The unexaggerated true story of the rise of parody song superstar Weird Al Yankovic, from his troubled home life to his relationship with Madonna.
BIOPIC/COMEDY
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)Directed by Eric Appel
Written by Weird Al Yankovic and Eric Appel Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson, Spencer Treat Clark, Jack Lancaster, Tommy O'Brien, Will Forte, Weird Al Yankovic |
I mean, come on. Who doesn't love Weird Al? "Eat It." "Fat." "Another One Rides the Bus." "Amish Paradise." I could go on. He's the undisputed king of comedy songs and from what I've heard, a pretty nice guy with a completely uncheckered past. So, of course his biopic would be a parody of traditional music biopics, where the rock star has a troubled home life, gets discovered mostly by accident, becomes world famous, has a drug problem, dates Madonna, takes down Pablo Escobar, and gets assassinated at the Grammys. It's all completely true, 100%. Except the parts that aren't. Weird Al's crazy experiment with his biopic paid off. It's a hilarious dig at the formula, led by a fantastic performance from Daniel Radcliffe.
Alfred Yankovic (Radcliffe) was a boy with a dream. To play the accordion and change the lyrics to popular songs. But his father (Huss) forbid him to like the things he liked, so Al learned the accordion in secret and one day, while making a bologna sandwich, inspiration struck and he wrote "My Bologna." From there, his life was a crazy string of moments and hit songs like "Eat It," the completely original song that Michael Jackson would later parody with "Beat It." My favorite thing about the movie is how it paints Madonna (Wood) as a power-hungry psycho who dates Weird Al for the bump it gives her own career, and then takes over the Escobar Cartel because she's obsessed with money and power. Pretty sure they're not far off. Weird is the music biopic none of us knew we wanted, but it's the one we needed. While I love biopics, most of them (especially the music ones) follow a pretty set in stone formula. Weird Al breaks that formula by creating a completely fictional retelling of his career, loaded with comedian cameos and giving zero fucks the whole time. What's not to love? |