Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times All Rights Reserved
Los Angeles Times
December 19, 2007

SECTION: CALENDAR; Calendar Desk; Part E; Pg. 1

Real sounds of a phony; Dewey Cox isn't actually a singer, but John C. Reilly may convince people otherwise.

Mikael Wood, Special to The Times

According to John C. Reilly, star of the music-film parody "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," opening Friday, the typical rock musician finds his sound early on in his career, then sticks to it for the rest of his life. He might make minor adjustments to keep up with the times, but his devotion to a tightly defined artistic persona never wavers.

Dewey Cox, on the other hand, knows no such stylistic loyalty. Reilly's fictional rock-star alter ego in "Walk Hard," Cox "totally reinvents himself every five years," Reilly said backstage at the Roxy in West Hollywood recently before he and a five-piece band took the stage for an hourlong performance as Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers.

That shape-shifting quality -- the ability to go from a small-town rockabilly dude to a track-suited disco maven -- is what makes Cox unique, Reilly said. "He's kind of like the Forrest Gump of music."

That could be it. Or maybe it's Cox's obsession with his nipples.

"You've seen the billboards," Reilly-as-Cox bellowed halfway through the Roxy show, referring to the "Walk Hard" ads presenting Reilly in a topless rock-shaman pose a la Jim Morrison. "Now see the real thing!" And with that he ripped open his mariachi shirt and zestily caressed what the audience of chuckling industry insiders could behold only from afar.

Columbia Pictures has Reilly on the road baring his chest through tonight, when he's scheduled to perform with the Hard Walkers at New York's Knitting Factory. (In addition to L.A. and New York, the tour also touched down in Cleveland, Chicago, Nashville, San Francisco and Austin, Texas.)

Valerie Van Galder, the Sony division's president of domestic marketing, says the Cox trek is part of a "Walk Hard" marketing campaign built around an emphasis on Reilly's character. She compares it to the push behind last year's NASCAR spoof "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," in which the film's star, Will Ferrell, made the racing-event rounds as his character.

"We're trying to do fun, clever things about Dewey Cox's place as a rock 'n' roll legend," Van Galder says. Among them: a series of VH1 and YouTube spots featuring real-life rock stars such as Sheryl Crow and John Mayer discussing Cox's influence, as well as the so-called Cox Box, a lavish promotional set housing items that include a piece on the mock rocker's life and times by Rolling Stone writer and editor David Wild.

Producer Judd Apatow, who also wrote the script with director Jake Kasdan, says that focusing so heavily on the Cox character wouldn't work if Reilly weren't so invested in the role.

"John was involved in every recording session we did for the songs in the movie," Apatow says. "He didn't just come in at the end and sing. When a song would come in in demo form, he'd sit and talk about how to approach it, just like any band. It's rare to find someone with that much interest."

At the Roxy, Reilly succeeded in demonstrating that, though Cox is a product of make-believe, his talent as a singer is not. An experienced musical-theater veteran who believes "a great song is like a great monologue," Reilly expertly channeled rock 'n' roll greats such as Buddy Holly, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, whose "Ring of Fire" got the flattery-by-imitation treatment in opener "Guilty as Charged."

One of "Walk Hard's" most appealing qualities -- and one that Apatow says was among his primary goals for the film -- is the way it takes the air out of the overinflated self-regard that courses through many music biopics. The movie opens, for example, with Cox's drummer telling an antsy production assistant on an award-show set that Cox can't be hurried, as he has to ponder his entire existence before he can play a single song.

Reilly repeatedly tapped into that gleeful iconoclasm onstage at the Roxy, most memorably when introducing "Beautiful Ride," Cox's latter-day account of misadventures on and off the road. "I wrote this song near the end of my life," Reilly deadpanned. "It's a difficult period to remember."

Despite the film's bounty of music-nerd trivia, "you don't have to have seen 'Ray' and 'Walk the Line' to understand what we're doing, because we're not just redoing something you've already seen," says Jenna Fischer, who portrays Dewey's wife, Darlene. "We're actually creating very real characters. We play this movie totally straight. When Darlene's begging Dewey to get off drugs, we're really crying."

Adds Kasdan: "You can do absurd scenes and still have the audience invest in them emotionally. It's totally ridiculous, but it works because [Reilly and Fischer] both have this level of commitment to the truth."

Van Galder dismisses the idea that "Walk Hard" might have trouble selling baby-boomer memories of the 1960s to the younger audience Apatow has cultivated this year with "Knocked Up" and "Superbad."

"I see the movie as a comedy," she says. "It's funny even if you don't get every reference. For older people, the music stuff is another top note."

For Reilly, Dewey Cox is one character he'd be happy playing even without a movie to do it in. Asked whether his tour as Cox might continue after the film's release date, Reilly said, "If they love [him], I'll deliver."

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I have to say that the songs really make the movie. I would have loved to see John C. Reilly perform as Dewey Cox live in concert. I don't think I've seen Jenna Fischer look so amazingly hot before either (the scene with her on the bed in a white see thru teddy) :drool:

Grandmas love Cox. EveryoneLovesCox.com. Get Cox all up in your inbox.

Why spam.. really. -ohbfrank-

Reported as spam although you might have gotten a break from me had it been a IHateCox.com chat room. :)

Unfortunately there's only me, a couple of interns, and several thousand lesbians...

Spam has been busy.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...ox&btnG=Search

Nope. I thought the trailer made it out to be utterly stupid and pointeless. And not really that funny.

