Well its out now, and I was wondering what you guys thought about the new disc.

PLEASE! Label your comments with a "warning" if you include any spoilers.

Thanks

I can't help you with a review of the DVD, but I can give you my opinion of the movie. First off, a lot of how much you enjoy this movie seems to be dependent upon what you thought of Andy Kaufman. If you didn't think Kaufman was funny, there's probably little chance that you'll like the movie. (For the record, I'm somewhere in between regarding Kaufman. There were times when he was very funny in a childish sort of way, but he often was just borderline irritating and incomprehensible.)
Anyway, Jim Carey does a great impersonation of Kaufman. He has his voice and mannerisms down pat. Unfortunately, the film is little more than 2 hours of Carey doing his Kaufman impersonation. The film plays like "Andy Kaufman's Greatest Hits". You don't really get to know anything about Andy, you just see re-enactments of his most famous bits. (Of course, in fairness to the filmmakers, it should be pointed out that Kaufman himself seemed to be always playing a part....always performing these bits....onstage and in his real life.) When I was growing up, there was a Broadway show called "Beatlemania!", which was basically just Beatles look-alikes performing Beatles songs. Sure, they looked and sounded like the Beatles, but they lacked the originality and power of the real thing. They were nothing more than a glorified cover band. That's what "Man On The Moon" is like. It's "Andymania!".

Without giving any spoilers, I will point out that the film has 2 moments of near brilliance that show what the movie could possibly have been. The first part is the very beginning and the second part is near the end.

1 and 1/2 stars.

jim

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http://www.dvdtracker.com/~gamblor187.asp

Great piece of work. Jim Carrey is marvelous as ususal. Buy it.

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The Decline

Universal has a pretty good track record of quality discs, and while Man on the Moon isn't in a league with The Mummy or 12 Monkeys, there are some nice features on it. A commentary would have been great, especially if they could have gotten Mr. Carey. Aside form that, there are a few deleted scenes - none of which are terribly interesting, and a text bio of Andy Kaufman with some live footage of Andy mixed in. I would rather have seen a full documentary about Andy. There is also a Spotlight on Location which I haven't watched yet.

The anamorphic video looks good to me, tho I only watched about 5 minutes of the film. For sound, we get both DD 5.1 and DTS.

Perhaps the best part of the disc is the low, low price of $24.95 (MSRP, of course).

As previously stated, the film is a "greatest hits" of Andy Kaufman with a great performance by Jim Carey and not much of a story. I thought it was nice to see many of the other people who worked with Andy (cast of Taxi, Jerry Lawler, David Letterman...) play themselves in the film.

PS: 2 REM videos included as well as some DVD-ROM content.

First off, areview of the movie. I freely admit that I am firmly in the I love Andy Kaufman camp. I think that he did some amazing things in the form of audience manipulation. Comedy is too simple to describe his work and performance art is too pretentious. I loved the fact that the focus on the film was the recreation of his work. Kaufman always seemed to be performing. So the film shows these performances and gives us a context. This tells me much more about him than a bunch of cheesy traditional docudrama scenes about his relationships with his parents, his dysfunctional relationships with women, blah blah blah. Besides, given his peculiar bent for storytelling, who knows which version of what he told or what people said about him was true? At least we know the onstage antics were true. How much of the context is true? Well, you see how this sort of circular thinking can lead to insanity. All things considered, I thought this was a brilliant performance by Jim Carrey and a very fitting tribute to Kaufman.
Now, for the DVD review. I haven't had time to rewatch the whole film again, but what I've seen looks like a good transfer. As you said, not in a league with 12 Monkeys or Out of Sight for that matter. In fact, the extras seem somewhat slapped together. The deleted scenes range from entertaining to "well I can see why that got cut." But the most appalling thing here is the presentation. The scenes are not listed on the menu, there is no description provided for them, and in fact, they are all together on one track of the DVD. What I saw billed as a "documentary" of Kaufman is mostly text with a few select clips of Kaufman performing, most of which are available on "I'm From Hollywood," a documentary chronicling Kaufman's wrestling career available on Rhino Home Video. So this option leaves you with only 2 clips I haven't seen elsewhere and a plug for Zmuda's book. Of the remaining features I enjoyed the R.E.M. videos(Man on the Moon and The Great Beyond as well as the short Spotlight On Location: The Making of Man on the Moon. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high, but I really wanted more from the extras on this DVD. It just didn't seem like a lot of thought went into them and they were pressed to meet a release date. I strongly believe in pushing a release date back if it shows in the final product.
Film: ****
Extras:**1/2

I myself am not a huge Kaufman fan; I respect his work but while some of it is funny, a lot of it is just too out there for me. I never did like Taxi or his character on that show either.

However, I thought this movie was fantastic. I wholeheartedly agree with GlennS that it was a good thing the movie was made the way it was and not a standard biopic. To me the various sketches and brief personal situations shown here reveal just as much about Kaufman anyway. Carrey is fantastic in the role, of course everyone's heard that by now. I have always enjoyed Milos Forman's films and this one is no exception. One other thing is I didn't expect to find some of this so funny. Tony Clifton really had me rolling.

The use of the now-20 years-older colleages of Kaufman to play themselves seemed odd at first but then I started to enjoy it - it was probably pretty satisfying for them to take part in a tribute to Andy in this manner.

The transfer looked great on this disc. I was pretty satisfied with the extras considering the MSRP of this disc. Yes I probably would have gladly payed extra for even more features though - wouldn't a two-disc SE of this one have been awesome?
The lack of chapters on some of the extras IS very annoying as GlennS mentioned.

DVD Review at the link below.

DVD Review: Man On The Moon

This is only slightly off topic, but due to the possibly inflammatory information involved, I feel it's best to hide this one in here. A friend of mine with connections tells me that Andy Kaufman: The Midnight Special has been having legal problems regarding the rights. I am told that it will be reedited to remove the sections in question and then reissued. I don't know if the original version will be recalled but I decided not to take any chances and ordered it immediately as I had intended to buy it eventually anyway. If anyone else has been on the fence about this one I strongly recommend you order it as soon as possible. Again, I'm putting this under this topic as I don't want this information too public. I'd hate to see the etailers forced to pull it. I hope this information is useful to my fellow Kaufman aficionados out there.

two words, rent first

I am only a moderate fan of Kaufmann and Carey. Bought it because we have some big Carey fans in our house. But despite my lukewarm interest, I found the movie a fascinating look into the schizophrenic mind of Kaufmann. Carey deserved an oscar nomination for his interpretation of Kaufmann. If you like either man, I'd recommend buying it.

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My DVD List

[This message has been edited by Calistoga (edited June 03, 2000).]