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Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

sme_no_densetsu Milos Forman's "Man on the Moon" is a biopic of famed entertainer Andy Kaufman, who was a unique individual to say the least. Usually classified as a comedian, Kaufman's antics were the sort that defy easy categorization. He pushed the boundaries of comedy, often challenging audiences with material that was just as likely to result in jeers, boredom and/or discomfort rather than laughter.In the movie, Jim Carrey plays Andy with total commitment, which is amply demonstrated in this year's feature length documentary "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond". He was denied an Oscar nomination for his efforts but he did snag his second consecutive Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy (having won the previous year for "The Truman Show"). Leaving aside awards recognition, Carrey seemed to capture the spirit of Kaufman's inspired lunacy in what is probably one of his best (semi-) dramatic performances. The supporting cast is also quite intriguing, not the least for including several individuals playing themselves, such as wrestler Jerry Lawler, talk show host David Letterman, "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels and most of the cast of "Taxi". Other notables (not playing themselves) include Danny DeVito, Paul Giamatti and Courtney Love. Overall, it's a nicely assembled cast that did Andy proud.Being based on a true story, the movie's plot probably won't hold too many surprises for die-hard Kaufman fans but others should find it quite interesting. Some of it seems hard to believe but from what I've read it seems that the movie hewed fairly close to the actual events. In fact, even the staging of some scenes closely matches the original television broadcasts. Credit is undoubtedly due to Milos Forman and his crew for bringing the movie to life with keen attention to detail in its period setting. Naturally, with two-time Oscar-winner Forman at the helm, the movie is in good hands from a visual standpoint but the audio department also benefits from a soundtrack that was largely composed by Rock and Roll Hall of Famers R.E.M. This of course includes their classic song that supplied the film with its title.Ultimately, though, "Man in the Moon" is, like its subject, unlikely to appeal to everyone. Kaufman's antics could sometimes stretch the definition of 'entertainment' but that's what made him so unique. I can see why he didn't consider himself a comedian, which might be a bit of a problem for viewers checking out this movie with an expectation of something resembling mainstream comedy. Personally, I find the movie to be entertaining and memorable both because of and despite its eccentricities.

FilmBuff1994 Man on the Moon is a terrific film with a very well developed plot and a spectacular cast. It is a truly interesting, unconventional biography film that follows the life of complicated, eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman. It does not hold back on showcasing who this man truly was as both a performer and in real life, the film matches up the tone to who he was as a person in a way that I think would have made Kaufman proud had he been around to see this. The only real gripe I had with this movie is that it did not really manage to pull me in at the more emotional moments because of how absurd and over the top it is, for the most part. When they tried to showcase real humanity for Kaufman, it just felt a little too forced and on the nose. The performances are magnificent, Danny DeVito, Paul Giamatti and Courtney Love all truly embody their characters in larger than life performances, but it is without a doubt the remarkable Carrey who really takes us away from beginning to end. He is mesmerizing as Kaufman, funny and emphatic, you will forget you are watching him and just get absorbed in to his portrayal. A great watch. Funny and fascinating, Man on the Moon is a truly unique movie that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good biography or comedy. Follows the life and career of eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman. Best Performance: Jim Carrey

gavin6942 The life and career of a legendary comedian, Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey).If you never had the chance to see Andy Kaufman in his lifetime, this more or less sums up all his characters and his best skits. The Tony Clifton character is best, at least as portrayed in this film, but all have become a part of popular culture. Jim Carrey may or may not exactly look the part, but he was the only man who could have done this and knocks it out of the park.Much like Kaufman himself, this film is hilarious at times and grating at others. Sometimes the laughs came from the audience and sometimes the audiences suffered at Andy's expense. But, of course, this is because he was not so much a comedian as a performance artist. When we expect something else, we only open ourselves to disappointment.

lasttimeisaw I enter the film while being literally oblivious of who is Andy Kaufman, as far as I know, the film is mostly famed because it hitherto has been Jim Carrey's most Oscar-worthy performance, yet being blatantly snubbed again after his drama venture in Peter Weir's THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998, 8/10). So in my case, the film is a dedicative portrait of an eccentric entertainer whose ideology of performance is all about entertaining himself and treat his audience as a receptacle of his sensational idiosyncrasy and excruciatingly manipulative fabrications disguised as parody or mockery. Yet, during his short life-span (Andy passed away in 1984 at the age of 35), this methodology makes him a unique figure in the canvas of American comedians (although he would never condescend himself as a "comedian").Apart from his best remembered role as Latka Gravas in ABC's sitcom TAXI (1978-1982), Andy's strikingly unorthodox gambits include the Foreign Man persona, Might Mouse lip- syncing, and singularly his alter-ego Tony Clifton, an audience-abusing lounge singer with off-key boorishness, all farcically re-enacted by the-one-and-only Jim Carrey, more hinges on visual gags than fusillading well-conceived punchlines, he vigorously pulls off a studious impersonation rather than reveling in his usual elastic facial stunts, in a way, Andy is much more closer to a performance artist than a funny man, staging appealing sensations to exploiting genuine emotions from audience, his motto is to always stay distinctively in advance of your audience, instead of pandering, he surprises them, especially in a provocative way (e.g. the inter-sexual wrestling sham), Carrey nails his psychology to the marrow in his transcendent effort. The rest of the cast is playing it safe around him mainly because most of the prototypes are still alive (some of them make cameos and others are simply playing themselves in a not-so-faraway time-frame), DeVito and Giamatti take a lion's share of their screen-time in comically constructing a layer of authenticity as Andy's agent George Shapiro and his creative parter Bob Zmuda, whereas Courtney Love is Lynne, Andy's romantic interest, instead, submerges herself as a subtler spectator to offer gravitas when the film needs in the second half as the ultimate death is looming large. Surely it is also a refreshing maneuver to start the film with sheer Black & White sequences of Andy breaking-the-four-wall and kidding about this picture with his comical bent. The two-times Academy winning director Miloš Forman steadily segues one skit after another, confidently concocts a mesmerizing montages of Andy's career highlights, and maintains an enigmatic aura of Andy's personal facet, in the final scenes, when an Andy impostor performs Gloria Gaynor's I WILL SURVIVE as Tony Clifton, at one time, we are all being tricked into believe the real Andy is still breathing the same air of ours, then the frame majestically pans through Lynne, George and Bob, suggests otherwise without unmasking the subject, such a class act ending. Despite that some of the farces are too passé to appreciate nowadays, the film doesn't feel far-fetched in its nitty-gritty and it does arouse some stinging thoughts about how we perceive to be entertained from the showbiz, if only Andy could have lived longer to stand the test of time, is he a true legend in modulating the general taste of the mass or a shooting-star cannot prevent his ego from wearing out his routine antics.