Movie Review: Man on the Moon

Story: Any movie that has an Elvis impersonation within the first 15 minutes gets my attention (with a clear bias). While no hunka burnin' love, Andy Kaufman was way ahead of his time and raised the level of stand-up comedy shtick to performance art. His audience became part of his work. Like a road side accident, where you really don't want to look, but do anyway - you find yourself enthralled in the theater of his performance. Directed by Milos Forman ( One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt) and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Larry Flynt) we are treated to a biopic without much of the why. I had no problem with the movie not psycho babbling about the why of Andy Kaufman - as long as the art was good, and it was - I was entertained. I question Forman's decision to use the 'real' people of TV's 'Taxi' and the NBC folks as themselves. I found it distracting that they looked too old to play against Jim Carrey's Andy. Picky? Probably, but so what! I did laugh out loud a lot which helps in the final Lobo Howls department.

Acting: Jim Carrey is Andy Kaufman. They even share the same birthday. I have been watching reruns of Kaufman's work on the network TVLand and Carrey has all of his personas nailed. He is a very good actor. Remember The Truman Show? We can only hope that his Ace Ventura days are long over. Paul Giamatti (Cradle Will Rock, The Negotiator) is getting a lot of film work these days as the 'sidekick' and is excellent as Andy's partner in spoof. Danny DeVito, who is also one of the film's producers, is fine as the understated manager and Courtney Love as Andy's girlfriend was also good but I think much of her part is on the cutting room floor.

Pets: None

Visual Art: None, but a whole lot of performance art.

Sappy Factor: 0

Quirky Meter: 6

Length: A perfect 2 hours

LOBO HOWLS: 8.5