Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
Directed by Eric Appel.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson and Rainn Wilson. 108 mins. Streaming now on the Raku channel.
At last, Daniel Radcliffe has found the role he was born to play: American musical parodist Al Yankovic. (Note, Yankovic singular, not Yankovics plural: four decades been getting that wrong.) It seems to me the purveyor of witty ditties, even those as acclaimed as Tom Lehrer or Victoria Wood or Bill Bailey, occupy a particularly wretched rung on the showbiz ladder. Weird Wal Wankovic (singular), primarily known in this country for his 80s Michael Jackson send-up Eat It, is basically the US equivalent of the Barron Knights.
Yet, this overblown, preposterous, cameo-packed telling of his life story is an improbable delight. There's a splendid that-bloke-you-saw-in-that-thing studded cast and a marvellous turn by Wood as an evil Madonna. It isn't doing anything clever, just sending up the cliches of the biopic but it's the kind of laugh-out-loud, crowd-rousing comedy that the cinemas have been starved of for years. And they will remain starved because it is bypassing the big screen for a release on the Roku channel. Streaming services, does anyone not have one? What next? Greggs+?
Directed by Eric Appel.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson and Rainn Wilson. 108 mins. Streaming now on the Raku channel.
At last, Daniel Radcliffe has found the role he was born to play: American musical parodist Al Yankovic. (Note, Yankovic singular, not Yankovics plural: four decades been getting that wrong.) It seems to me the purveyor of witty ditties, even those as acclaimed as Tom Lehrer or Victoria Wood or Bill Bailey, occupy a particularly wretched rung on the showbiz ladder. Weird Wal Wankovic (singular), primarily known in this country for his 80s Michael Jackson send-up Eat It, is basically the US equivalent of the Barron Knights.
Yet, this overblown, preposterous, cameo-packed telling of his life story is an improbable delight. There's a splendid that-bloke-you-saw-in-that-thing studded cast and a marvellous turn by Wood as an evil Madonna. It isn't doing anything clever, just sending up the cliches of the biopic but it's the kind of laugh-out-loud, crowd-rousing comedy that the cinemas have been starved of for years. And they will remain starved because it is bypassing the big screen for a release on the Roku channel. Streaming services, does anyone not have one? What next? Greggs+?