We went to an early show today and the movie never started. They had difficulties getting it to play. Got free passes and money back, sucks because I really wanted to have a good laugh today.

Very funny and Reilly is awesome in this. The cameos were great, the energy for the most part was perfect, just I felt the last act sagged a bit...the finale is well executed but some of the scenes that get there are flat compared to the brilliance that came before them. I think I'll like it more on a repeat viewing, but certainly some HUGE laughs in this one. 4/5 stars.

I loved the movie, I thought it was very funny. I agree with mdc3000, cameos were great. Love Jenna Fisher!

This is a movie that I think I will like more on repeat viewings too.


Too bad it looks like its not gonna do very well this weekend. Dumb time to release it though. Christmas weekend. Word of mouth should be good so hopefully it will have some legs.

Great movie.

Oh yeah, I also forgot one small thing that bugged me... this movie suffers from Apatow syndrome, (like Anchorman) where some HILARIOUS stuff from the trailers is not in the movie...that's the nature of the beast but I can't say I wasn't disappointed that "Patrick Duffy took a beating!" and "It's not Cox unless I say it tastes like Cox" weren't in the movie.

What a huge disappointment. I was so psyched to see this movie, but aside from a couple of chuckles, it was lousy. Even though I really like Jenna Fisher in The Office, I hated her in this. The whole movie was just too over the top for my liking.

i agree with you on not missing those two shitty lines, but ancorman was a bad movie to begin with.

the reason walk hard was better than expected for me was because there was no will farrell. when farell starts getting involved with scripts we get shitty movies like roxbury, anchorman, and taladega nights (even though it had its moments, but they were from other characters).

not to say the mans not funny, because he is. just as long as hes in the right parts/places.

Did we see the same fuckin' movie? Because lets be honest, Walk Hard has the same sense of absurd, random humor that Anchorman and Talladega Nights were filled with -- just in a more "stream-lined" sense (like Talladega Nights). Now I personally enjoy Will Ferrell, but all three movies basically appeal to people who enjoy that type of humor. Also, the cameos and supporting cast also help build all three of those films -- Will Ferrell could've been Dewey Cox and it would've almost been practically the same film.

I thought Walk Hard was fucking hilarious -- but I think Anchorman is a more entertaining flick, and I can't wait to see the deleted scenes (I really want to see Cox beating the shit out of Patrick Duffy -- that gag had me rolling when I saw it in the trailer).

Saw it tonight and had a good time with it. The first two thirds or so are really funny, but I think the third act really dragged. Long stretches where my theatre was mostly silent.

But overall, worth seeing at least once, especially if you're as sick to death of overly reverential musical biopics as I am.

Saw this tonight, and I thought it was great. I laughed out loud more than once. A bit slow at times, but it still held me and had many great moments to remember. I agree with Roeper when he said that more he thought about, he really appreciated the movie.

IMOP, don't just walk, but Run Hard to see this movie.

:rimshot:

wow im surprised so many people thought this movie was funny. my girlfriend and her 15 year old son walked out about 40 minutes into it. this was seriously one of the worst comedies ive ever seen. her 15 year old son even thought it wasnt funny and he laughs at everything.

i walked out hard. pure garbage.

I love John C. Reilly but this looked like one of those movies that seems like an SNL skit that overstays it's welcome by about 85 minutes or so. Not sad in the least about seeing it bomb but I can't wait to Netflix it.

The reason this film bombed is the same reason I refused to see Superbad in theaters, and why I've only recently watched about 40 minutes of Borat (in two sittings). These recent Apatow movies have been so poorly marketed, it's un-fucking-believable. Not once did anyone laugh during the Walk Hard trailers I saw before several movies recently; similarly, only a few laughed during the Superbad trailers (and it was all the under-30s in attendance, and I'm 44). I saw nothing that looked remotely amusing in the trailers for Walk Hard, Superbad, or Borat (and before anyone bitches, I know that Borat was not an Apatow film...it's just not very funny for more than 20 minutes at a time, so it gets lumped in here).

99.9% of "stupid humor" is just that...not funny, just stupid.

uh oh... I was actually saying I MISSED those lines not being in the flick... I've been saying "Patrick Duffy took a beating" for months... Anchorman is hands down a comedy classic IMO... I pretty much watch all of Ferrell's recent flicks (Anchorman, Talladega, Blades) on a regular basis...Can't wait for Semi Pro!!!!!

I've definitely liked Walk Hard a bit more since I saw it, looking back on all the really great bits... Probably go see this again tomorrow.

"In my dreams you're blowing me....some kisses"

I went and saw Walk Hard yesterday and it was pretty much what I expected, it was funny and I didn't expect it to be as good as Knocked Up and Superbad and it wasn't. By no means was it a bad movie because I still think it was better than most of the crap that gets put out there. But if it wasn't for it being an Apatow movie I probably would have never seen it since the commercials and trailers didn't really do much to help it,. But since Judd hasn't disappointed me yet I have to give him the benefit of the doubt until he does. I would have to rank it as the weakest of the Apatow movies, but by no means is that really a bad thing. 3/5

Netflix FTW!

The "It doesn't say 'Cox" until I say it tastes like 'Cox''" line always got a laugh in the trailer for this movie.

That said, the prints of Dewey with no shirt on make him look like fuck-tard. I usually will grab these small movie 1-sheets at the theaters and put them on my wall at my work office, but I was not about to the same with the "Walk Hard" one-sheet for the reason already mentioned.