by Tabitha Clutterbuck
I don't know why Man On The Moon is called Man On The Moon, but I've had the REM tune in my head for seven hours now, and not even voluminous doses of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn can banish it. If you have an irritating song stuck in your head, you can only replace it with a song that is either irritating to the same degree, or worse. If you caught the Golden Globes on telly, you'll remember Courtney Love staggering up to the mike and mumbling the lyrics as well. And while we're here, I understand it's not always easy keeping yourself nice at awards ceremonies when they lay on the liquor but, Jesus lady, do yourself a favour and wear something supportive. Or stay in your seat! It's one or the other, you know?
Anyway, she plays the girlfriend in Man On The Moon, and apart from an amusing tits-out (kind of) wrestling match, she's pretty much just playing Courtney Love. Man On The Moon is the life story of comedian Andy Kaufman, which may not mean much to someone who wasn't raised on a steady diet of Saturday Night Live. People will queue for hours in sub zero temperatures on the street in New York just to get a ticket to SNL. I've seen it, and for the record it was minus 13 degrees Celsius and snowing. So that gives you some idea of what Kaufman stands for. Entertainment. With bells on.
Carrey's performance is stunning, and apparently so close to the real Andy's mannerisms, that his old writer, Bob Zmuda, offered to pay Carrey a hundred bucks to have lunch with him and be Andy for a few hours a month. Which is cool. So the least you can do is pay twelve bucks and check out this movie. The man's a freak, and that's all I'm saying.
On another freakish note, the FILMINK guys sent me off to see Dogma last week. I guess Dov thought I'd put some funny down-down-burning-ring-of-fire kind of spin on it. But God is good, and this story is not.
It starts out promising enough. You've got to love Chris Rock as Rufus the 13th disciple, who swears Jesus was a righteous brother of the black man. George Carlin - another Saturday Night Live veteran - makes an excellent man of the cloth, considering his personal comedic take on the whole religious deal.
But Alanis Morrisette? As God?! Wow, no wonder the Catholics were picketing it! I mean, can we really picture that shrieking, worthy, fat-ankled Canadian as the Omnipotent Light Of Love? Did anyone hear her last album?
Casting aside, Kevin Smith wrote this before Clerks in 1994, but shelved it because he wanted to do it with special effects. As it was, the budget was $US 10 million, alot of which was probably spent on Matt Damon's close ups. Jay and Silent Bob are back, so no doubt Smith will make a tidy bundle from the teen stoner dollar.
Maybe trying to make a movie about the eternal war between good and evil should cost more than 10 million, maybe Linda Fiorentino should calm the hell down and just try speaking her lines, maybe Alan Rickman should whiten his teeth. I guess the comedy/parable genre (or so says the press release) is a tough one to crack. But you know what? Forget about the movies, go sit in the park. Go for a swim. It's summer for Christ's sake.
---Tabitha presents arena TV's The Graveyard Shift every Friday night. Watch it, mate.
link directly to this feature at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=166
originally posted: 02/20/00 22:58:48
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