
#Man on the moon movie mems plus#
…There is quite a bit of foul language, plus some brief nudity (specifically, the breasts of two different women).Heh. It’s an honest movie, and Andy Kaufman (especially as his most boisterous alter-ego, Tony Clifton) doesn’t come off as a charming Robert Redford-type. But don’t expect the sweet without the sour. For Kaufman fans, you will probably love this movie. I didn’t glance at my watch once, and even stayed until the tail end of the credits just to see if there was more. From a technical stance, this is also an excellent movie. The supporting characters are also extremely well-acted, from Danny DeVito as his agent to Paul Giamatti as his partner in crime. Carrey breathes life into Andy Kaufman and makes leaps and bounds above such roles as he had in “Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber.” He impressed us in “Truman”, and now simply blows us away. Sweet and sour …We get to see his intergender wrestling and when a phone-poll kicked him from Saturday Night Live …The acting in “Man on the Moon” is nothing short of superb. Kaufman’s funeral in which people sing along to a video of Andy singing is touching because it shows that these people cared for him so much that they are willing to grant his wish that his funeral be positive and not depressing. I thought the Carnegie Hall show was absolutely magical. Sure Kaufman could be annoying but Carrey makes him so real that we understand that a person with family and friends who loved him dearly is dying. Carrey does such a good job with his performance that I really felt bad for Andy at the end of the film when he discovers that he is dying of cancer. Kaufman understood to provoke an action you simply have to be unconventional not profane. Rather he invites them out for milk and cookies, wrestles women, and reads the entire Great Gatsby to a college audience. What is interesting is that Kaufman tries to shock his audience with a minimal of profanity and raunchy humor.

Anyway, the film is brilliant and Jim Carrey shows us Andy Kaufman as an outrageous man who liked to shock his audience. In fact, if you edited out the nude scene and a few swears it could have easily received a PG-13. I felt the R rating of this film wasn’t too hard. In that respect, Forman accomplished his goal in making a tribute to the late entertainer. “Man on the Moon” will most likely polarize viewers in much the same way Andy did. However, one will have to wade through some offensive material to get to the reward. While he never found God, the film does show the lies of Eastern philosophy.Īll in all, I think this movie is a rewarding one, especially to fans of Kaufman. The Tony Clifton character is purposefully offensive, and his comments are brutally funny because we are not the butt of his jokes.Īndy also dabbled in meditation and faith healing, only to find that they were frauds. (The f-word is said about 9 times.) Also, there is some brief female nudity (two women’s breast), as Andy wrestles with some prostitutes. There is some profanity, though much less than most R-rated films. (Some people believe Kaufman faked his death, and the film gives this some consideration.) The screenplay is fluid and funny, the direction is subtle, and the acting is brilliant. The film starts off with a brilliant joke and continues through Kaufman’s life at a fast pace, hitting every high or low until his death in 1984. The results are painfully funny and always interesting. In the film, Andy, played by Jim Carrey in one of the year’s best performances, is shown plotting many of his antics, and we learn that almost everything he did was done to cause controversy.

He believed in “theater of life” activities, and sought to generate passion about him, whether positive or negative. Kaufman was brilliant to those who knew he was kidding annoying to those who took him seriously. Larry Flynt” and “Amadeus”, the subject is a man whose personal qualities are debatable. Now, his life is portrayed in a very funny movie from director Milos Forman.Īs in previous Forman biographies, like “The People Vs. In his time he polarized audiences with such acts as Intergender Wrestling and Tony Clifton, an obnoxious lounge singer he created. His antics were designed to get a response-not necessarily laughter.

He wasn’t a comedian as much as he was an instigator. Danny DeVito as George Shapiro, Kaufman’s manager in “Man on the Moon”Īndy Kaufman was a very strange man.
