Most people who know Weird Al Yankovic’s music are aware of Dare to be Stupid, off The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. If not that, then songs like Eat it! or the equally epic Trapped at the Drive Thru quickly come to mind. Though I don’t own a Roku (yet!), I’m kind of excited for this. The movie covers Weird Al’s humble beginnings and rise to accordion superstar. Daniel Radcliffe (Horns, Swiss Army Man) and Evan Rachel Wood (HBO’s Westworld, Kajillionaire) seem perfectly cast as Weird Al and Madonna here.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will be available on November 4 on The Roku Channel.
“The sad part is, I can’t really play the song live anymore because too many people misunderstand the connotations of Ground Zero. It’s not a reference to 9/11, obviously. It was written in 1986 when ‘ground zero’ just meant the epicenter of a nuclear attack.”
— Weird Al Yankovic
Try to force Weird Al to do a Christmas album and this is what you’re going to get.
In 1986, Weird Al’s record label insisted that he record something for the holiday season. In response, Yankovic came up with Christmas At Ground Zero, a Phil Spector-style production about Christmas in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It wasn’t really what the record company had expected and, at first, they refused to release it. Yankovic responded by creating his own music video for the song. This video was not only his first stab at directing but it also proved to be popular enough to convince the record company to change their position on the song.
Though the majority of this video is made up of stock footage, the live action scenes of Weird Al and the carolers performing surrounded by rubble were filmed in The Bronx. No nuclear explosions were needed to get the bombed-out feel. Instead, they just filmed in New York in the 80s.
Based on Greg Kihn Band’s Jeopardy, I Lost On Jeopardy was an early song parody from the master of the form, Weird Al Yankovic.
Today, Jeopardy is an American institution but, at the time this video was filmed, it was considered to be a nostalgic memory. The original Jeopardy ran from 1964 to 1975, with Art Fleming as the host and Don Pardo as the announcer. (Famously, Pardo went from announcing for Jeopardy to announcing for Saturday Night Live.) This video was shot on the original Jeopardy set, with Fleming and Pardo playing themselves. As you can tell, Jeopardy has changed considerably from what it once was. The version of Jeopardy that we all know and revere, with Alex Trebek at the helm, would not start until three months after the release of this video.
After Weird Al is kicked out of the studio, the man in the convertible is played by Greg Kihn, in a parody of the ending of the original video for Jeopardy. At the time, Kihn told The Washington Post that he didn’t mind the parody and that it was his idea to appear at the end of the video. As Kihn put it, “It was a vote of confidence. If you’re not well-enough known to be parodied, well, you’re just not well-enough known.”
This attitude seems to be true of most musicians whose songs have been parodied by Weird Al over the years. It helps that Weird Al rarely pokes fun at the original artist or the subject matter of the original song. It seems like one of the easiest ways to get a bad reputation is to complain about Weird Al parodying one of your songs. For instance, just take a look at Coolio (if you can find him).
This video was directed by Francis Delia, who also directed videos for Wall of Voodoo, The Bangles, and Timothy B. Schmit.
If you haven’t, you’re probably just old or else you don’t keep up with what’s happening in the world of popular music. His real name is Conner Friel and he used to be a member of the Style Boyz. Of course, the Style Boyz eventually broke up. Kid Brain became a farmer. Kid Contact became a DJ. And Kid Conner — well, he became Conner4Real and he became a bigger star as a solo artist than he ever was as a Style Boy. His debut album, Thriller, Also, broke records.
But the follow-up, Connquest … well, Connquest wasn’t quite as acclaimed. In fact, it was hated by just about everyone. This is despite featuring classic songs like:
Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)
Mona Lisa
and Equal Rights (featuring P!nk).
Fortunately, when Conner4Real was facing his greatest existential crisis, a film crew was present to record his struggle. For those of us who were fascinated by the career of Conner4Real, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a chance to see how Conner dealt with everything from his terminally ill pet turtle to the elaborate marriage proposal ceremony that led to Seal being attacked by wild wolves. We would have gotten to see Conner and his manager defeat a swarm of mutant bees but, unfortunately, that happened right after the only time that Conner’s manager asked the film crew to stop filming.
Oh well, these things happen.
So, as you should have guessed from all that, Popstar is not a serious film. It’s a mockumentary, with the emphasis on mock. It was also one of the funniest films of 2016, a spot-on parody of the silliness and pretensions of fame. Conner is a combination of Justin Bieber and Macklemore at their shallowest, a well-meaning but thoroughly empty-headed singer. In fact, if Conner was played by anyone other than Andy Samberg, he would be so annoying that the film would run the risk of being unwatchable.
But fortunately, Conner is played by Andy Samberg. It’s hard to think of anyone who plays dumb with quite the same panache as Andy Samberg does. There are plenty of lines in Popstar that shouldn’t work but they do, specifically because they’re being delivered by Samberg. He brings just the right amount of sweetly sincere stupidity to the role. Almost despite yourself, you find yourself hoping that things will work out for Conner and the other Style Boyz. Conner may not deserve to be as big a star as he is but it was obviously going to happen to some idiot so why not a sincere one?
Samberg is not the only funny person in Popstar. The movie is full of funny people, from Sarah Silverman to Bill Hader to the always underrated Tim Meadows. It’s also full of celebrity cameos and I have to admit that I usually tend to cringe when I see too many people playing themselves. But in Popstar, it works. One need only rewatch something like Zoolander 2to see how well Popstar pulls off its celebrity cameos.
