Man On The Moon
Man on the Moon is based on the story of Andy Kaufman’s (Jim Carrey) life. If you’ve never heard of Andy Kaufman, then you will probably know him as the mechanic Latka Gravis from the sitcom Taxi. There was however a lot more to Andy than this character that he actually hated doing...
Man on the Moon is based on the story of Andy Kaufman’s (Jim Carrey) life. If you’ve never heard of Andy Kaufman, then you will probably know him as the mechanic Latka Gravis from the sitcom Taxi. There was however a lot more to Andy than this character that he actually hated doing.
The film chronicles his whole career from his Elvis impressions at the Improvisation Comedy Club. Through his debut on Saturday Night Live doing his Mighty Mouse routine. Up to his famous lady wrestling and of course his alter-ego Tony Clifton. Along the way we get some insight into the man himself, like his passion for meditation, his frienship with Bob Zmuda (Paul Giamatti) and the woman who loved him, Lynne Margulies (Courtney Love).
Picture and sound quality are both excellent on this disk. The picture comes in a 2.35:1 anamorphic format and as far as I could see was pretty faultless. The sound actually comes in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 formats. As I’ve said in previous reviews the DTS clinches it for me every time. It just seems clearer and somehow cleaner. Whichever soundtrack you choose though, you won’t be disappointed.
Extras include a Spotlight on Location feature that’s about 20 minutes long. This is better than the usual making of features. There’s some reasonably interesting deleted scenes especially a scene in the improvisation club. There’s an Andy Kaufman story feature that contains video clips from the real Andy. Finally there’s a Universal Showcase, a Theatrical Trailer, some fairly extensive production notes, Cast and Filmmaker Bios and some disk recommendations.
If you have a PC with DVD drive then you also have some DVD-Rom Extras. These include a Timeline, a many faces of Andy feature, Cast Info, behind the scenes info and a mix of screen savers, sound and image files.
I’ve have never been a fan of Jim Carreys work. I’ve always found his characters to be over the top and too annoying. That was until I watched the Truman Show. I thought that this was a great film and Carrey put in a great performance.
I did wonder if this would be a one off for me, or could Jim Carrey pull of being Andy Kaufman. I wasn’t disappointed though; within a few minutes of watching the film you almost forget that it’s Carrey at all. He has perfected everything about Kaufman. From his mannerisms, his comedy styling’s and his wide-open eyes, he’s captured everything.
Whether you consider Kaufman to be a comic genius or an overrated buffoon, you can’t help but be drawn into the film by the incredible performance of Carey. The supporting cast also deserves a mention here, Danny DeVito and Courtney love both pull of admirable performances as George Shapiro and Lynne Margulies. During the Taxi scenes we get just about the whole original cast (minus DeVito of course).
With this combination of a great film, on a disk with plenty of extras and a top quality image and audio track, I have to give it a 4.5.
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