perfectly executed I think that there was probably five or ten minutes that could have come out of the movie and not every joke lands some of them are made a couple times too many as well but it is delightfully silly and I like silly movies because there is no ego or pretension to a movie like this it takes a lot of guts to be as dumb as this movie is but it is fearlessly dumb and I think very well executed in other words weird is a movie that dares to be stupid and succeeds so those are my thoughts on weird the AL yankov story will you be tuning in on the Roku channel will you be like me researching on what the Roku channel is so that you can find this movie let me know down in the comments below as I mentioned it starts streaming this weekend free but I believe with ads it looks like the version that I saw had breaks in it for ads so prepare for that it'll be like watching an old television movie and before you go if you're able to look into the Roku Channel then you're probably at least somewhat familiar with streaming so you may have heard of The Lord of the Rings the rings of power season one just wrapped up I'm still working on my review which is turning into a bit of an epic but if you want to jump into that show and learn more about it right now then the sponsor for this video may be something that you're interested in take it away Felicia Day I'm Felicia Day and I'm the host of the official the Lord of the Rings the rings of power podcast in every episode I'm going backstage for an all-access look at what it took to bring Middle Earth to life I'll even have the First full breakdown of the incredible season finale with the series showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay I will be sharing juicy behind the scenes stories and processing all the holy crap moments with the members of the cast and crew numenor has got to be the most amazing thing ever and we wanted it to just be the greatest Kingdom of men that ever existed the elves are arrogant and vain they're not Beyond being corrupted can I just say watching oh and Arthur eat in his full regalia is the most hilarious thing so if you want to Deep dive into every episode watch the rings of power on Prime video and listen to all eight episodes of the official the Lord of the Rings the rings of power podcast for free on Amazon music download the Amazon music app now thanks to the rings of power official podcast for sponsoring this video and thank you for watching I'll be back very soon with more news reviews box office and more until then stay safe and I'll see you next time bye [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Dan Murrell

Views: 43,388

Keywords: dan murrell, dan murrell movies, movies, weird al movie, weird al, weird review, weird al movie review, weird al review, weird the al yankovic story, weird al roku, weird al roku movie, dan murrell weird review, roku, weird al yankovic story review, daniel radcliffe weird al, weird al yankovic

Id: 9GZ8_hlAxbY

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022