Sadly, as funny as Popstar was, it was also one of the biggest bombs of 2016. (The trailer, it must be said, did not do the film justice.) However, I expect that it will soon develop a strong cult following. In a few years, we’ll get a sequel. It probably won’t be as as good.
I was going to try to get clever with Yankovic’s lyrics when it came to my own personal experience watching The Phantom Menace (1999) in theaters to start off this post. However, the best I could think of was that they might as well have locked the doors because the film was certainly trying to kill us. All these years later, the best thing about the prequels is still this song.
I haven’t seen The Force Awakens yet. It is currently at 187 in my Netflix queue. I’m not that excited. Mission: Impossible III (2006) was pretty bad. Star Trek (2009) was good, but I have no desire to see it again. Super 8 (2011) was fun in theaters, and when The Force Awakens (2015) came out, I had to look up the name because it was that forgettable. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) was certainly a movie. I can’t say anything about it because it went in one ear and out the other too. Still, just like the other two prequels, I will see it and the other ones that Disney is going to make because…well…nostalgia and all. They can’t possibly have an actor in them that gives Alan Bagh a run for his money in the wooden acting department like the second and third prequels did. I am expecting it to be a Marvel movie, just like the live-action remakes of their old animated IP.
As for the music video and song, I don’t need to add anything. If you haven’t seen The Phantom Menace, then just listen to this song. It sums it up nicely in about five-and-a-half minutes while also being a fun parody of American Pie by Don McLean.
If it is still up, I have included some concert footage of Al from last year for The Force Awakens that includes this song and the one specifically about Yoda.
Beth LaMure and Craig Armstrong were producers on the music video. I can only find a few credits for LaMure, but her IMDb page tells me she worked for many more artists. Armstrong has gone on to do TV Series producing such as on Supernanny and Extereme Makeover: Home Edition.
Clyde Smith is credited for photography. He has worked as a cinematographer on many music related specials.
Dan Butts was the art director. He has worked as a production designer on TV stuff. He has also been the art director on a bunch of Playboy movies. No, that doesn’t include the one directed by Michael Bay.
Matthew Mungle did make-up. He seems to have been the most successful one and has been working in movies since the early 80s. We aren’t talking small movies here either. The list of his some 230+ credits go on and on. He won an oscar for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). He even worked on Monster High (1989), which I reviewed for October 2015. I only bring it up because it has a scene that parodies the Emperor lightning hands scene from Return Of The Jedi (1983).
Enjoy both the music video, and the new Star Wars movie.
The thing about praising Rob Zombie’s Halloween is that you’re then contractually obligated to talk about the 2009 sequel, Halloween II. While I certainly don’t have any trouble defending the first film, Halloween II is about as big a mess as I’ve ever seen.
Much like the sequel to the original film,Halloween II opens with Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) being stalked in the hospital by her murderous older brother, Michael (Tyler Mane). And the hospital scenes are actually pretty good. Zombie makes good use of Nights in White Satin and the scenes of Michael chasing Laurie are genuinely suspenseful.
However, the film then jumps a year into the future and it’s all kind of annoying. Halloween II follows three separate storylines, all of which converge at the rushed conclusion.
My favorite storyline dealt with Dr. Loomis (again played by the brilliant Malcolm McDowell). Loomis has written a book about Michael and is now traveling the country, promoting himself as a true crime expert and dealing with people who think that he’s exploiting the whole tragedy for a quick buck. McDowell is perfect in these scenes, playing Dr. Loomis as a pompous man who secretly knows that he’s a fraud. “I was as much a victim as anyone,” he occasionally sputters. Perhaps the highlight of the film comes when he’s interviewed by a rather sarcastic Chris Hardwick and finds himself being ridiculed by Weird Al Yankovic (playing himself).
The second storyline features Annie (Danielle Harris) and Laurie struggling to get on with their lives. Laurie is now living with Annie and her father (Brad Dourif). As opposed to the virginal Laurie of the first Halloween, this Laurie is pissed off and out of control. On the one hand, I think Zombie deserves some credit for trying to deal with the PTSD that would obviously be the result of surviving being attacked by Michael Myers. On the other hand, to say that Laurie is never not pissed off would be an understatement. Scout Taylor-Compton does a good job playing her but, in Halloween II, a little Laurie Strode goes a long way. You can only watch someone rage at the world for so long before it starts to get boring.
And the third storyline, not surprisingly, is Michael still trying to track down and kill his sister. Michael continually sees visions of his dead mother (Sheri Moon Zombie), occasionally accompanied by a white horse, telling him, “It’s time.” (Eventually, Laurie starts to see the same thing.) Usually, if you come across someone online criticizing Halloween II, one of the first things that they’ll mention will be that white horse. To be honest, the white horse didn’t both me. I actually appreciated the surreal touch of Sheri Moon Zombie and a white horse appearing out of nowhere. But still, as opposed to first film, Michael is just boring in this film. The first film was memorable because it took the time to explore why Michael became who he became. In Halloween II, Michael’s just another killer in a mask. Leslie Vernon would have kicked his ass.
So, no, Halloween II does not really work. The story is too messy and, with the exception of Dr. Loomis, none of the characters are particularly interesting. I still stand by my claim that Rob Zombie is an underrated director but Halloween II is a definite misfire.
Through the Shattered Lens 